Uh, Mom, My Glasses Fell in the Toilet. . .

Things that make you laugh but you keep it inside because you are a good person who wouldn’t laugh AT your children but only WITH them, later . . .

Touseled hair, sleepy face gingerly holding said glasses with tissue, offering them up with a (still-startlingly deep to his mother) baritone mumbling, “now what?”

Son, I guess you had to put your hand in to retrieve them? Well, yeah. Okay, no problem. But why is that hand now holding the glasses with tissue, if the hand went down in the same water and needs to be cleaned right along with the glasses?
Oh.

More laughter — but only on the inside!

Favorite Daughter Talks Sex and Rejects “The Wilding of Sarah Palin” Premise

Favorite Daughter wrote a long essay on this piece* (see below) late last night, unbeknownst to her mother until the holiday yeast rolls were in the oven and we were relaxing together just now, and she mentioned it in an offhand way.

She is almost 20 now, and we’re leaving for her boyfriend’s parents’ multi-family dinner in an hour. Anyway, don’t miss this if you want a brutally honest young woman’s progressive perspective in response to this article about sex, politics and the real-world effects of the Politics of Sex:

. . .[The "recovering liberal" author of the article] posits that democrats purposely keep women afraid of rape so that they’ll vote democrat, like a sick stick to the carrot of equal pay and abortion rights. She goes on to insinuate that democrats put out some sort of subliminal messages about conservative men all being rapists. She makes this allegation with no evidence whatsoever, and, if the average conservative sex scandal is any indication, my 14-year-old brother has a lot more to fear from Mark Foley, Larry Craig, and Ted Haggarty than I do.

She goes on to hint that she might have been raped (“probably at a peace rally,” Calvin groaned), and called the perpetrators “minority,” “thug,” “hoodlums,” blaming liberal social programs for the circumstances that led directly to her violation. If I may interrupt: I have a hunch that not stoning rape victims was once considered a “liberal social program.”

She goes on to accuse everyone at Berkley of being a “sleazebag,” (really, everyone) and that because liberals subscribe to the concept of moral relativism, they sanction the stoning of women in the Middle East. Where, the last time I checked, women were being preyed upon by religiously and politically conservative men.

Then it gets really good (or bad, I guess, would be a better

Is Cheerleading a Sport? Don’t Answer Too Quickly

In keeping with the sports-is-to-politics foul play analogy of my last post: Is cheerleading a sport and why should it matter?

And can we adults think that through logically and meaningfully, answer with integrity and fairness to all students both boys and girls, cheerleaders and football players or not, instead of competing like warlords to score the most money never mind the human or social costs, as the insurance companies do? My state’s high school athletic association apparently can’t –

. . .Cheerleading, you see, is deeply embroiled in gender politics, and given the demographics of college attendance, cheerleading is surely going to remain a flashpoint.

It all traces back to Title IX, the 1972 law which mandates that, in sports, athletic representation on campus must mirror student enrollment. . .

. . . the Florida High School Athletic Association wanted to make substantial reductions in all sports except two: football and cheerleading. . . by claiming that football, like cheerleading, was a co-ed sport because, of the thousands of football players in the state, three were girls.

Not surprisingly, this bizarre logic didn’t fly. A federal lawsuit forced the association to accept a settlement to apply cuts equally across the board to all sports. Most cheerleaders, of course, are female.
. . .two-thirds of all catastrophic injuries to females in high school and college occur in cheerleading.

And so, if cheerleading can be accepted as a legitimate sport instead of just as an “activity,” then colleges can eliminate another, more traditional, more expensive women’s sport. In this way, male-dominated athletic departments can

Do Media Refs Do This Too? It Would Explain a Lot

If “winning” and not good governance is all the most vicious partisans care about, their political game plan would look just like the Illini’s foul play and it would work out for them, especially on tv. A theory with excellent predictive value!

ESPN dot com
November 23, 2009
Associated Press

They don’t all need glasses. But if you always suspected basketball referees are biased — well, you’re right, according to a couple of professors who’ve studied the matter.

Refs favor the home team, the academics say. They’re big on “make-up” calls. They make more calls against teams in the lead, and the discrepancy grows if the game is on national TV.

