The best laid plans of minions and…

So my mother called work before lunch today in a panic about their computer and has insisted they need to come all the way over here and drag me all the way back to their place (nearly 3 hours both ways) to check their virus checker. I told the girls at work and one of them suggested I call back and have the folks at least bring the machine with them. Maybe I can fix it here instead.

Such a smart idea, no wonder we didn’t come up with it ourselves. So, the folks will be on their way now, I suppose, dragging the tower along for the ride. It’ll be sad if it turns out to be a problem solveable in 5 minutes but who knows. Computers do odd things and they’ve had more than their fair share of issues with theirs.

Cash for grades? Whose crazy idea was that?

I’ll swap you two Cs for an A…

Not quite. Apparently it was a fund-raising scheme that backfired.

A $20 donation to Rosewood Middle School would have gotten a student 20 test points – 10 extra points on two tests of the student’s choosing. That could raise a B to an A, or a failing grade to a D.

Susie Shepherd, the principal, said a parent advisory council came up with the idea, and she endorsed it. She said the council was looking for a new way to raise money.

“Last year they did chocolates, and it didn’t generate anything,” Shepherd said.

Shepherd rejected the suggestion that the school is selling grades. Extra points on two tests won’t make a difference in a student’s final grade, she said.

But it does sell the idea that fake intelligence can be bought by people rich enough to afford it. Cripes, I’m glad this idea fell through. Kids are dumb enough as it is without parents paying schools to add bonus points to test results. Like that changes the fact that your kid has no idea where the Mississippi river is, or who was the first President or whatever fact got missed on the test in the first place. Good grief.

Carmen Zepp, a Raleigh parent, said there should be policies against offering students test credit for anything other than what they’ve learned.

Zepp objected this year when her daughter’s social studies teacher at Knightdale High School had students bring to school tissues and hand sanitizer. The supplies counted for 25 percent of a “supply check” grade.

“It’s awful,” Zepp said. “It’s indicative of the fact that our schools don’t have enough money. They can’t get tissues or hand sanitizer or whatever without bribery. And that’s pretty sad.”

Shepherd, the Rosewood principal, said her school needs more technology. She said any money raised would help buy digital cameras for the school’s computer lab and a high-tech blackboard.

What happened to low tech whiteboards, overhead projectors and handwriting skills? Surely most kids can get the tech at home anyway. Interesting note about tissues and sanitizer though. I recall in school we had tissue on our list of things to buy but we didn’t get graded on whether or not we actually brought the stuff to school. What a weird arrangement.

So, if money isn’t going into schools for supplies and necessary technical advancements (can’t say everything they want falls under “necessary”), where is it going?

The saddest thing I’ve read in a long time.

Once more I am glad I never had to go through any faith-based trauma to get where I am today.

I fell into something of a depression when Michael Jackson died. I was unbelievably sad. I was embarrassed to tell anyone. I had enjoyed his music, but I had never been a huge fan. I had never purchased any of his albums. I had never seen him in concert. I had never met him, of course. But, his death opened up a lot of childhood wounds. I felt like I knew a part of him. Like I understood in a way that few others would.

I knew the pain of growing up in an abusive Jehovah’s Witness home with a subservient and submissive mother and a domineering father. I knew the pain of loving a mother who will not protect you, because she believes that God will condemn her for doing so. The pain of loving a mother who will not leave the man who believes it is within his God-given authority to beat you. The pain of loving a mother who would rather watch you suffer in misery than expose Jehovah God or his organization to public scorn and shame.

Growing up, I loved my mother more than anything, but she didn’t love me more than anything. She loved her religion more. It still makes me cry. So when Michael Jackson died, I cried. I cried for the little girl who was terrified that demons were going to rape her in the middle of the night. I cried for the little girl who begged her mother to leave her father. I cried for the little girl who begged Jehovah God to kill her, so that the pain would stop. And, I cried for the little Jehovah’s Witness boy that Michael Jackson had been.

I admire Sarah for sharing this story and being able to move past her upbringing into a better life. What a life to have gone through first, though. Can’t fathom it.

When deciding to help the poor and downtrodden…

…do it for them. Not for yourself, so you can feel heroic. Not for your wife so she can brag to her bridge club. Not for your parents or someone you admire that thinks you ought to. Do it because it needs doing and you want to do all you can to help someone get through troubled times.

Amy Henry at WORLDmag.com mentions a book called Same Kind of Different as Me, written in part by another WORLDmag contributor (was that the only reason she read it?). She explains part of this true story where Ron’s wife has had some “prophetic” dream about a man he’s supposed to help and lo and behold, Ron finds a man fitting his wife’s supposed description (probably along the lines of “He was black” — sorry, in the mood to be snarky). His wife insists God’s telling him to help the guy, but

Well-acquainted with those volunteer types at the local mission, Denver sees right through Ron’s half-hearted attempts to befriend him: “If you is fishin for a friend you just gon’ catch and release,” he says. “Then I ain’t got no desire to be your friend. . . . But if you is lookin for a real friend, then I’ll be one. Forever.”

