Forums Expose Failure in Education System

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Oh, boy. I'm channeling my gramps here, but when did we lose our way? Every now and again, I take a stroll down a forum, just to take the pulse of the internet populous. It's always a mistake because it destroys my carefully and painfully maintained hope that "In spite of it all, people are really good at heart". Annie, my girl, we can only hope.

Flossophy, a truly great thinker, posted this to an article on the Shepard Hate Crime Bill being attached to a defense bill which had a significant number of GOP no votes. "I'm looking forward to a world of mixed r@ce people. It'll make these ha'te crimes laws seem silly." First, Mr. Flossophy ( if that is your real name), you are a "mixed race person" as am I. Science tells us so. Second, where is the eloquence?

The issue of hate crimes is a legal issue built around a real problem. It simply means that if your motive was an irrational hatred of another person, your crime just got "bumped up". It doesn't imply any value judgment of a person's race, creed, color or orientation. It simply ups the ante on the crime. In schools, it would be referred to as a "No Tolerance" policy.

I'm rambling. My point is that we as a people should know this. It's simple everyday common sense, like the location of Canada and the name of our first president. Thomas Jefferson (Not our first president, by the way!) once said, "To penetrate and dissipate these clouds of darkness, the general mind must be strengthened by education." Oh, ain't it the truth!

Read more at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/10/22/35-gop-senators-vote-agai_n_330376.html



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"Wimpy Kid" Fan Asks for Mom Bucks- Film at eleven!

Obviously, I don't spend a lot of my time reading juvenile literature, but I do spend quite a bit looking for it, buying it and hoping like heck my son will read it. There's the off chance that the bookworm gene skips a generation. However, this last development floored me.

My son who never cleans anything without 30 minutes of whine time, asked for Mom Bucks. "What are those?" I asked. Ten minutes later, he'd given me a detailed explanation complete with page excerpts.

Mom Bucks, it seems, are given for any praise-worthy action on the part of kids everywhere. Moms then cash those bucks in at a value of roughly a penny a piece. Well, I'm not going to discourage the pursuit of knowledge found in books, so I've made us MOM BUCKS which are here for others to use. We'll let everyone know how it goes, but one thing must be said: Yay, Books!

Fan fiction is my muse?

Image by NMCIL ortiz domney via Flickr

I think it worked. Not that I doubted my buddy, Charlotte, but I kind of doubted her. She suggested fan fiction as a way to break through the mire in my mind, so I took a stab at it.

However not needing to worry about the details, this makes the plot so much easier to write and allows you to focus on characters, dialogue and everything else.

Fan fiction belongs to the originator, so they can take your ideas and run with them, not that they usually need them. I went with a game I play online called Core Exiles. You can use any story line that you like with the understanding that your writing ultimately doesn't belong to you, and you can be asked to cease and desist.

A Dark Blog

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Okay, you're thinking Goth, right? Two slayers meet at midnight? That sort of thing? Wrong.

About the time I find one ( a blog) I like to read, it goes dark. When a blog goes dark, it crawls back into the underbelly of the internet and is never updated again. Poor blogs! Poor readers!

Where's the staying power? Where's the determination? I feel that good bloggers make a commitment. Whatever the subject, a nice snarky read can't be replaced overnight.

When I get the urge to read and don't have a book, the blog is meeting my need. I hate magazines. Not sure why. There's never been a mag to hold my attention. However, a delightful blog update completes a cup of coffee. As you can tell, I also have a problem with commitment. Then again, this isn't really a nice snarky blog . . . yet.

15 Minutes of Autism a Day: Here we go

15 Minutes of Autism a Day: Here we go