Random Thoughts

Tacky is as tacky does…

The only thing that surprises me is that anyone is surprised Rahm Emmanuel used the phrase “f—ing retards” in a White House meeting.

We knew he was a snake when Obama picked him up. He’s probably just echoing what his boss thinks anyway.

His apology is worthless at this point; let the man display better behavior for a year or two and then I’ll believe he’s truly changed his crude speaking ways.

And pigs will fly. Backwards. Through the Oval Office.

Allahpundit over at HotAir points out just how ridiculous Rahm’s apology really is.

The Obama Administration: The epitome of class and dignity. Only really, really not.

And in other news, FLOTUS Michelle publicly humiliates her daughters to authenticate her new pet cause: Childhood obesity.

Nothing like having your mama air your personal health concerns in front of the entire freaking world.

These people redefine classless and tacky on a daily basis.

And we remain the losers

I really don’t care who wins the Nobel Peace Prize. I mean, Al Gore has one, as did Yassar Arafat. Clearly, they’ll give the thing to just about anyone. Still, it does make me feel rather nauseous to think that a man can be given a Nobel Peace Prize merely for talking about what he wants to do, who took office only two weeks before the Prize nomination deadline. Amazing. But then again, the man in question got to the presidency on nothing more substantive than that by which he gained the Nobel Prize, so in a weird, rather eerie way, it all fits.

It doesn’t make life in these United States one whit better for anyone beside the President either. We don’t need a Nobel Prize winner, we need a person who is actually doing things.

At this moment, many Americans are longing for a President who is more bully, less pulpit. The President who leased his immense inaugural good will to the hungry appropriators writing the stimulus bill, who has not stopped negotiating health-care reform except to say what is nonnegotiable, whose solicitude for the wheelers and dealers who drove the financial system into a ditch leaves the rest of us wondering who has our back, has always shown great promise, said the right things, affirmed every time he opens his mouth that he understands the fears we face and the hopes we hold. But he presides over a capital whose day-to-day functioning has become part travesty, part tragedy; wasteful, blind, vain, petty, where even the best-intentioned reformers measure their progress with teaspoons. There comes a time when a President needs to take a real risk – and putting his prestige on the line to win the Olympics for his hometown does not remotely count.

Ah well, Obama doesn’t need to do anything to get applause. He merely needs to exist.

And then I think about nominee Greg Mortenson, and my heart aches.

Compare this to Greg Mortenson, nominated for the prize by some members of Congress, whom the bookies gave 20-to-1 odds of winning. Son of a missionary, a former Army medic and mountaineer, he has made it his mission to build schools for girls in places where opium dealers and tribal warlords kill people for trying. His Central Asia Institute has built more than 130 schools in Afghanistan and Pakistan – a mission which has, along the way, inspired millions of people to view the protection and education of girls as a key to peace and prosperity and progress.

Thing is, Greg Mortenson doesn’t need a Nobel Peace Prize. His ego, unlike that of the current US President, does not demand public notice. Winning–or not winning–a clearly meaningless award will not change him at all. He will go on dedicating the days of his life to true service of others, working “in the trenches,” unknown by most of mankind even while making a very real, lasting change in the lives of others.

Mahatma Gandhi never won the Nobel Prize either. I’d say Mortenson is in excellent company.

Locutusprime at Brutally Honest explains the true worth of this dubious prize:

The Nobel Peace prize is nothing that is won. It is simply given. And it is nothing more than the door prize awarded by the collective thinking of anti American Marxist and communist around the world. It has absolutely less than nothing to do with the origins of its original inception or concept. The prize is nothing more than a booby prize awarded by the anti west, anti capitalism, anti democracy cabal of Marxist communist dissidents and their dregs in academia.

Confederate Yankee underscores the absurdity of it all:

Nobel committee chairman Thorbjorn Jagland was pressed by the media to explain why Obama deserved the award, and could only offer this defense: “As to whether the prize was given too early in Mr. Obama’s presidency, he said: ‘We are not awarding the prize for what may happen in the future but for what he has done in the previous year. We would hope this will enhance what he is trying to do’.”
Barack Obama won a Nobel Peace Prizefor campaigning for President.

Wordsmith at Flopping Aces posits that Bush really ought to be credited/blamed for Obama’s Nobel.

Neo-neocon reminds us of the inherent bias of the Nobel commitee, and that 1990 Nobel winner Mikhail Gorbachev presided over the fall of the Soviet Union.