The couple does wind up befriending Denver, who returns the favour gladly. Happy couple, happy poor man, book deal, money made, the end.

Amy finishes her commentary by saying, “As fishers of men, catch and release should never be our policy.”

Do they have to be caught by a rod approved by Christ or can anyone do it? I think anyone can choose to reach out and be a friend to someone who needs one without wrapping the net of Christianity around him or her at the same time. Couples like Ron and Debbie mean well, obviously, but are they helping because someone really needs it, or are they driven more by some desire to demonstrate what good Christians they are?

Sorry. I know I shouldn’t assume everyone has ulterior motives at the root of everything they do. Not everyone acts to further some divine ambition, consciously or otherwise. At some point we just have to trust a person’s sincerity, otherwise nobody moves forward.

So, well done, Ron and Debbie, for wanting to make a difference in someone’s life. We all should aim to do the same and mean it when we do.

ChristWire writer wants to buy a Canadian?

First, quoting from Amber in all her (hopefully) satirical glory. First there’s a bit of a tirade about Mexicans and then:

Thinking about this, one thing popped into my mind. Why can’t I own a Canadian?

Think about it. Racism is ugly and trusting one’s neighbors is Christlike, so we should also let people from ALL the lesser Americas to come visit us to work as well. Canada is a country full of snow-bound savages who are good at chopping wood and light industrial tasks.

Pause for LOLS.

Reminds me of those hilarious questions the tourist industry shares about ignorant Americans (and others) about this great land that’s really big.

But I digress.

TBear offers a sensible comment to counteract all the asshattery:

It may be a joke, but how do you feel when you read “jokes” told at the expense of American values and stereotypes or about the enslavement of a fellow human being. Nobody anywhere should use slavery as a joke. It is a disgusting part of North America past that sane minded individuals are happy has ended. Using slavery as a punch line undermines severe oppression slaves endured.

Additionally, I am a Canadian, but I have lived in many countries. What this article promotes is found around the world. Canada is a thriving country with an excellent economy and an amazing democratic system. Yet these “jokes” are pervasive on the internet and in other forms of media, and they restrict Canada from gaining the respect it deserves.

Jokes may be intended to be light hearted, but when you are the subject you are never happy about it. I acknowledge that this article must be written in jest, but I still reserve my right to be grossly offended at the content and the intended or unintended propagation of negative stereotypes.

I agree.

I don’t think ignorance and stupidity need to be tolerated, not this kind anyway. People need to be taught, not humoured. It’s beyond inappropriate to encourage this kind of thinking, even in jest.

Why conclude the obvious when you can blame time traveling birds?

It’s been just over a month since I wrote about the attack of the clever raven, but now via Brother Richard I discover a bird may have caused a malfunction in the Hadron Collider recently.

While it’s humbling enough for most researchers to remember that one little bird can threaten millions of dollars worth of equipment, others are not so sure it’s a random accident. Time Magazine reports that a bird’s dropped dinner overheated some of the mechanisms, but rather than blame gravity, a couple physicists are actually claiming the bird may have been sent back in time for a mission it may or may not have completed.

Seriously.

two esteemed physicists have formulated a theory that suggests an alternative explanation: perhaps a time-traveling bird was sent from the future to sabotage the experiment. Bech Nielsen of the Niels Bohr Institute in Copenhagen and Masao Ninomiya of the Yukawa Institute for Theoretical Physics in Kyoto, Japan, have published several papers over the past year arguing that the CERN experiment may be the latest in a series of physics research projects whose purposes are so unacceptable to the universe that they are doomed to fail, subverted by the future.

Never mind the paradox problems inherent in that…yeesh.

Research proves it, tv is “detrimental”

What is it now, you ask? A recent study into parents, toddlers, and attentiveness has led to expected results. Science Daily includes the journal information at the bottom of their report on it for those interested in seeking the whole thing out.

The researchers studied about 50 1-, 2-, and 3-year-olds, each of whom was with one parent, at a university child study center. Half of the one-hour session, parents and children were in a playroom without TV; in the other half-hour, parents chose an adult-directed program to watch (such as Jeopardy!). The researchers observed how often parents and children talked with each other, how actively involved the parents were in their children’s play, and whether parents and children responded to each other’s questions and suggestions.

When the TV was on, the researchers found, both the quantity and the quality of interactions between parents and children dropped. Specifically, parents spent about 20 percent less time talking to their children and the quality of the interactions declined, with parents less active, attentive, and responsive to their youngsters.

Were they studying TV as a background attention catcher, or parents’ attentiveness while physically watching TV? It’s not completely a TV’s fault parents don’t pay attention, if that’s the direction they were going here. Similar results probably would have happened had the activity been housework, food prep, or any other random every day thing a parent does. Parents can’t possibly devote 100% attention to their child every moment of the day. Maybe TV is an added distraction, but it would never be the sole cause of parent-child interpersonal dysfunction. There are always more factors in play, more forces at work.

