Archive for November, 2009

Parents File Lawsuit Against State of Florida Schools

November 21, 2009 · Filed under Education

From First Coast News:

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — State educators have been slapped with a lawsuit from parents, and even students. The lawsuit claims Florida public school are not properly educating children, something lawmakers and educators disagree with.

The right to an education is something Eunice Barnum of Jacksonville believes is being denied to many youngsters in her community and across the state.

“There are children who cannot read, even though they are in elementary school,” said Barnum, who is the guardian for two children attending school on the Northside.

Barnum and the children are named in the lawsuit filed against the Florida State Board of Education.

The lawsuit claims too many children are failing crucial tests and dropping out. It also points to disparities in education between Caucasians, Hispanics, and African Americans.

“I live it everyday. I help people. I see the evidence of when you do not educate them and they have to hang on street corners and cannot get employed,” said Barnum.

Senator Stephen Wise chairs the Education Committee and said students are getting a fair education. He believes the lawsuit will do more harm than good.

“We are to going to take hundreds of thousands of dollars to defend the lawsuit by the State of Florida, which could go into dollars for young people,” said Wise.

Florida Education Commissioner Eric Smith is also named in the lawsuit.

He said, “It’s unfortunate that this lawsuit diminishes the significant progress that has been made by our children over the last decade and simply ignores the performance of a state that is clearly outpacing the nation. Our African-American and Hispanic students have experienced unprecedented academic improvements and have significantly narrowed the achievement gap in Florida, our graduation rate has steadily improved, and state and national assessments all show tremendous progress. I believe Florida’s education system has achieved incredible results that clearly speak for themselves and are not represented in this complaint.”

However, Barnum stands firm, and said something has to change the state’s public schools.

“Year after year, generation after generation, the failure among African American students finally gets
addressed,” said Barnum.

Unh huh. Personal responsibility, helping children with their homework, and making sure that they are sent to school ready to learn has absolutely nothing to do with it.

Contrary to this woman’s expectation, there are not separate lesson plans for the black and white kids. The black and white kids go to the same schools and are taught the same subjects, but somehow it is the fault of the school when black students do not achieve or learn to read. Guess what? The children that achieve have parents that believe in education and are actively involved in the educational process.

If the person initiating the lawsuit is the “guardian” for two kids attending school on the northside, where are the parents of those children? The heart of the matter here has always been parental responsibility. You cannot tell me that the elderly woman who initiated the lawsuit and evidently expects the children to sit there passively and have knowledge pumped into their head without helping the children or overseeing their homework is a good substitute for a functional family.

Instead of blaming the schools, maybe she ought to take a good look at herself and her family, and at her neighbors. That is where the problem lies. Personal responsibility. If your children are not learning to read, then you step in and teach them. If your children are having problems with math, then you help them. I taught my 4-year-old son to read with Dr. Seuss books.

People such as this woman apparently believe white kids (or Asian kids, or kids of any nationality that achieve) get special grades just for showing up. Homework and industry has absolutely nothing to do with it.

Lady, it doesn’t matter WHAT schools those children you reference as standing about on street corners are in. Until those children are in a culture where doing homework is valued over standing on street corners, the results will be the same.

On the day this news story broke, I saw a black man with his son in the grocery store. The young man was dressed in a school uniform, neatly pressed. Daddy was questioning him about his history test. “I got an ‘A’, daddy!” he said.

“Unh huh. I know how you studied for that test and you were lucky. You can’t expect that luck to last. Luck comes to people that work hard for it, and nothing but trouble comes to people that are lazy.”

That is a young man that won’t be standing around on a street corner waiting for a job to fall off a truck and hit him.

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Friday Night Dance Fever

November 20, 2009 · Filed under Humor, Livestock

Heh. Ran across this at GCP and is it PERFECT for my blog or what? So, I have naturally stolen appropriated it. Enjoy!

H/T Ed and Waitaminnit

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“Free” Groceries? Not Hardly!

November 18, 2009 · Filed under Agriculture

A city friend wistfully remarked to me how wonderful it must be to live in the country and to be able to go outside and get “free” eggs and “free” vegetables from the garden. Not to mention all that “free” chicken and lamb, too!

In order to get those “free” eggs, I have to put eggs in the incubator. In order to get, say, 50 hens, I would have to put 150 eggs or more in the incubator. After all, some of the eggs will be infertile and won’t hatch. Some of the eggs may start to develop and then die. About half of the eggs that do hatch out will be roosters. It takes 3 weeks to incubate eggs.

