Posts Tagged ‘politics’

This evening, in honor of presidents past and present trying to influence education and of Ted Kennedy, the one who "shepherded" the "bipartisan" No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) through the Senate, I am posting a parody, author unknown. What I'm posting below has made the rounds often by e-mail and on forums and blogs, but it just seemed to be crying out to become a permanent part of my blog archives at this time in our nation's history and here at the beginning of football season.

I read online the transcript of Obama's speech today to school children. I think it's probably vastly different from what he had planned to say before so many parents expressed their concerns about his agenda in doing this speech. He said some very good things that leave me wondering, based on his policies, if he actually believes much of what he said.

Our son Mark and his wife Katie are teachers in the public school system where they have to deal with the repercussions of NCLB and governmental demands almost on a daily basis and face the frustration of having to spend so much time on peripherals that they often don't have adequate time to do the course preparations they would like to or cover the material that they need to.

If the demands of NCLB were placed on the game of football, here's what it would look like.

No Child Left Behind Football

1. All teams must make the state playoffs and all MUST win the championship. If a team does not win the championship, they will be on probation until they are the champions, and coaches will be held accountable. If after two years they have not won the championship their footballs and equipment will be taken away UNTIL they do win the championship.

2. All kids will be expected to have the same football skills at the same time, even if they do not have the same conditions or opportunities to practice on their own. NO exceptions will be made for lack of interest in football, a desire to perform athletically, or genetic abilities or disabilities. ALL KIDS WILL PLAY FOOTBALL AT A PROFICIENT LEVEL!

3. Talented players will be asked to workout on their own, without instruction. This is because the coaches will be using all their instructional time with the athletes who aren't interested in football, have limited athletic ability or whose parents don't like football.

4. Games will be played year round, but statistics will be kept only in the 4th, 8th, and 11th game. This will create a New Age of Sports where every school is expected to have the same level of talent and all teams will reach the same minimum goals.

If no child gets ahead, then no child gets left behind.

I know that there are probably as many proponents of NCLB as there are detractors. Do any of you readers have any personal insights to add? Any thoughts on Obama's talk with our nation's school children today?

quotation...

"The repetition of small efforts will accomplish more than the occasional use of great talents." - Charles H. Spurgeon

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Rob

Everybody repeat after me... "We are all individuals."

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Do you like Tupperware? We do, and we're still using most of the Tupperware we received as shower gifts over 30 years ago! Several months ago when we had German house guests, for some reason we talked about Tupperware. They told us about some of the items available through Tupperware in Germany that we don't see here. This week they sent us a package through a mutual friend coming back from Europe. In addition to some German coffee (mmm!), there was a German Tupperware catalog. I looked online to see if it were also available there. If you'd like to check it out, you can go to tupperware.de One of the items available is called Banana Joe (picture above). I don't think it would keep a banana fresh. Is it for protecting the banana from bruises in your lunch bag?

Here's a little Tupperware story from my files:

What's A Tupperware Party? (author unknown)

One evening after dinner, my five-year-old son Eli noticed that his mother had gone out. In answer to his questions, I told him, "Mommy is at a Tupperware party." This explanation satisfied him for only a moment.

Puzzled, he asked, "What's a Tupperware party, Dad?"

I figured a simple explanation would be the best approach. "Well, Eli, " I said, "at a Tupperware party, a bunch of ladies sit around and sell plastic bowls to each other." Eli nodded, indicating that he understood this curious pastime. Then he burst into laughter.

"Come on, Dad," he said. "What is it really?"

Tupperware is known for "locking in freshness." To me, much of what has been happening in our nation's capital this year is anything but "fresh," and instead our leaders are locking out freshness, in favor of old ideas (ideologies) that have failed for others. For some reason they believe they can make these ideas work for them, and that the others failed simply because they didn't run things right. The French have a saying, "Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose." = The more things change, the more they stay the same. It reminds me of the following:

The evolution of medicine...

What doctors through history have said in reply to "Doctor, I'm in pain":

2000 B.C. - "Here, eat this root."
1000 B.C. - "That root is heathen; say this prayer."
1850 A.D. - "That prayer is superstition; drink this potion."
1940 A.D. - "That potion is snake oil; swallow this pill."
1985 A.D. - "That pill is ineffective; take this antibiotic."
2009 A.D. - "That antibiotic is artificial. Here, eat this root!"

