Palin’s “Actual Responsibilities” as Madame Mayor

. . .surely need national-level journalistic scrutiny if her true story is that they involved firing the town librarian for refusing to ban whichever books Palin personally deemed “morally or socially objectionable.”

This is The One Un-American Act.
Guess it would qualify her to be America’s Censor-in-Chief, though . . .

The librarian, Mary Ellen Emmons, pledged to “resist all efforts at censorship,” Ms. Kilkenny recalled.
Ms. Palin fired Ms. Emmons shortly after taking office but changed course after residents made a strong show of support. Ms. Emmons, who left her job and Wasilla a couple of years later, declined to comment for this article.

Is this a good time to mention BANNED BOOKS WEEK is almost upon us again? Will McCain-Palin be ready? I’m picturing a series of town meetings to explain how they know best for all of us, and we should just trust they’ll tell us whatever they feel we can be trusted with, when the time is right (obviously no questions would be allowed):

“Closing Books Shuts Out Ideas”
[Last year's theme was "Free People Read Freely!"]
September 27- October 4, 2008

Palin’s Ignorance Imperils the Whole Planet

The record offers worrisome evidence that the first woman to make it onto a Republican presidential ticket holds to this backward and wholly unscientific view of reality.

As reported in the Anchorage Daily News during her race for the governorship of Alaska, Sarah Palin offered up a classic anti-evolution answer when asked during a televised debate whether creationism should be taught with evolution in the public schools:

“Teach both,” Palin said.

“You know, don’t be afraid of information… I am a proponent of teaching both.”

“Teach both” and “teach the debate” have long been the mantras of the religious right and the Intelligent Design crowds, which have struggled over the years as court after court has batted down their efforts to inject unscientific teachings into the nation’s science classes.

The legal record suggests that Palin’s approach is not just ignorant of the facts, but a plain violation of the Constitutional boundary between church and state.

But wait, there’s more! Now how much would we pay, for dominionist-induced ignorance??

In addition to her unscientific views on evolution, Palin has said she does not believe that human activities are contributing to global climate change, a fact of planetary life on which the world’s best scientists have reached complete consensus.

“Parents Are Our First and Best Teachers”

. . .now that’s Power of Story.

I had to remind myself watching last night, that I’m non-partisan. Not a Democrat, not a Democrat, not a Democrat!

Mr. Obama’s half-sister, Maya Soetoro-Ng, talked about growing up in a family with little money, raised by a mother who was “an eternal optimist who understood that parents are our first and best teachers.”

. . .[Then Michelle Obama spoke] of her own family’s blue-collar past and spoke of her husband’s life as “a great American story.”

Better Education On Student Loans: Priceless!

See the NYT.

MOST people struggling to pay off their student loans keep quiet about it. They do not want to acknowledge that, perhaps in a fit of naïve, youthful optimism, they borrowed more than they could handle. . .
Usually, people do not learn just how powerfully the law protects student loans until something goes unexpectedly wrong in their lives.

More Kid Stuff: “Homeschool of Rock” or Video Gaming for Real

See Homeschool of Rock and if you have a teenager in the house, see also Bad Dad? Parents Let Son Drop Out to Pursue Gaming Career:

Blake seems like a bright kid, and his parents didn’t just let him drop out. He’s being tutored at home, gets high marks and has acquired, according to his parents, a remarkably improved disposition since the change.

Gee, no kidding!

[So] Blake seems happy with his home school arrangement, as you would expect from a teenager who is allowed to stay up into the wee hours to play video games. Sometimes, when Mike heads to the gym before 5 a.m., his son is still playing video games.
. . .when Blake’s older brother wanted to focus on football, they got him a trainer and the help he needed along that path, so why not give Blake the same chance? Their decision seems like a considered one, and both point out that even if Blake fails in this attempt, he’ll take valuable lessons away from the experience.

Yep. Like his life belongs to him and he can do ANYTHING with it.

Yo-Yo’s “Brainy Counterculture Vibe” Good for Homeschooling and America

Have you got this vibe going in your family? We do!

Evolved home education and most all forms of “alternative education” just go hand-in-hand with this vibe.  (Anti-intellectual church-driven school-at-home excepted, of course.)

I’ll bet your kids exude it too — Colleen’s long-haired Jerry, Not June Cleaver’s skateboarders, Nance’s two quintessential unschoolers, Doc’s quirky country fair quartet, Daryl’s dancers, COD’s fencer and equestrian. Heck, I was a brainy counterculture fencer myself, once upon a time. (The True Vibe can’t be contained, even in regular public school!)

