Once you vote Democrat, you can't get credit.

I recently read that our national credit rating is about to go down if we don't get a plan together to get our spending under control. Under the current administration, our spending has increased more than the spending by every administration in the entire history of the nation put together. Obama increased our national debt more than all the presidents from the first to the first one I remember in the first year and a half his stupid ass has been in the oval office (despite spending more time golfing or campaigning than working—thank God for that).

It made me think of this:

Sometimes you gotta laugh, or you're gonna cry.

It's really bad when the left's partisans are telling them they've gone too far.

The New York Times opinion pages--not generally known for Constitutionally-based opinion--is saying that the rape of the fourth amendment by the leftist regime that the ingnorati elected three years ago is (drum roll, please) more dangerous than any other rights violation.

via Random Acts of Patriotism

Cannot say it better.

"Laws aren't just for the little people. If the government cannot be constrained by laws, then the government is invalid. Period. If I violate laws, I run the risk of fines and jail time. Just because you work in a government building doesn't shield you from that."—Robb Allen

He was talking about gun rights, state gun laws, and local gun ordinances that violate people's rights by being stricter than state or federal law; however, it applies across the board.

Now, we just have to get Congress and the TOTUS POTUS reminded of that.

Disgusting.

I heard, from a family member, one of the most horrifyingly callous abuses of the charitible natures of Joplin residents unharmed by the tornado that tore through here a bit less than three weeks ago. She and her husband were moving back to this area from one a few hours away, and had brought their kids to stay with their aunt and uncle (his brother and sister-in-law--nastier, trashier people besides my male genetic donor I have yet to meet). Last weekend, they went to pick their kids up to take them home, and their oldest daughter had this to say:

"Aunt **** didn't feel like cooking, so we went to get some free food."

Free food. As in the Red Cross food centers, and the restaurants setting up to feed victims and volunteers in their parking lots, and the people cooking in their homes for those either victimized or helping out in the aftermath of the storm. Just because she didn't feel like cooking.

Yes, that was my reaction. I am so glad I am of no relation to that person. That is not an individual I'd be allowing anywhere near my kids (and think she had no business having two of her own). That sense of entitlement is one that I've personally seen in government housing, in families where the parents aren't married because they can collect more money if they're each collecting a disability/welfare check, and both working for cash under the table. I would not want my kids growing up thinking that that sort of behavior is remotely acceptable, much less something to be imitated.

I wouldn't be in the least surprised to hear that this winner was caught looting. Except she'd never bother stirring her lard ass off of her couch.

Why I'm surprised I still attend church at all.

Listen. Look up the official video, if you like--I can't watch it.

My dad was a minister. That minister.



I seriously have no clue how in the world I kept my faith in God. God knows it made me lose my faith in several institutions set up to supposedly keep children safe and prosecute criminals.

What brought that up was thinking about the difference between the church I've chosen to attend, and churches like the one I was raised in. I wouldn't have been surprised to hear about something like this in the church I was raised in.

No way will I raise my children anywhere near beliefs like that.

If that means I'm going to hell...well...best to do that for doing the right thing than go to what someone else sees as heaven for something they think is right but that I know is wrong.

According to my mom, I'm going to hell.

I was born into an evangelical Protestant denomination--the church formerly known as the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (the RLDS--not Mormons, though, they're heathens). That church baptized kids when they hit eight years old (or twelve--it's been a long time since I was willing to step foot in that church, since my male genetic donor was one of its ministers).

Mom now thinks that that's wrong, wrong, wrong--after all, Christ was an adult when he set the example.

Christ was an adult. He was thirty. John the Baptist was only a few months older than he was, and literally could not have started his ministry soon enough to baptize Christ any younger.

However, my mom willfully closes her eyes and mind to this little fact. And swears that, since I'm a member of the Episcopal church, and since the imp was baptized at two months old (and the pixie will be next Sunday at a hair over six months old), I'm going to hell because I'm doing it wrong.

Thanks, Mom. If that's the case, then she's going to hell for willfully standing in my sister's way where mental and emotional healing is concerned, because she's doing the parenting thing wrong.

In case you can't tell, I'm a little unhappy with my mother at the moment.

Buzz, buzz, buzz.

I recently went in to my department on campus to turn in a copy of my gradebook. While I was there, I checked my department mailbox. I found a copy (nice copy—plastic spiral-bound with cardstock covers) of a report from a conference attended by our (now former) head of department. Apparently, the powers that be want completely uniform classes for uniform, measurable results, and we're all expected to jump on the bandwagon with them by redesigning our courses.

Good luck with that. Trying to get all of the professors—especially in the humanities—to agree on curriculum for the big, core class sections (i.e., freshman/sophomore level survey classes, and composition classes) is like herding cats: impossible.

It's been attempted before, but my department's inhabitants in particular jealously guard their right to choose their own textbooks and readers, particularly for the composition classes. And I suspect that, if consensus were forced, the one with the fewest teaching skills, grading skills, and desire to teach that particular class (but who is able to talk about nothing until the rest of us wind up nodding and agreeing just to shut him the hell up) will be the one who gets to set curriculum and textbook.

I won't lower my standards to that. I wrote my own textbook, have created my own assignments, and make my students do more graded writing than anyone else in the department. I don't edit their papers for them (like one colleague), don't hold with grade inflation (like most of my colleagues), and (unlike a colleague also in the adjunct office) actually grade their work whether they mark it "confidential" or not.