The redistribution of wealth that is happening fast and furiously is nothing new. It's the ancient rob Peter to pay Paul thing ... especially knowing that it's a pretty sure way to get Paul to vote for you.

Our leaders' answer to economic hard times is to spend money we don't have, at unthinkable rates and in incomprehensible amounts. Being a language guy, I readily admit that economics is not my strong suit. But I know better than to borrow exorbitant sums of money that I would not be able to pay off in three lifetimes. Duh, you don't get out of debt by spending! Our government's answer to everything is to throw money we don't have at whatever problem and non-problem that comes along. My mind goes to the Stimulus Package(s), the Cash for Clunkers debacle, etc. We are seeing only half of the campaign promises fulfilled — we're seeing massive change, but little to no hope.

The push to get the Health Care Plan (a.k.a. Obamacare) through as quickly as possible, without even knowing what all is in it seems to me unwise at best. It's kind of like the definition of Tupperware party up above, but in this case our lawmakers aren't sitting around trying to sell bowls to each other, but rather trying to sell each other on a plan that could move our nation one giant step closer to bankruptcy. Come on, Congress-critters, do you really know what Obamacare is?! A reader sent me one version of the 1,000+ page Health Care Plan. If you'd like to read it, click on this link - HR320.pdf If you do read it, you will be light years ahead the vast majority of our Congressmen who are poised to vote in favor of it. I found a flow chart online that explains how things will work. You can see a larger version by clicking on the thumbnail picture of it above.

The textbook we use in our first three semesters of French here at the university tells us that France has an excellent health care system. But I've heard otherwise from some people. My dentist here in Greenville has quite a few patients who are Michelin employees living in the US for several years. Some of these patients have come in in great pain. When the dentist checked them out, he discovered that they have decay under their fillings. Upon further investigation he learned in each case that the dentists in France don't use novocaine to numb people up before drilling. They drill until the person can stand it no longer, and then put in the filling, sometimes on top of decay.

Friends who lived in France for a while told us that their four-year-old daughter fell in their yard one day and had a huge gash in her chin. When they couldn't get it to stop bleeding, they took her to the emergency room. The personnel cleaned it up and said that she would need stitches. The gave the mother a bed sheet, told her to wrap it around her little girl and to hold her still while they stitched it up. Apparently novocaine is something that socialized medicine can't waste money on. Barbaric, huh?

I have heard some say that if Obamacare goes through, we will end up with a system with the compassion of the IRS and the efficiency of the US Postal System. We've been reminded in the past two weeks by the Cash for Clunkers program that people still flock in hoards to freebies. Won't they do the same with "free" health care? How is the government in charge of Medicare and Medicaid on the verge of collapse going to manage an even bigger system?

Just this week a reader told me about her recent visit to her doctor here in USA. I asked her if she'd write it up for me to include in this post. She wrote it out and included a humorous side note to me, which I left intact with her permission:

I recently had my annual physical. As a part of the yearly aches-and-pains discussion, my doctor and I talked about my arthritic knees and how much pain is too much pain. The doctor said that if I am ready to discuss joint replacement, I'd better do it now because under Mr. Obama's new health plan, knee replacement coverage would be denied, if not seriously curtailed.

Note to Rob: I wonder if there will be a quota system, e.g.

Me: "Doctor, I'm ready for that right knee surgery."
Doctor: "Rats, you just missed the cutoff for right knees this decade. What about a left hip? Most folks your age learn to adjust to the unusual gait."

It was interesting to me to hear what her doctor had to say about Obamacare. She currently has excellent health care, but that could/would all change. Our government leaders seem to subscribe to Red Green's oft-repeated principle — "If it ain't broke, you're not trying!" They seem to be bent on breaking a health care system that, while not perfect, is the envy of many other countries.