Those newly hatched chicks will have to be temperature protected and carefully brooded. They will be fed a diet that is the equivalent of chicken baby food until they are old enough to graduate to adult fare. Little pullets will then mature for 20 or so weeks before they lay their first eggs, eating all the while. Little roosters will also be eating until such time as they are kept as breeders or put into the freezer. Feed stores do not give away free chicken food no matter how nicely you ask.

The time spent caring for livestock or gardens is not “free”, either. If a person’s hourly rate is @ $50 an hour, then 2 hours a day spent on gardening and livestock would “cost” $700 a week. At an hourly rate of $10 an hour, that “cost” goes down significantly but still comes to $140 a week.

Having sufficient land to grow livestock, fruit and nut trees, and gardens is not free, either! In Florida, the price for land that floods in a gentle rain starts at about $10,000 per acre.

So, forgive me for laughing maniacally whenever city people start talking about “free” eggs, pecans, blueberries, tomatoes, milk, wool, or any other agricultural product. Those products are no more free for the producers than a house is free for a builder (oh, damn, I hope that isn’t another delusional bubble waiting to be popped).

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Crashing Sound of Shattered Dreams As Another Small Business Bites the Dust

November 18, 2009 · Filed under life in Florida

SwampMan and I do what we can to help local small business. We know what it is like trying to eke out a living during an economic downturn because, for so many years, we were self employed. We buy groceries at our local grocery store (but we stock up on things the local grocery store doesn’t carry, like 50# bags of sugar and rice, at Sam’s Club). We eat at local restaurants. We buy insurance from local folk.

More and more, we drive past places that were open last month only to see a “for lease” or “for sale” sign, knowing that nothing will be coming in to take its place in the foreseeable future.

SwampMan needed to stop by the pharmacy, so I proposed that we stop by a restaurant that had opened a few months ago. We were just there Friday. We stopped, got out, and it wasn’t until we walked to the door that we noticed the sign saying “sorry, we’re closed” hanging on the door.

Yeah, I know. No big deal, just another restaurant shut down. But in a small town, losing those 20 or so jobs that a restaurant open seven days a week for breakfast, lunch and dinner provides hurts. There will be even less money available to pay the mortgage or the rent, to pay for a haircut, to purchase groceries, and to provide Christmas presents for the kids.

I don’t see this getting any better; in fact, it is getting worse at an accelerating pace.

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Can I Call It a Day Yet?

November 16, 2009 · Filed under life in Florida

Went shopping after work for new books to read in class and new (learning) videos that are fun enough that the students do not realize that they are educational. I got home at 5:30, then spent the next 3 and 1/2 hours feeding and doing maintenance on the ol’ vehicle. So, now it’s 9:30 p.m., SwampMan has retired to shiver under blankets in the bed (he’s come down with a virus), and I’m sitting at the computer while eating a dinner of cold boiled peanuts. If I go to sleep right now, I’ll have to be awake in 7 hours. ‘Course, I’m not going to sleep right now because here I am, catching up on the latest economic news out there, because the economic news here sucks.

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Friday Afternoon

November 13, 2009 · Filed under Uncategorized

Friday afternoon after work, I was wandering around slowly peering at my roosters, reaching out occasionally to catch a rooster and look carefully at his color and conformation. I need to add a couple roosters to one of my chickenhouses, so I was looking over the roosters that are on death row, awaiting their transformation into their highest and best use which is chicken and dumplings. I heard shouting off in the distance. I looked towards the gate. SwampMan was attempting to communicate with me, but was being drowned out by the chickens squawking in alarm. (He doesn’t like chickens, and the feeling is mutual.) I started ambling over in his direction. After all, the temp was around 70 degrees, it was an absolutely beautiful day, and it was Friday! Yeehaa! I was in no hurry.

“Say what”, I asked lazily, as I got closer.

“I SAID, I’ll give you $500 if you can be ready to leave in 5 minutes. I want to go to Ricco’s in Callahan before the Friday night crowd arrives!”

Well, okay, then! I dropped the feed buckets, put on shoes without chickenshit on them, and hopped in the truck. While having an excellent dinner would have been motivation enough for me, I have to confess that I collected the $500, too. After all, I was ready in 5 minutes. While it may not be worth it to ME to be ready to go in 5 minutes, it obviously was to him, and who am I to complain about what price he wants to place on it?

