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Grizzly Mama

There's a Grizzly who has escaped the City of Brotherly Love..(and she's going back to homeschooling!!)

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Location: Out of Philly, Pennsylvania, United States

"All who have meditated on the art of governing mankind have been convinced that the fate of empires depends on the education of youth." Aristotle - Greek Philosopher.

Sunday, May 30, 2010

Memorial Day

Happy Memorial Day.

God bless all those who died in service to our country. God bless all veterans, and all those who presently serve. You are the absolute BEST.

We have a brand, spanking new stars and stripes flying. On the other column, we now sport a Gadsden flag. They both fly every day at our house. I feel lucky that in our little town, most houses fly the flag.

Thursday, May 27, 2010

Obama Press Conference



What is with that UGLY GOLD CURTAIN?? Where is an American flag??

That material looks like something some Saudi king would stand in front of.

YUCK!!!!

Wednesday, May 26, 2010

Rasmussen Daily Presidential Approval Index



I think it'll go lower. The guy is totally out of touch - a little prince jetting around the country playing golf. Shame on him for being such a crappy President.

Link

Thursday, May 20, 2010

Everybody Draw Mohammed Day


Facebook took down the Everybody Draw Mohammed page just a few minutes ago. It had about 90,000 fans. (**Note - the Facebook page is once again available - with more than 100,000 fans**)(**Another note - Facebook page is gone again!!**) A lot of them were moslems threatening to kill people who would dare draw a picture of mohammed. Which - as we all know by now - is their prophet. I will be adding links to this posting of other bloggers who put cartoons up of 'mo'.

Free speech can be offensive. Being offended is no reason to kill another person. You would think that in the United States of America everyone understood that.



Jihad Watch
IMAO
Comics Alliance.
The Godless Monster
Laughing in Purgatory (No actual stick figures of mo here - but they're pretty damn funny!)
The Friendly Atheist
Zombietime Zomblog
Everybody Draw Mohammed (Dude! You should see some of the death threats there! Moslems true to form...)(**UPDATE - website down!!**)
Texan2Driver
Because No One Asked
Free Colorado (YAY Colorado - my home state.)
Saber Point
Reason.com
Below the Beltway
Big Hollywood
FulloseousFlap's Dental Blog archive of Mohammed caricatures
NewsReelBlog's Fatwa Worthy Twitter Avatars
A Conservative Edge
Take A Stand Against Liberals
People's Press Collective
Blazing Cat Fur
BigGovernment.com
Answering Muslims documents the sheer insanity in the moslem world.
Happy Jihad's House of Pancakes
The Blogmocracy
Razor Sharp Claws
Michelle Malkin
Atlas Shrugs
Politically Incorrect News
The Amboy Times
Looking at the Left
Urban Infidel
Sermons From Seattle
Center of Mass
Blogmakezine
MohammedAlien
Resource for the Hesperado
Bug
Living Engine
Robert Graham
The Raw Deal
The Jawa Report
Gateway Pundit
Mind Numbed Robot
Tilting Suds
At the Point of a Gun
The Pirate's Cove
The Infidel Blogger's Alliance
Gates of Vienna
Anthroblogogy
Another Gun Blog
Snarky Bytes
Lucrative Pain
The Transmogrifier Files
Looking for Lissa
The Browsack Gazette
Dead Man Dance
The Breda Fallacy
Just Another Missouri Rebel
Gun Free Zone
Non Original Rants
NeanderPundit
The Objective Standard
Kristen
Rock and Roll Stu
Pharyngula
Chain Bear
Going on a Bear Hunt
Greta Christina
ER
Bottomlining the Rev
Rambling On
Sexy Redheaded Nuns
An Apostate's Chapel
One Minion's Opinion
Randi
Decrepit Old Fool
The Drunken Humanist
Izzy
Struck by Enlightning
Jesusfetusfajitafishsticks
William
Jesus and Mo
Abe of Lincoln

The People's Cube with a HILARIOUS 'draw a positive mohammed' day.

Must not miss IowaHawk's lofty explanation as to why he is exercising his Freedom of Not Speech.

When I have more time and energy I will add more.

Wednesday, May 19, 2010

Sayonara Turncoat



FINALLY - He's gone!

Although they were joking at the polling place yesterday that they wouldn't put it past Specter to switch to independent just so he can run again.

Toomey won on the Republican side. It will be interesting between Toomey and Sestak. I think Toomey will blow Sestak away. Time will tell.

The gigantic news is that Rand Paul rode to victory in Kentucky on the back of the Tea Party movement. The odds were WAY against him, with experts predicting that he had less than 10% chance of winning against Kentucky Secretary of State Trey Grayson. They underestimated the Tea Party movement.

PA-12 is not good news in my opinion. The seat formerly held by Murtha has gone to one of Murtha's former aides. Not sure what the hell is happening over there - but something is seriously WRONG with those people! Republican Tim Burns lost by a surprisingly large margin. Mark Critz takes the seat. The voters adored Murtha in that area and, from what I've read, believed that they lived off of his earmarks. This goes against all libertarian thought. They perceive themselves as dependent upon the government? Hmmmm. Wonder if Critz will be able to deliver the goods.

In Arkansas, Jim Boozman (R) won without the need for a runoff. Polls show him handily beating whoever wins the runoff on the Dem side. Arkansas voters don't like Obama very much - I think around 35% approval rating there. So Boozman looks like he's in good shape. Boozman voted for TARP - so he's going to have some 'splainin to do.

Oregon, anyone? Not much news out there for the Oregon primary. Apparently it's a big yawn.