American Power considers the ramifications of Obama’s Nobel Prize upon Afghanistan and Iraq.

And The Anchoress thinks that Michelle ought to have shared in the award.

Edited to add…

A look at the nominees who were passed over. If anything underscores the worthlessness of a Nobel Peace Prize, a comparison of relative accomplishments ought to do it.

Patterns and power

I have always been keen on patterns when it comes to people. Over time, human beings act in predictable ways, and if you pay attention, you can predict what a person will likely do based on their patterns of behavior. In a broader sense, this is what “learning from history” is all about: Recognizing the patterns.

Neo-Neocon offers a must-read analysis of how tyrannical takeovers begin, explaining why we really need to pay attention to the past:

The study of history is of vital importance. Not only has that discipline been watered down and even distorted in our schools in recent years, but even back when I was in school I believe the emphasis was wrong. Dates and battles are all very well and good, but we need to know more about the deeper patterns: for example, the ways in which tyrannies become established. There are commonalities there, and lessons to be learned from them.

While filling in for Rush, the very thing troubling me about Obama was summed up by Mark Steyn

“My real objection to this speech to school children has got nothing to do with the content of the speech, and it’s not even to do with these what I think are unseemly and improper so-called study lessons and study materials that teachers are going to be inflicting on kids afterwards. The fact is, when you beam the platitudinous drivel in by the big personality president, you are doing something which I don’t think is proper in a citizen republic:  You’re conflating the head of state with the state. And that is not the role of the American president, this idea that you can’t get away from Obama’s image and Obama’s personality.

Anyone who’s traveled in various third-world dumps knows one thing you’re always aware of is the omnipresence of the president-for-life, he’s there everywhere. Even in relatively civilized places; you go through Jordan, everywhere in Jordan you see these huge photographs of King Abdullah beaming down on you, everywhere, everywhere, everywhere.

I was very struck, a couple of weeks after Saddam fell in Iraq, I was driving around western and northern Iraq, and in every town I visited, dropping by the local school…Saddam had just fallen, and what you noticed in every room was the faded paint on the wall where the portraits of Saddam had all been taken down.

Personality cults and personality leaders do not belong in grade schools in a democratic republic. It’s inappropriate.

As I heard those words, I thought about a famous presidential quote, “Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country.” And I compared JFK’s classic words exhorting Americans to serve their country to the Department of Education’s classroom activities for use in connection with Obama’s speech.  The activities all direct the children to think about helping President Obama, such as

Students could discuss their responses to the following questions:

What do you think the president wants us to do?
Does the speech make you want to do anything?
Are we able to do what President Obama is asking of us?
What would you like to tell the president?

That’s what is so upsetting to parents like me who study history, and who know that no good comes from teaching children to serve a political leader.

If this seems like ridiculous hyperbole or downright paranoia, Charles Murray asks the hard question,

To those Obama supporters who put this kind of reaction down to angry conservatives, ask yourselves: quite apart from your political views, if George W. Bush had proposed to make a national speech to schoolchildren, complete with lesson plans, isn’t “creepy” a word that would have come to mind?

When children are exhorted by any charismatic, powerful leader to serve him in some way, this comes to my mind:

(“Youth Serves the Führer. All 10-year-olds in the Hitler Youth.”)

Teaching is a noble profession

So, it’s September and I’m heading into the Student Teaching Teaching Candidate portion of the California Teacher Credentialing process. I was told this morning during a PowerPoint presentation which repeatedly used the term “Student Teaching” that California no longer uses that term. It, like so many other innocuous phrases, is apparently politically incorrect. The new term is “Teaching Candidate,” and it’s paired with other terms like “clinical observations,” in an effort to spread a gloss of professionalism over a job that pays somewhere between $28,000 and $40,000 per year to start.

Professionalism is a Big Deal at the university where I’m getting my teaching credential. Yesterday we were treated to a lecture–and I mean that in the dad-is-going-to-scold-you sense–given by someone I shall call Aged Professor, about appropriate dress and behavior. We were never given any specifics about behavior, just that we were to “behave appropriately,” because apparently last year’s class had at least one person who did not “behave appropriately.” I wonder what that entailed. Maybe they took off their shoes and taught barefoot. Considerable time was spent telling us how to dress appropriately.