*sigh* I wish that I could report that I was going to use it (unexpected windfall) for something that would broaden my horizons instead of my blue jeans. Unfortunately I’m just going to save it to pay for property taxes. Or buy Christmas presents with.

Property taxes or Christmas presents…..hmmmmmm.

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TGIF!

November 13, 2009 · Filed under Uncategorized

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Veteran’s Story from World War II

November 11, 2009 · Filed under Don't That Beat All

John J. Connelly opened a manila folder and dumped the contents onto the kitchen table in his Northside home.

One of his daughters, visiting from New Jersey, picked something out of the pile and looked at it.

With a smile that conveyed surprise, admiration and maybe even a little bemusement – you think you know your father and then you find out this? – she said, “I’ve never seen any of this.”

Until recently, few people had.

It’s not that Connelly, now a youthful 84 years old, was hiding what was in the envelope.

It’s just that he had tucked it way, and done the same with the memories it represented.

He didn’t talk about the war. But not because the memories were too traumatic. Simply because he came home and got on with his life. He went to college, got married, had children.

So he had been on a plane shot down over Germany, parachuted into a tree, ended up in a massive POW camp, spent 52 days marching hundreds of miles in a brutal winter? Why would he talk about that?

“Everybody who came back had a tale,” he said. “Who wanted to hear another one?”

In 1945, there were indeed stories – wonderful, horrible, heroic stories – on every block in every town. And maybe that explains how more than 50 years after World War II ended, VFW Magazine could write about the “Death March Across Germany,” calling it a “virtually unknown story.”

You would think the sheer numbers of that march across Germany – an estimated 6,000 troops, some walking as much as 600 miles – would ensure it would be remembered forever. But it seemed to do exactly the opposite. Maybe because those who survived didn’t think their experience was that big a deal.

“I didn’t want to go to the VFW hall every Saturday night, drink beer and fight the war all over again,” Connelly said. “I didn’t have time to look back. … I had to pay for the weddings of four daughters.”

His girls, and a son, grew up. His first wife died. He remarried. They moved to Jacksonville three years ago. And as he sat on his patio, he found that he did have time to look back. Which is what led to him digging out the manila envelope.

He decided to write down his memories about the war for his children, 17 grandchildren and two great-grandchildren (with a third on the way). And this was the place to start.

Inside the manila envelope were notes written while lying in a third-tier bunk in a massive German prison camp – and then later, while being forced to march across the countryside.

To call them journals doesn’t do them justice.

That sounds like something you’d buy in a store.

These are scraps of paper. Cigarette rolling paper. A box that had contained Smiles Vanilla Chocolate. An envelope that had contained mail from the U.S. A bowling scorecard without any scores.

In another place and another time, they would have been discarded. But in that place and time – Germany in 1944 and 1945 – they were like little treasures to a teenager from New Jersey.

Read the rest of the story. You won’t regret it.

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Happy Veteran’s Day

November 10, 2009 · Filed under Politicians ain't got no damn sense

I went into a public-’ouse to get a pint o’beer,
The publican ‘e up an’ sez, “We serve no red-coats here.”
The girls be’ind the bar they laughed an’ giggled fit to die,
I outs into the street again an’ to myself sez I:

O it’s Tommy this, an’ Tommy that, an’ “Tommy, go away”;
But it’s “Thank you, Mister Atkins,” when the band begins to play,
The band begins to play, my boys, the band begins to play,
O it’s “Thank you, Mr. Atkins,” when the band begins to play.

I went into a theatre as sober as could be,
They gave a drunk civilian room, but ‘adn’t none for me;
They sent me to the gallery or round the music-’alls,
But when it comes to fightin’, Lord! they’ll shove me in the stalls!

For it’s Tommy this, an’ Tommy that, an’ “Tommy, wait outside”;
But it’s “Special train for Atkins” when the trooper’s on the tide,
The troopship’s on the tide, my boys, the troopship’s on the tide,
O it’s “Special train for Atkins” when the trooper’s on the tide.

Yes, makin’ mock o’ uniforms that guard you while you sleep
Is cheaper than them uniforms, an’ they’re starvation cheap;
An’ hustlin’ drunken soldiers when they’re goin’ large a bit
Is five times better business than paradin’ in full kit.