Sunday, May 02, 2010

The Decision to Go Back to Homeschooling

Here I gather my thoughts together on the many reasons for the decision to go back to homeschooling.


1. Sibling rivalry has increased since school.

* They used to get along famously. In every single homeschooling family that I know, the relationships that the siblings enjoy is markedly different than those of 'regular' schooling families. It will actually blow your mind. Get to know a homeschooling family - you are likely to be amazed! We don't expect perfection in our relationships and of course people living together will clash occasionally and we are no exception. That intense sibling rivalry stuff? Doesn't need to be there.

2. Unhealthy attitudes in kids since school.

* Listen - I know all about adolescence and how kids go through those mental changes. This is different. It seems that most parents take for granted that they will eventually become the equivalent of a mere acquaintance to their kids as they grow up. Well. It doesn't have to be that way, and it shouldn't be that way. I'm all for respecting individuality - I'm what could be called unconventional in many ways. But our family is that - a family - and it IS more important than a lot of people seem to think.

3. Academic standards are crap. We have a lot of making up to do.

* I don't know what to say. I'm horrified. From the 3rd grade class last year not even able to finish the math curriculum by the end of the year, to the rushing through the Civil War, to the almost complete SKIPPING of science for both. It's a disgrace. (We finished the math curriculum over the summer at home..)

4. Inability of school to adapt to kids' individual levels of abilities.

* The little one didn't get into the advanced math because there 'wasn't enough room'. The big one is 97th percentile on the ACT for literature/writing, yet stuck doing 8th grade work. Third year for the oldest in Pre Algebra. Terrible in every way.

5. Favoritism in school is a big problem.

* This was really gross. Just gross. Not much left to say, except that we were lucky enough to get the kids involved in other stuff (when we could find a spare moment..) where they were atleast recognized and given the opportunity to participate in activities without being forced to sit on the sidelines while the less talented, more favored kid got all the good stuff. This didn't just happen to my kids - it happened to any kid who was new to the school, or just wasn't liked by certain teachers. Sick. Out in the REAL WORLD, participating in community activities, we never had a problem with this.

6. Unhinged teacher.

* Finally went to the principal about this. Scary whacky. Don't know what's going on there, but it's obviously a personal problem and the kids in that particular class are suffering for it. Not only that, but the kids are essentially held hostage - not in any position to confront the situation themselves. For one, they're kids. For two, in the hierarachy the kids are bottom of the totem pole and therefore have no say. It has been up to me and other parents to attempt to confront this situation and quite frankly - I'm just waiting until it's over and we're out of there. Although we had a meeting with the assistant principal and we have a meeting with the head principal this coming week. At home, they have no problem speaking up - or going to another authority if they don't like what's going on. They may still have to do those chores they don't like, or have to finish schoolwork before TV, but they will be heard!

7. Large, no HUGE, blocks of wasted time.

* Dang. I don't think there is a fix for this in a school/classroom type of setting. Another reason that the model just doesn't work well.

8. Emphasis and importance placed on silly things.

* Points off for not having the red line perfectly straight in the composition book. Points on for being able to do 50 equations in 30 seconds. Doesn't even matter in my book. (Is the writing legible and formatted in a way that makes sense? Are the answers to the equations accurate - even if it might take a minute? That's what is important to me...) Also, the kids got crap for the fact that we don't go to Mass every Sunday. They go to Mass every single frigging Friday, but NO. That's not enough. The teachers took it upon themselves to give my kids crap for the fact that I don't make it to Mass as often as they like. We dealt with this by telling the kids to inform their teachers that they need to call me if it ever comes up again. They did, the teachers didn't call, end of B.S.

9. Arbitrary scoring of work in several cases.

* One day it's okay. Another day it's not. One teacher it's okay. Another it's not. I guess there is something to be said for finding out what people want and giving it to them. But the larger, more important issue is to find the standard and keep it consistent. This arbitrary stuff just confuses people and leads to either apathy or defiance and that is not constructive.

10. Inability to be involved in community, or to partake in otherwise enriching activities, due to time constraints.

* Would much rather get the schoolwork done, and have time to get out there in the world. There is a lot to learn out there, a lot of important stuff to learn. I didn't learn the important stuff until I was free from the educational institutions.

11. Lack of direction in many areas with my older daughter.

* Possibly comes under unhinged teacher category. When help was requested, she was turned away. This is what I paid thousands of dollars a year for? I don't think so.

12. Unnatural hours, resulting in lack of sleep for everyone.

* Face it - this just blows. Not only is it full of wasted time, but for us that early morning crap just didn't work. Not enough sleep. Did you know that studies have shown that most of us are sleep deprived? There's a whole 24 hour a day, 7 day a week world out there.

Being in school this last two years has not helped them in many, many ways. I will concede that it was probably time well spent in that we ALL now "know,know" that educating the kids at home is absolutely the right thing to do for us.

It did create an avenue for the younger daughter to get involved in basketball. (Which I now find out that she doesn't even need to be in school to have participated, anyway..) Both girls also were able to learn new musical instruments, although I have been paying separately for the lessons.

One area that I have been struggling with in my anticipation of homeschooling is getting them into some sort of musical instrument group program. The Archdiocese does not allow homeschoolers to take part in the school's programs, and I really have no desire to send them to the local public school for that. There are a couple of other options that I am pursuing right now. One involves traveling to Delaware - and I'll do it if the other doesn't pan out.

We will also be responsible for paying for the younger daughter's speech therapy. This is fine, as she is almost where she needs to be. The only PITA about it is documenting that properly in my affidavit for the superintendent. It's a small PITA, though.

I am counting the days until school is over, and we can get back to doing it right.