Always unschooled Favorite Daughter and her mostly-schooled boyfriend were part of The World Yo-Yo Contest in Orlando. For five thrilling days, they were organizer Greg Cohen’s trusted roadies and grips and security behind the scenes, technical crew supporting and marveling at these brainy counterculture young boys and what they could do.

The contest from July 31 to Aug. 2 drew 196 competitors from 20 countries, mostly teenage boys, who exuded an unthreatening and brainy counterculture vibe. They looked like skateboarders stuck inside on a rainy day.

Many admitted to not quite fitting in back home, where no one seems to take the yo-yo as seriously as they do. Most dressed in black T-shirts and wore their hair long. They had callused middle fingers and forearms scarred by string marks, and often carried backpacks or hard cases filled with yo-yos, some costing hundreds of dollars.

The younger competitors were chaperoned by proud parents or grandparents, willing to keep their distance . . .

Passing guests invariably watched in wonder.

When she got home that Sunday night, FavD didn’t stop talking for hours. She planned to blog it all, when she could process it into power of story she could corral and tame.   So far that hasn’t happened, but maybe it will. If it doesn’t, that won’t mean it’s any less real. Maybe it means it’s MORE real than the same old standard stories. 

Today Barack Obama is in Orlando (although not literally with yo-yos, AFAIK.) Right now he is saying to the veterans’ group that “I believe the American people are better than that”, that our performance now must include “acting tough AND smart” to clean up the “calamity left behind” from the past eight years of George Bush and John McCain.

What I love about Obama is that he has the brainy counterculture yo-yo vibe going on. It’s like he’s speaking a whole new language as he explains the great new moves he’s working up to show us.  We’re all invited to join in and be part of something magical.

But just copying old tricks like churches and schools do, is not merely inadequate. It’s a loser move and everybody knows it, which means it’s downright embarrassing! Makes the audience uncomfortable even as they try to be polite and respectful.  Yes, John McCain, I’m talking to YOU.

Abortion Politics: Do You Really Want Kids To Think, or Just Believe?

“Why Should You Discuss Abortion?” was the topic at conservative evangelical dad Scott Somerville’s old blog. Here are some of my comments in that discussion:

I understand Scott to be saying this discussion is about how we can better educate homeschooled kids on the issues, not for arguing the issues ourselves.  Better!

So, holding tight to my “belief” that Scott does really “think” about tough issues, and means to encourage all homeschooled kids to do the same — I accept that he’s brought this up hoping to deepen their reasoning and understanding of how sex, religion and politics intersect and affect real lives.

In that positive and collegial spirit, and with great respect for every family’s right to accept or reject the input as they see fit, let me offer a couple of education resources that might be hard to come by otherwise, for conservative Christian homeschool kids. First, my own willingness to answer their questions and describe my own current perspective as a stay-at-home mom and unschooling non-partisan who believes that without respecting free will, nothing can be moral, that coercion and power imbalance can poison even the most moral human ideals.

And that choosing love in your own life can redeem even the most immoral. That applies to friendship, education, marriage, motherhood, public service, work, war and peace, and I think I’m prepared to argue, to salvation itself. 
Isn’t free will a basic tenet of Christianity?

So secondly, here are the two nonfiction books I recommend most highly for broadening homeschoolers’ education on this issue and starting to “reconcile” our polarized politics in favor of greater humanity and compassion for all life.

Where Child Abuse Hides and How It Might Heal, Sunday or Not

Here’s the church and here’s the steeple. Open the doors, and here’s all the people!

“A lot of survivors won’t go inside a church,” she said.
“So we wanted something that wouldn’t make people go inside.”

Odd and troubling power of story for a nursery rhyme with finger play, now that I stop to think about it. Doors work both ways, right? People flow out as well as in, back and forth freely without restraint? But my fingers don’t and can’t do that, they literally are of One Body — so those thumb-made church doors we played with as children weren’t really open at all, and all those funny little “people” I was delighted to see swaying together “inside” the church, were eternally attached to their seats inside. There wasn’t a single person outside and there never could be!

So the singsong rhyme taught us tangible, obvious truth that was a monstrous lie.

If you don’t remember that nursery rhyme, try an old-fashioned riddle.
How is Big School like Big Church?
People on the outside are leery of going in because they’ve learned one way of the other that people on the inside wish they’d either come in and shut the door behind them, or shut up and go away. Plenty of people both inside and outside resent the hell out of it all.

People wherever they are don’t all think and feel the same way. But most people in or out, for any reason, are able to remember that all people are well, still people!

I think it’s quite the metaphor for our most wrenching public policy concerns and contentions. I watched Rick Warren’s entire Saddleback event with McCain and Obama live last night, in his megachurch changing politics, and just marveled at how different people approach the same Big Questions, and how different observers hear their answers. . .