I did a web search to see what other doctors are saying. Here are links to several interesting articles:

Obama Care: Robbing Peter to Pay Paul

Angry Docs Say Proposed Government-Run Health-Care Plan Will Drive Physicians out of Medicine

I usually steer clear of political issues on my blog, but this is such a big issue right now that I wanted to express myself and hear what my readers have to say. I know that the issues are huge and varied and cannot possibly be covered in this blog post. What do you know about and think of Obamacare? Some of you live in countries that have socialized medicine. What are your thoughts about your national health care? Is socialized medicine a fresh idea, or is it something less than fresh, something that's going to get us locked into a big container called Obamacare Tupperware, that we will never be able to get out of? I would love to see a lively, civil discussion of this issue in the comments.

quotation...

"The taxpayer: That's someone who works for the federal government but doesn't have to take the civil service exam." - Ronald Reagan

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Rob

Anything free is usually worth what you pay for it.

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We live in a world of words. Words have such power, both to build up or to tear down. Anyone who has been one of my readers for any length of time knows that I am a word person. I love words! Many events in recent days have reminded me of words. First of all was our recent visit with our daughter Megan, son-in-law Jim, and grandson Drew in Michigan. (A few more details at the end of this post....) Since we last saw our grandson three months ago, his vocabulary has absolutely exploded! We can hardly believe all the words he uses now.

This past Sunday we visited a church out of state where the message of the morning was from Psalm 19:14 "Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, my rock and my redeemer." It was an excellent message on the power of words to encourage, to speak for the Lord and to the Lord, and even to share humor with others! (Imagine my delight!) One theme in the message was that "out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks." (Matthew 12:34) Those words that come out of our mouths are merely an indication of what is in our hearts. That principle is repeated often in the Bible.

Words have also been a topic in the political scene this week in one way or another. The other day TOTUS (Teleprompter of the United States) — the machine that feeds words to POTUS (President of the United States) when he speaks in almost any public setting — broke, leaving him literally at a loss for words! A Google search for TOTUS just brought up over two million results, and much has been said about the many inaccurate things Mr. Obama has said (even personal facts about himself and his family), simply because he was reading the words on his teleprompter. I will not go into all of that in this post, other than to mention the preceding in connection to words.

One major event this week is the Senate confirmation hearings for Sonia Sotomayor. Not only are the hearings the usual war of words, but Ms. Sotomayor is finding out personally that the words we speak have a way of coming back to haunt us. One quotation of hers that has received much attention this week and in the weeks leading up to the hearings is "I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn’t lived that life." I've been trying to imagine what would be happening to a white male if he had said "I would hope that a wise white male with the richness of his experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a Latina woman who hasn’t lived that life." She's fortunate, though, to belong to one of the groups of people incapable of racism. The trouble is that her statement was not a one-time "misspeak" (whatever a misspeak is!). It was given in basically the same format several different times over several years. (Out of the abundance of the heart,...)

Another statement of hers that is getting attention is that "the court of appeals is where policy is made." (I thought the Constitution assigns that duty to the legislative branch and that it is the duty of the judicial branch to interpret the law. Silly me!?) You can view her saying that at this link on YouTube. For those of you who cannot get to YouTube, I'm posting the clip below. Those of you reading this post in a blog reader may have to go to my blog post to view the clip.

It's been interesting to hear her and others try to explain away her words in order to convince the Senate that she is not a judicial activist with a racist agenda.

I relate those things about Ms. Sotomayor, not to grind a political axe, but to point out that words have consequences, or at least they do for most of us. She has said what she has said, and no one is putting words into her mouth. (Remember, out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks.)

As a teacher and as a blogger, I speak and write a lot of words. It is a sobering to ponder the responsibility that is mine for the impact of my words on my students and on my readers. Once your words have left your mouth or your computer, you cannot recall them. And try as you may, you can never completely change their impact. A verse that often comes to my mind in connection to this is Proverbs 10:19 "When words are many, transgression is not lacking, but whoever restrains his lips is prudent." It's important to weigh our words and to leave some of them unsaid or unwritten rather than to offend.

That said, on to this week's iv — several jokes about how and how much some people use words.

A man was giving a speech at a meeting. He got a bit carried away and talked for three hours.

Finally, he realized what he was doing and said, "I'm sorry I talked so long. I left my watch at home."

A voice from the back of the room shouted, "There's a calendar behind you!"

A husband, trying to prove to his wife that women talk more than men, showed her a study which indicated that men use on the average only 15,000 words a day, whereas women use 30,000 words a day.