Now, this is Southern California. It’s HOT this time of year. Back away from the open-toed shoes though, and don’t even think about the sandals. No sneakers either. And for those of us of the female gender, there will be no jeans, no capris, no clam diggers, no shorts of any length, only skirts or dress slacks with an “appropriate” blouse.

I don’t care what Aged Professor says, I am not putting on a pair of nylons in 95F weather for anyone.

That being said, I am not a 19 year old, I’m the mother of a 19 year old. I do not need to be lectured about clothing and behavior. Neither do the dozen or so other students in my credentialing program who will never see age 30 again. Unfortunately for us, Aged Professor can’t seem to get his head around the fact that we aren’t children. He admitted as much last semester when he said “I’m not used to having ‘older’ students.”

As he lectured us, our cumulative expressions of disbelief and irritation must have clued him in somewhat, because Aged Professor added that the teachers we’d be observing during our Student Teaching Teacher Candidate semester “won’t be dressing like you will. They don’t dress appropriately, but they already have jobs. You don’t.”

That led directly to “This is not about you. If you want a job that’s about you, don’t go into teaching.”

Well duh.

And they wondered when I applied for the credential process, why I didn’t want to teach at the college level (been there, done that and am qualified to do it again).

It’s not the students, it’s the other professors. My tolerance for pedantic arrogance is dangerously low.

Yes, this post is all about me. I’m trying to avoid ranting about politics, particularly health care reform, until I can do so without using unprofessional language.

Perspective and petty problems

Yesterday was Not A Fun Day.

It was a really warm day. 96F in the shade.

Just as I got ready to dry my hair after my AM shower, a planned power outage kicked in. No hair dryer. No air conditioning either. Did I  mention that it was 96F? And they planned to cut the power between 8 AM and 4 PM.

Fortunately the power came back on before noon, but long after I’d been doomed to a Really Bad Hair Day and the house was hotter than heck.

As I grumbled about my discomfort, I thought about what I’ve been reading lately, about individuals who lost their homes and their families and everything precious to them, and I felt really small with my whining about petty little problems.

That insight lasted until I couldn’t find Younger Son after school. We’re still new at the whole drop-off, pick-up thing, still trying to figure out how to get around the masses of slowly moving cars, still trying to guage the best spot to meet up. Younger Son was about twenty feet away from my parked car, walking toward me, when he was redirected by the school traffic patrol who refused to let him walk to my car. He was forced to walk away from me, into an underpass leading to another building with which he’s unfamiliar, where I lost sight of him. It took me nearly an hour of walking and driving around to find him.

He had left his cell phone at home. So the simple solution of a call locating him was impossible.

I was Not A Happy Mother when we finally reconnected. Later, after he’d gotten over being sad and I’d gotten over being angry and we’d both cooled off (literally) I reflected on how utterly stupid the whole thing was. I was upset about watching him walk away from me, knowing it would be “hard” to find him. Please. He was as safe as kittens, on a lushly landscaped private school campus with plenty of shade, water fountains, and no one going to be anything but helpful if he approached them. It’s not like he was walking onto a transport train headed to a concentration camp.

Germans deporting Jewish women and children of Miedzyrzec, Poland, to the death camp in Majdanek, May 1943.

The idyllic location where my son and I were separated for a brief hour in August, 2009.

I felt an echo of the cognitive dissonance Rachel Lucas spoke of. My mind during this past week has been on the Holocaust, and the immense pain and suffering it caused. How dare I be so upset, much less worried about a totally trivial event that was, at very worst, simply inconvenient?

Apparently I still hadn’t gotten the memo yet though. Later in the evening Younger Daughter approached me with her new computer, which (at less than a month old) has suddenly begun displaying the Blue Screen Of Death every time she plugs in her Ipod.

It’s only technology. It can be fixed. No lives are at risk in the process. That didn’t mean I was exactly cheerful about spending the bulk of my post-dinner evening trying to figure out what the problem was and how to resolve it. At one point I was reduced to grumbling to Smallest Dog (by then the only sentient creature in the house willing to sit next to me), muttering “This is exactly why yellow legal pads and pencils will always be better than computers.”

I finally solved the problem this morning, by Googling it, reading what several tech geeks on computer sites had to say, then following their advice. Apparently a routine Windows update caused all the aggravation. Deleting it fixed the problem.

Hours wasted, emotions drained, snappishness toward loved ones, all over a stupid electronic gadget.