Here’s the haven deep and wide. Open the doors — and there’s no outside!
Here’s the children full of feeling. Open the doors and let’s call it healing.

Thy Will Be Done - Cook and Friend NOT Expelled From UCF

No expulsion for UCF student who stole Eucharist wafer

ORANGE COUNTY, Fla. (WOFL FOX 35, Orlando) — The University of Central Florida student who stole something sacred from a Catholic mass will not be kicked out of school.

On Tuesday, a panel of four students and two administrators, voted unanimously to dismiss all charges against Webster Cook and his friend Ben Collard, saying there was no hard evidence that the two did anything which would merit expulsion or suspension.

. . .Tuesday’s hearing took about seven hours, but the panel has two days to reverse that decision.

Cook’s impeachment hearing from the student Senate is scheduled for August 28.

Save Yourself From the Madness!

[shudder]
This from Teacher Magazine brings it all back, the mind-numbing, institutional-school crowd management obsession that blots out the sun of real childhood education.

The kindergarten teacher to whom Favorite Daughter was duly assigned back in 1995, obviously had followed such advice and was very well prepared with all these procedures. She did it so well in fact, she was so thoroughly caught up in her own professional pencil-sharpening planning and posted lists and signs, handouts and parent directions and furniture arrangements and supply requirements, that we both felt she just needed to be left to it — without us as individual mom and child with our pesky individual needs and wants, getting in her way!

Which is why in a nutshell, we’ve been blissfully learning without The First Day of School (even at home!) ever since.

McCain Could Pick a Real Mother of a Veep

Republicans wanting to draft Sarah Palin for veep are on the radar this week.

I don’t know who is she but after a couple of hours of knocking around the intertubes, I’m noticing she would fit right in with Bill Donohue’s Catholic League and Alberto Gonzales’ Justice Department hatchet-woman, Monica Goodling. Like them, is Palin the type willing to, shall we say, do what’s necessary?

She’s suddenly under fire for misusing her executive powers and personal influence, against her brother-in-law, the state trooper. Who was divorcing her kid sister.

Doesn’t this just make her the perfect nominee for Republicans, to be a (very) old man’s single heartbeat away from the First Woman Presidency? She will be ready and willing on Day One to misuse her executive power, no waiting for that pesky outsider’s learning curve!

ANCHORAGE, Alaska — When Sarah Palin was elected governor as a Republican outsider in 2006, she . . .vowed to clean up a long-cozy political system.

. . .Now, one of the bright new stars in the Republican Party has suddenly become tarnished. The state legislature this week voted to hire an independent investigator to see whether Ms. Palin abused her office by trying to get her former brother-in-law fired from his job as an Alaska state trooper.

“This is a governor who was almost impervious to error,” says Hollis French, a Democratic state senator. “Now she could face impeachment, in a worst-case scenario.”

The connection I personally draw between Palin and Donohue and Gonzales/Goodling, is how in power, they let their personal beliefs and desires run roughshod over others, individuals who do NOT rightfully belong to them to play God (or Godfather) with.

. . .”People see her as the symbol of purity in an atmosphere of corruption,” says Anchorage pollster Marc Hellenthal. “She is almost Saint Sarah.”

. . .The controversy now surrounding Ms. Palin stems from a messy divorce between state trooper Mike Wooten and his wife, Molly McCann, who is Ms. Palin’s younger sister.

. . .On July 11 of this year, Ms. Palin fired Department of Public Safety Commissioner Walt Monegan. Mr. Monegan then complained that she and her husband had pressured him to fire Mr. Wooten.

Ms. Palin, in a statement, denied that, saying she had removed the commissioner she had appointed 18 months earlier because she wanted “a new direction.”

Ms. Palin’s supporters dismiss the so-called Troopergate incident as trouble stoked by her enemies.

“Many of those who had been in positions of power and authority have been very envious over the past year and a half, with Ms. Palin’s great popularity,” says Soldotna Mayor David Carey.

Well, never mind what happened to the actual men whose careers were damaged by Palin’s self-justifying actions. Winning is the only thing that counts, right?

I never heard the woman’s name until this morning, so I looked around for clues to her character. Is she indeed Saint Sarah, fresh-faced military mom and public corruption crusader? One thing’s clear, she’s working class and no elite intellectual.

McCain to Urban League: Al Sharpton Better Than Obama On School Reform

John McCain is live on CNN right now, in my own swing state of Florida, speaking to the National Urban League.

He is saying that public school principals need more discretion in spending, which will reform public education. Then he criticizes “his opponent” for not signing onto the Education Equality Project (cochaired by Al Sharpton and Joel Klein.)

Nothin’ political about that, nope, nope.