The professors studied 365 college games during the 2004-05 season and found that refs had a terrific knack for keeping the foul count even, regardless of which team was more aggressive.

Exhibit A:

Young Son’s Shakespeare Set to Scotland’s Pipes

As promised, a sampling of family photos from the first annual Fall Weavers Festival at historic Millstone Plantation here in Tallahassee FL.

You can see Young Son playing as Richard the Third in morning scenes staged under the Great Oak, then as great highland bagpiper with the Edinburgh-born McIlroys in the afternoon, as the sheep pasture shadows lengthen toward Lake McBride:

Fencing Poem Especially for COD and Son Breck

We had a flood in the laundry room last weekend so it’s been a harrowing week of sorting, cleaning, tossing, throwing out wet carpet and ruined stuff, bringing in new equipment, checking to see if we need a new floor.

Anyway, today in my labors I got to a top shelf secreting some of my own old high school notebooks, where I came across a poem written in limerick form about my (then-new) sport.

I was maybe 17?
Thought Breck might enjoy laughing at the kid I was –

What Every Young Fencer Should Know

A fencer should always remember
To try not to pierce or dismember,
And if while on strip
Your opponent should trip,

The Liar, The Witch, and the KKK’s Wardrobe

Sarah Palin’s presidential-ambition-blessing pastor was a real, literal witch-hunter and witch-persecutor.

No joke.

Now comes another no-joke witch story, one I saw earlier today in the Chronicle of Higher Education weekly round-up by Don Troop, under the irresistible and accurately newsworthy headline, “The Liar, the Witch and the KKK’s Ridiculous Wardrobe.”

(Just ask if you want to know more about the Liar and the Wardrobe*.)

A woman who sued the University of Nebraska saying the school fired her after learning she is a witch has agreed to settle the case for $40,000.

The university made the offer “solely to compromise the claim … without admitting the validity of plaintiff’s contention or any allegations of wrongdoing by the defendants. . .”

Jane Doe said she took a job with the university in 2007 directing a youth program. But an associate dean terminated her, despite her satisfactory performance at work, after learning she was a witch and her religion was

Shocking News: Our Dear Friend Betty Malone

MEG! What happened??

Nance and I have just learned of Betty’s passing — stunned and saddened. Dear in life, dear in memory.

Betty posted a comment here Sunday, about the religious left emerging. She had been writing on FaceBook about having the flu, and then the morning of Nov. 13 said she was feeling better, ready to get cracking on her directorial work with The Best Christmas Pageant Ever.

Now they are posting eulogy messages to her FB wall.

Are you brainwashing your child with your truth or allowing the freedom of learning to flourish in your home? — Betty Malone

Betty Malone

Religious Left Emerges, Religious Right Erodes

From my hometown newspaper this morning at the heart of Gator Nation, in the South! — even though it’s something I can be proud of this time rather than apologize for, like what passes for good communal citizenship just down the road from UF, in a giant corporate enclave of relatively wealthy, morally pious old folks called the Villages.

UF study: Religious left emerging to oppose right

Research shows growing influence of liberal Christians in politics.

By Nathan Crabbe
Staff writer

A new University of Florida study finds the religious left is emerging as an alternative to the Christian right.

Gainesville can be seen as a leading indicator of the trend. Faith-based liberal activism has long been a community tradition, from advocacy for the homeless to protests of executions.

“This is a town where there is certainly a religious left,” said UF political science professor Ken Wald, who collaborated with two other researchers on the study.

The research found that Christians who value being active members of a religious community tended to vote for Democratic candidates in 2006 and 2008. The research contradicts the “God gap” theory that white religious Christians are conservative and likely to vote Republican, Wald said.

He said the religious left is becoming more influential with the election of Barack Obama and his experience in community organizing and expansion of a White House office on faith-based initiatives. At the same time, Wald said, young evangelicals are placing more emphasis on traditionally liberal issues such as addressing climate change.

“I think you’re seeing the religious right erode a bit, and at the same time the religious left gets more aggressive,” Wald said.