She thought about this for a while and then told her husband, "Women use twice as many words as men because they have to repeat everything they say." To which he replied, "What?"

In a monastery a new monk took a vow of silence. He agreed to abide by the tradition in this particular monastery of saying only two words every ten years.

After the first ten years had gone by, the monk was summoned into the abbot's office. The abbot nodded, and the monk said, "Food bad," turned, and went back to his room.

After twenty years, the scene was repeated, except this time the monk said, "Bed hard," turned, and went back to his room.

At the thirty year mark, the monk frowned and said to the abbot, "I quit."

The abbot looked at him and said, "Well, it's about time. You've been here for thirty years and have done nothing but complain!"

Once upon a time, there was a prince who for some reason was under a curse. The curse was that the prince could speak only one word each year. However, he could save up the words so that if he did not speak at the end of a year, the following year he was allowed to speak two words. (This was apparently before the time of letter writing or sign language.) One day, he met a beautiful princess - ruby lips, golden hair, sapphire eyes - and fell madly in love with her. With the greatest difficulty, he refrained from speaking for 2 whole years so that he could look at her and say, "My darling." But at the end of these 2 years, he wished to tell her that he loved her rather than waste the opportunity on just those 2 words. So he went 3 more years without speaking, bringing the total number of silent years to 5.

At the end of these 5 years, he realized that he also wanted to ask her to marry him. So he went another 4 years without speaking. Finally, as the 9th year of silence ended, his joy knew no bounds. Leading the lovely princess to the most secluded and romantic place in the beautiful royal garden, the prince heaped a hundred red roses on her lap, knelt before her, and taking her hand in his, said, "My darling, I love you! Will you marry me?" And the princess tucked a strand of golden hair behind her dainty ear, opened her sapphire eyes in wonder, parted her ruby lips, and said, "Pardon?"

This coming Sunday morning I am scheduled to be interviewed on one of our local TV stations WYFF in a segment called Sound Off South! I've been told that the interview will be on the Sound Off South! site later that day. You locals can watch it live between 7:00 and 8:00 this Sunday morning on channel 4. The rest of you can catch it on the site.

We recently took a long road trip to see family in Ohio, Michigan, and Missouri. While spending this past week at Meg and Jim's house, an activity I enjoyed with my grandson Drew was to stroll down the street several mornings to Tim Horton's for coffee and "Timbits," their version of donut holes. Here's a picture from my cell phone of Drew enjoying a Timbit.

This post already has so many words that I'll stop for now. My wife will be sharing various aspects of our trip on her blog and has just posted about the first leg of our trip.

I look forward to your comments on what I've said about words.

quotation...

"The ultimate choice you must make concerning sin is that either your sin must go or God must go." - Dr. Drew Conley

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Rob

Talk is cheap because supply exceeds demand.

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I know that some of you had fun with the link I posted Tuesday – the site where you could make iconic posters with the images of your choice. I did one of our grandson Drew:

Change with him usually involves just diapers.

Several people sent me posters that they had made that I thought were great remakes of the originals. Here's the first original, then the remake:

I guess that's what we'll have left after those vampires up in D.C. get done draining us?

Then here's the other original, followed by its remake:

I love that one! This world seems to be pinning its hopes on one man right now, and we need to be praying for that man (1 Timothy 2:1-2) – no one human being can possibly meet all the expectations people have of Obama. But there is One who offers real hope and change you can believe in to all, and has the power to deliver. I gladly hang all my hopes on Him.

How about you?

quotation...

"The Christian life demands change. We're to look like Christ." - Will Galkin

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Rob

We don't change God's message. His message changes us.

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You too can make a poster like the one above! I got the idea from Bet over at Dappled Things. She gave a link to the site obamicon.me where you can "obamicon" yourself by making a poster like mine above, a knock-off of posters we were regaled with all last year. I do not feel that I can bill myself as HOPE, as one man does, but I want to go on the record as being HOPEFUL. I am hopeful because my hope is in the Lord, having learned long ago (and since then getting frequent refresher lessons) not to place my hope in people.

Have fun with that site!

quotation…

“True shepherds lead their sheep to still waters and green pastures.” - Dr. John Dreisbach

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Rob

Hope you have a great day ... unless, of course, you have other plans.

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