Then it’s Tommy this, an’ Tommy that, an’ “Tommy how’s yer soul?”
But it’s “Thin red line of ‘eroes” when the drums begin to roll,
The drums begin to roll, my boys, the drums begin to roll,
O it’s “Thin red line of ‘eroes” when the drums begin to roll.

We aren’t no thin red ‘eroes, nor we aren’t no blackguards too,
But single men in barricks, most remarkable like you;
An’ if sometimes our conduck isn’t all your fancy paints:
Why, single men in barricks don’t grow into plaster saints;

While it’s Tommy this, an’ Tommy that, an’ “Tommy, fall be’ind,”
But it’s “Please to walk in front, sir,” when there’s trouble in the wind,
There’s trouble in the wind, my boys, there’s trouble in the wind,
O it’s “Please to walk in front, sir,” when there’s trouble in the wind.

You talk o’ better food for us, an’ schools, an’ fires an’ all:
We’ll wait for extry rations if you treat us rational.
Don’t mess about the cook-room slops, but prove it to our face
The Widow’s Uniform is not the soldier-man’s disgrace.

For it’s Tommy this, an’ Tommy that, an’ “Chuck him out, the brute!”
But it’s “Saviour of ‘is country,” when the guns begin to shoot;
An’ it’s Tommy this, an’ Tommy that, an’ anything you please;
But Tommy ain’t a bloomin’ fool – you bet that Tommy sees!

The betrayal of the armed forces by their government and fellow citizens is an old story. We also have a fifth column news media promulgating the Fort Hood murderer as “victim”, and military officers that turned a blind eye to the self-proclaimed jihadist sympathies of an officer in the name of political correctness. A lot of people need to be fired for this one.

The fifth columnists and politically correct politicians that are so busily inventing excuses for the Al Quaida wannabe better start asking themselves whether a school bus driver might develop sudden jihad syndrome next, or perhaps a police officer, an apartment manager, a schoolteacher, or an airline pilot.

Happy Veteran’s Day.

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Bluetongue Virus and Securing Chickens

November 10, 2009 · Filed under Uncategorized

One of my young ewes has been having difficulty breathing for over a week. I initially thought “AHA! Pastuerella pneumonia!” because sheep acquire it when they are under stress. Stressors include changes in weather (check!) or breeding season (check!). Soooo, I treated with antibiotics for 48 hours (no change), changed antibiotics for 24 hours (no change), and then a third antibiotic (no change). It sounded to me as though the difficulty with breathing was from occluded nasal passages (D’OH)! Another cause of difficulty breathing is bluetongue virus. The only treatment is the passage of time.

Clinical signs of bluetongue in sheep include:
:: Eye and nasal discharges;
:: Drooling as a result of ulcerations in the mouth;
:: High body temperature;
:: Swelling of the mouth, head and neck;
:: Lameness;
:: Haemorrhages into or under the skin;
:: Inflammation at the junction of the skin and the horn of the foot – the coronary band;
:: Respiratory problems – difficulty with breathing and nasal discharge.

A blue tongue is rarely a clinical sign of infection.

Defra says deaths of sheep in a flock may reach as high as 70%. Animals that survive the disease can lose condition with a reduction in meat and wool production.

I hadn’t noticed any swollen head, but a couple days before she developed breathing difficulties, her ears were swollen. While her head now looked normal on the outside, on the inside she was having significant problems.

Today, her breathing problems were eased but today, while I was at work, she developed another problem. Her right eye has swollen so much that it protruded from the socket and the ewe, in great pain, apparently rubbed it against trees and popped it. Erg.

*sigh* Well, bluetongue virus is endemic here so, if a sheep is badly affected by it, I don’t want his/her genes in the flock. Normally. However, my flock was so reduced by dog attack on the pregnant ewes a few years ago that if this ewe survives, I need her in the flock. I haven’t ever had anything like a 70% mortality rate from bluetongue. I might go years before losing a sheep from the virus.

In between medicating the sheep, I was trying to transfer pullets to the newly completed chicken house for fear that they’d be blown away/drowned if left on pasture.

Heh. My little grandsons were here this weekend, and I still haven’t gotten all the toys picked up yet! I thought that they were going to be here tomorrow while school is out, but they won’t be. Guess I can finish picking up those toys tomorrow.

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