Sometimes I think we spend far too much time and energy on the wrong things. And I think we were better off before life centered so much on technology. When it centered more on family and less on things.

I am such a slow learner, but I’m trying.

Dog gone

I’m what is known as a “dog person.” I grew up with dogs as pets, and I’ve had dogs in my own home for over 20 years. My children grew up with dogs; they loved them, the dogs loved them right back.

My dogs have all been very well trained: Absolute obedience is expected when it comes to coming when called, never running out an open door, and obeying the command “STAY!” Their safety is at stake, and I’m very big on safety when it comes to dogs.

I’m even bigger on safety when it comes to children.

That’s why I find this sort of thing very disturbing. It ought to be completely preventable.

2-year-old girl bitten in face by family dog
Daily News Wire Services
Posted: 03/17/2009 07:00:46 AM PDT

A 2-year old Long Beach girl was hospitalized today after she was bitten in the face by the family’s dog, authorities said.

The attack at a home at 1850 Gardenia Avenue in Long Beach was reported around 11:30 p.m. Monday, Long Beach Department of Animal Control Officer Jaime Precado told an On Scene Video camera crew.

Precado and Long Beach Fire Department paramedics went to the home in response to an emergency call.

Authorities said the toddler was bitten in the face by the family’s cocker spaniel, a breed originally bred for hunting but regarded as friendly. She suffered deep lacerations to the face, Precado said.

Another Animal Control officer said in a telephone interview that Precado took the animal into custody.

“Normally what happens is that we bring the dog in and hold it in quarantine for 10 days to see if there are any signs of rabies,” he said. “After that, the animal is evaluated and a decision is made on what to do with it.

“If the animal doesn’t have any signs of rabies or other disease after 10 days, it’s returned to the owner if the owner wants it back. But I think the mother was pretty upset and didn’t make a request to get the dog back. So I don’t know what will happen to it.”

What prompted the attack was not immediately determined.

I would bet real money this was not the first time the dog had indicated some sort of nervousness and/or aggression toward the child and/or other people in the home. I’d bet even more money that the mom knew it, knew there was a risk, and didn’t take it seriously. Until now.

According to the Humane Society,

Each year, about 4.7 million people in the United States are bitten by dogs—80 percent of them by familiar canines —and it’s estimated that more than half of those victims are less than 13 years old. What’s more, children are at least three times more likely than adults to sustain a serious dog bite.

When it comes to dog bites, most injuries are caused by family pets. The Humane Society’s steps to avoid dog bites are helpful; two in particular ought to be drilled into every child who lives with a dog in their home:

2. Never sneak up on or pet a dog who is eating or sleeping. Animals can bite when they’re startled or frightened.

3. Never pet a dog who is playing with a toy. Dogs are often protective of toys, and may think a child is trying to take it.

One of my current dogs is a mixed breed whippet-miniature pinscher/who knows what. She fixates on tennis balls and dog toys. Will play with them quite literally for hours at a time. Everything around her is ignored when she’s focused on a toy, any sudden attempt to remove the toy meets with instant aggression. If you say her name, break her concentration, give her a second to realize a human is interacting with her  she’ll gladly let you take the toy. But she needs that verbal cue to engage her brain and override her instincts.

I wouldn’t trust her around small children at all. I know what would happen; they’d walk up to her, she’d be oblivious to them, they’d grab the toy she was chewing on, and they’d get bitten.

Small children and dogs alike are quite predictable. Kids don’t think, “Grabbing a toy from the dog could make it hurt me.” Dogs don’t think, “This is a small human, I need to let it take my toy.” Kids think, “I want that toy.” Dogs think, “That toy is mine.” And the end result is tragic.

Some dogs are relatively trustworthy around small kids. I say “relatively,” because any dog can become aggravated when it feels physically threatened. Even a friendly little Cocker Spaniel. Dogs certainly can be trained out of many behaviors–mine have all been highly professionally trained–but canine nature is what it is.

I have little patience with dog owners who ignore common sense and warning signs. If your dog isn’t 100% comfortable around small children, if it growls or bares its teeth at any person in your home at any time, that is a huge red warning sign. And you’d better make sure your health and homeowners’ insurance are paid up. You’re going to need them.

Happy New Year!

And this is why I love living in Southern California…

January 1, 2009:

Such a fantastically beautiful day to begin a new year.

And watching USC whomp the daylights out of Penn State didn’t hurt either.