In case you weren’t riveted to Snook’s comments this weekend, a discussion of Catholic homeless and soup kitchen services sprang up here, debating the social effects of believing in the higher moral authority of “church doctrine” that would refuse help to those living in sin. This story adds texture to

Speak Up When Pro-Child Politics Are Attacked as Anti-Parent

Here we go again. Families, child-rearing and home education publicly
stereotyped as conservative extremism and anti-human rights, sigh. If
you parent and/or educate children and don’t fit this stereotype, make
your voice heard too. Don’t let this define your principles.

Parental rights rally on Washington planned: Your stories needed!
November 11, 11:01 AM
by Lynda Ackert

The Convention on the Rights of the Child was adopted by the General
Assembly of the United Nations on the 20th of November 1989. As part of a celebration, internationalists backing this UN Convention have
declared November 20th of this year as ‘Children’s Day.’

In response, ParentalRights dot org will rally in Washington, D.C. on that day. The rally will be held at the U.S. Capitol from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m., on the East Lawn across from the Rayburn House Office building.

Speakers during the rally will include Rep. Peter Hoekstra and Sen. Jim
DeMint, the lead sponsors of the Parental Rights Amendment; Gerard
Robinson with Black Alliance for Educational Options; William Estrada of
Homeschool Legal Defense Association; Dean and Julie Nelson of National Black Home Educators; and Steven Groves of Heritage Foundation.

Whether you homeschool or not, parental rights have been and are
continuing to be under attack.

Want your voice heard? ParentalRights.org wants to hear from you. If you have experienced any assault or threat to your parental rights, make your story known by emailing ParentalRights. . .

Homeschooling is a parental right…Let’s keep it that way!

Source: ParentalRights dot org

For more of JJ’s thoughts on the UN and this political meme setting up “parental rights” in opposition to child and human rights, start with:

Homeschool freedom fighting: It’s so not about the UN

Parental Rights and responsibilities: Parenting sex and parenthood

Latest Homeschool Freak-out from World Net Daily

Tough case: Church v State for the life of Daniel Hauser

More About Young Son’s Shakespeare Saturday

Here’s the power of story for Young Son’s Shakespeare scenes coming up this Saturday:

FALL WEAVERS FESTIVAL

SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 14

10AM – 4PM

MILLSTONE PLANTATION / MILLSTONE INSTITUTE

6500 OLD MILLSTONE PLANTATION ROAD, TALLAHASSEE, FL
(off Thomasville Rd)
$5.00 Admission for Adults
Children under 12 Free

EVENTS for the DAY INCLUDE:

Seven Hills Handweavers Guild Demonstrations
Spinning, Carding, Dyeing and Weaving
Yarn and Weaving Suppliers from N. Florida and S. Georgia

Live Outdoor Theater
Selections from  A Midsummer Night’s Dream and Richard III

Live Music – bluegrass and bagpipes!

Hands-On Activities for Children of All Ages
Weaving
Maskmaking

AND A FALL PARADE!!

Parking is Limited, Please Carpool!
Bring a picnic and blanket and enjoy the day!

Sponsored in part by the State of Florida, Department of State,  Division of Cultural Affairs, the Florida Arts Council, and the National Endowment for the Arts.

It is to be a place for the study and teaching of traditional arts and crafts, methods of farming and gardening and stewardship of the land, going all the way back to the prehistoric occupants of the land, some 12,000 years ago.

Among the areas of activity specifically listed in the Institute’s Articles of Incorporation are raising fiber producing animals — shearing, spinning, weaving — and the encouragement of fiber arts; traditional and experimental organic horticulture and agriculture, based in the philosophy of a self-contained, sustainable farm; growing and use of culinary and medicinal herbs; manufacture and repair of traditional implements, tools and furniture.

These are not meant to be exclusive, but to

Sunday Afternoon Doing Shakespeare in the Park with Llamas

The first annual weavers’ and art fall festival at Millstone Plantation happens here Saturday the 14th, and Young Son’s Summer of Shakespeare group will be reprising their Richard III all day. Today for on-site rehearsal, they had the bright, beautiful, breezy lake setting all to themselves — except for the resident llamas, who seem to just love the Bard and wanted to be right in the thick of the action.

It was glorious.