I will admit that one thing in that eighty-page handout made sense: many of my colleagues in the humanities take the basic, entry-level, freshman survey courses, and teach their own pet ideas without regards for what the course is supposed to convey. And I will admit that composition is vulnerable to that—one of my new colleagues (hired since I had the imp) suggested that, since composition classes don't have "content," it's up to us to make the class meaningful, so he makes the students study and write about the Harry Potter series.

Umm…that kind of turns a composition class—one where learning how to structure the paper IS the content—into a literature class. When the focus leaves the skills set—paper organization (and thesis statements), development at the paragraph level, sentence structure, and grammar and editing—because of a perceived lack of course content (which is supposed to be the teaching of course skills), of course we wind up with course drift.

The problem isn't the courses. The problem isn't the curriculum objectives. The problem isn't the administration's perceptions. The problem is the professors who don't want to teach what they were hired to teach. And the problem with the whole concept of course redesign is the reliance on education theorists, theory buzzwords that mean absolutely nothing, and administrative nincompoops who see the problem, but have no clue how to fix it*.

In any case, I think it's an effort doomed to failure by the sheer size of the task, the lack of clear objectives set by administration, and the obstinate foot-dragging I foresee from the ones that actually teach the classes.

*Those who can, do. Those who can't, teach. Those who can't teach come up with theories to justify their existence in teaching the teachers. And those who can't do that go into administration.

I bow to no one.

Unless you’ve been living under a rock, or have been totally out of touch with the news cycle, pretty much everyone in the world knows that Joplin, Missouri, was hit—hard—by a tornado on May 22. One of the worst things this tornado did was hang out for nearly a minute right in front of one of our two spectacular hospitals, then plow in a straight line from that hospital to our Home Depot. Six miles of not jumping, of having other little tornadoes spinning within it, of winds in excess of 200 mph, of moving at half the speed a storm of its size normally travels. It left a swath of destruction six miles long by three quarters of a mile wide.

One manager of a local Pizza Hut gave his life to save as many of his workers and customers as he could, putting his own body on the line to hold the doors of a walk-in freezer closed with a bungee cord.

Before the storm had even settled, people were showing up at the hospital with pickups, hoping to help save lives by moving victims from a place where, not only was the building's structure horribly compromised, but leaking natural gas.

For the past week and a half, Joplin has been inundated by volunteers, well-wishers, and donations of goods and money. Joplin has symbolized the generosity of a nation.

I have been humbled by the generosity and love offered by our fellow citizens.

I have also been outright disgusted and revolted by the selfishness and pettiness of some individuals, and classes of people.

For instance, a local privately owned group of radio stations has been doing 24/7 storm coverage, from 4:00 p.m. on May 22 until yesterday, when they started to transition back to normal programming. Some of the DJs have lost their homes, all their possessions (but thankfully not their families), almost everything--to the point that a listener showing up with a fresh package of socks nearly brought one to tears. They've provided a vital service: putting people on live that wanted to know that their loved ones had survived, airing announcements made by emergency workers, charitable organizations, and politicians alike, announcing where to find this or that service or organization, or where to find shelter or supplies. Sometimes, they'd get someone call in, to announce that they'd found a pet wandering near where a house had been destroyed, and giving out their phone number to reunite the pet with the owner.

Yet last week--last Wednesday--someone called in complaining that there wasn't any music on the music stations.

Obama's visit demonstrated a tone-deaf arrogance I've never personally seen so blatantly displayed in my life. While it crystallized some realizations about the nature of pride in oneself and government assistance for Odysseus (which I've understood most of my life, and danced around here, here, here, here, and here--his comment over at Tam's blog at 12:46 a.m. sums it up nicely), it clarified for me exactly how our elected officials see us: as subjects who are expected to cater to their convenience.

BHO was in Ireland when the storm hit. Bill Clinton would have cut the trip really short, and been back the next day to be visible in feeling our pain (and our boobies, if he could get away with it). Obama didn't. He didn't come on Tuesday. Nor on Wednesday, or Thursday.

No, he chose to come on Sunday. He decided to time his arrival and travel to either campus or to the zone of destruction to coincide with church letting out.

The media tried to spin it as Obama stepping into the role of "the nation's pastor" in "deeply religious" Joplin--but his behavior kind of demonstrated otherwise (watch from about :36 on very closely--thanks for pointing that video out, Vilmar.).

A leader that understood he was but first among equals--only in charge because somebody has to be, and we all agreed that that somebody would be him--would have timed that differently. He would have come a bit more quietly, a bit more quickly, and been a bit more considerate about blocking every major intersection in a city that's already taken a blow to the heart.

Obama did the opposite.

I'd be willing to bet the asshole in chief likely visited residential districts that were destroyed--and blocked people from salvaging what they could from their destroyed homes in so doing.

That demonstrated a way of thinking that only works if you start with the assumption that he sees himself as the first emperor of the nation, and that we are his subjects--nothing more than cardboard cutouts placed to give him something to rule, something to make him look good.

And then, this legend in his own mind swore to finish the work the tornado started, by funneling aid into Joplin, whether we want/need federal aid, or not.

I am not a subject. I will not bow my head to any save my Creator. I will not wait at any intersection behind a police barricade on my way home from church like a good little peon.

I will vote this son of a bitch out of office in November, 2012. I will beg the nation to do the same.

We cannot afford to lose our self-respect. That's how citizens become subjects become slaves.