Not every parent would automatically pop the TV on to fill silence in a room. Some parents are naturally more intuitive and play well with their children and give them plenty of fun and functional activities and a lot of opportunities for talking back and forth. Other parents might rely more on siblings to fill attention gaps, much to the thrill of siblings, I’m sure. Maybe they’re relying on daycare or babysitters or nannies to provide the necessary socialization because they don’t have the time or inclination. We don’t know.

I’d be curious to see how the selection process worked. Did they get samples from enough kinds of families? Rich, poor, working class, etc? Would ethnicity skew these results at all? What about size of town they live in? Would the channel matter? Were they picking families that already admitted to high television use, or did they mix it up to include some that rarely watch, too? What if a parent picked Much Music Retro instead of a Q&A quiz show? Could they see the TV or just hear it? How was “level of interaction” determined in order to figure out how much less there was when the TV was on? Did volume play a role? Too many questions for the amount of information we have, sadly.

If this study is going to be worth a nod, it’ll have to be tried again with a bigger pool than 50 kids, surely? It’s evidence of a trend, but what else can really be said about it?

Quotable commandment

The list is a long one, and quite serious in tone. However, today it’s this one standing out most:

4. Search for what is true, even if it makes you uncomfortable.

On Saturday I’m going to write about a movie I watched regarding this very thing. I’d do it now but it’s a film that deserves more than a random smattering of thoughts slapped down and I’m still in the midst of processing what I got out of it. A rare experience with movies, I have to say.

Quotable cowbells

No, I’m sorry. I misread it. It’s Kbells (sic throughout):

I kind of have a problem with discrimination laws in general. Is it really the Governments business who I hire or rent to? Theses laws have some employers reluctant to hire minorities in vital positions because they are afraid that if it doesn’t work out they won’t be able to fire them without a lawsuit. I’ve known employers who will reserve a harmless, dead end job for the minority employee. They will also try to double up by hiring a black woman making it harder for a black men to get hired. Now they will have to hire a gay, black woman.

I always thought people should be hired because they are the best qualified, not because an employer needs to meet some quota “equal opportunity” malarky. On the flip side, a crap ass effort can be given by anyone on any job. To assume you’ve been sacked because of your ethnicity rather than anything you haven’t (but were supposed to have) done is like putting the cart before the horse, isn’t it? Or am I having a hard time approaching this because I’m a white lower-class French-German-Irish-Canadian right-handed, brown-haired, eyeglass-wearing woman?

Oh, to have a world not built for sorting folks into labels… what a world it could be.

Anyway, the quote is under an article at WorldMag which reports on a successful gay rights issue being supported and approved by Mormons in Utah – the right to housing and employment:

Passage made Salt Lake City the first Utah community to prohibit bias based on sexual orientation or gender identity. Under the two new ordinances, it is illegal to fire someone from their job or evict someone from their residence because they are lesbian, bisexual, gay or transgender.

The gay community of Utah is willing to tick the win column on this one and why not?

“What happened here tonight I do believe is a historic event,” said Brandie Balken, director of the gay rights advocacy group Equality Utah. “I think it establishes that we can stand together on common ground that we don’t have to agree on everything, but there are lot of things that we can work on and be allies.”

God will, of course, still strike them down if they dare try to get married, but I suppose it’s a start.

“The church supports these ordinances because they are fair and reasonable and do not do violence to the institution of marriage,” Michael Otterson, the director of public affairs for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints said.

Yes, gay marriage has the power to do violence. I had no idea. The love is that amazing, eh? They’ll actually destroy an institution with it. Wow. Makes me think the institution of marriage isn’t built very well, if that’s the case. And how many wives can Mormons have again? But exceptions are only good when they’re in your favour. Right…

(full AP article)

You’re so vain, I bet you think this plate’s all about you…

Sorry. I don’t even like that song. However, it was all I could think of to lead into results of an attempt to bring Christian vanity plates to cars in South Carolina. Similar stories have been in the news before, but now the Daily Telegraph reports on the pro-choice judge who said the one word they never wanted to hear: NO!

The southern state’s legislature had already approved the licence plate, but Cameron Currie, the district judge, said the plate was unconstitutional because it violated the First Amendment, which requires the separation of church and state.

“Such a law amounts to a state endorsement not only of religion in general, but of a specific sect in particular,” Ms Currie wrote.

Well done, Judge Currie, for coming down the side of equality here instead of preferential treatment.

“Whether motivated by sincerely-held Christian beliefs or an effort to purchase political capital with religious coin, the result is the same.

“The statute is clearly unconstitutional and defence of its implementation has embroiled the state in unnecessary (and expensive) litigation.”

Via Friendly Atheist, I get a link to more information showing just how petty and egotistical this plate war is.

some legislators openly admitted that they would not vote for similar plates for minority faiths.

Nobody would be forced to buy them; vanity plates are entirely optional. Generally I think they’re pretty stupid, but whatever. If your whole identity is tied up in how strangers see your car, you’ve got bigger problems than what your license plate says.

(If you think that’s bad…)