Protest Earth Hour!

If you don't like politicians using unscientific hype to undermine our liberty, keep your lights on tonight! See Best of the Web for more info!

the future for our kids

READ THIS
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/first100days/2009/03/25/does-national-debt-mean-g/

AND WATCH THIS
http://kanniescogitations.blogspot.com/2009/03/eloquence-at-work-and-not-just-because.html

Two things I saw only today that seem very relevant to the situation in our country, and others which are trying to spend their way out of debt.

Just for fun

spoiler alert--though I know that if you read my blog, you have probably read it...

I finished reading Atlas Shrugged last night (morning, really) at 4 a.m. To be honest, I skimmed through the last 200 pages, reading enough to know how the plot would be resolved and skipping over the philosophical arguments, including John Galt's three hour speech, having figured out Rand's message early on.

But I digress. Reading this article in the WSJ is what prompted me to read Atlas Shrugged. And in the article, it mentions long-awaited plans to make the book into a movie. Further research on wikipedia indicated that the latest (and hopefully shelved) attempt at this had Angelina Jolie cast as the indomitable heroin, Dagney Taggart. Angelina Jolie!!! A comment found on imdb.com said that casting her as Dagney was the equivalent of Michael Moore playing General Patton!

Granted, ANYONE from Hollywood would contradict their public persona by taking on the role of a "greedy" capitalist, which is why I would hope they could be good actors, and do justice to a role whether or not they agreed with the character's creeds. But Angelina looks NOTHING like the Dagney Taggart pictured in my mind!

If I were a casting director, here's who I would choose (assuming A-list actors would be willing to take some small roles)!

Dagney: Cate Blanchett
Hank Rearden: Daniel Craig
Francisco d' Anconia: Javier Bardem!
John Galt: Brad Pitt
Cheryl: Amy Adams
Lilian:
Jim Taggart: William Dafoe
Ragnar the pirate: ???
Hugh Akston: Morgan Freeman?
Orren Boyle: ?
Wesley Mouch: Philip Seymour Hoffman
Robert Stadler: ?
Eddie Willers: ?

Does anyone want to play this game and submit their own casting choices for any of the numerous characters?

Anniversary: One Fine Day

by Walter McDonald

Who would sit through a plot as preposterous as ours,
married after years apart? Chance meetings may work
early in stories, but at operas, darling, in Texas?
A bachelor pilot, I fled Laredo for the weekend,
stopping at the opera from boredom, music I least expected.
Of all the zoos and honky-tonks south of Dallas,
who would believe I would find you there on the stairs,

Madame Butterfly about to start? When you moved
four years before, I lost all hope of dying happy,
dogfighting my way through pilot training, reckless,
in terror only when I saw the man beside you.
I had pictured him rich and splendid in my mind
a thousand times, thinking you married with babies
somewhere in Tahiti, Spain, the south of France.

When I saw the lucky devil I hated—only your date,
but I didn't know—he stopped gloating, watching you wave,
turned old and bitter like the crone in Shangri La.
Destiny happens only in plays and cheap movies—
but here, here on my desk is your photo, decades later,
and I hear sounds from another room of our house,
and when I rise amazed and follow, you are there.

a different view

I happened upon this article today, defending one earmark contained in the Omnibus bill to help Utah out with it's Mormon Cricket problem.

Having grown up on pioneer stories, I am of course familiar with the miracle in which seagulls descended upon the menacing crickets and saved the Utah settlers from starvation and, no doubt, insanity.

Which brings me to wonder more about the earmark process--what is it, and why is it such a bad word that no one dares say, but will usually gladly accept.

Having apparently given up on another miracle to save the day, or living by the adage, "the Lord helps those who help themselves," ranchers are relying on politicians to help them out. I can see why this would be so--they likely can't afford the expansive yearly project, and they can't afford to do without it. That they are living in Utah is in large part due to the extermination order given by Missouri Governor Boggs and the failure of the federal government to defend the Mormons as they were driven away from their homes in Nauvoo, across the plains to the ugly and desolate Salt Lake Valley.

I'm sure that most Senators have a well thought-out defense for their earmark requests--though I can't say I agree with the Idaho Senator who secured money for some historical museum that I've never heard of.

Maybe the money could come from another more palatable source--maybe Utah could be declared a natural disaster every Summer and get Federal Emergency funding. Maybe they could secure another earmark for the research and support of seagulls.

Adam's Curse

by William Butler Yeats

We sat together at one summer's end,
That beautiful mild woman, your close friend,
And you and I, and talked of poetry.
I said, 'A line will take us hours maybe;
Yet if it does not seem a moment's thought,

Our stitching and unstitching has been naught.
Better go down upon your marrow-bones
And scrub a kitchen pavement, or break stones
Like an old pauper, in all kinds of weather;
For to articulate sweet sounds together
Is to work harder than all these, and yet
Be thought an idler by the noisy set
Of bankers, schoolmasters, and clergymen
The martyrs call the world.'

And thereupon
That beautiful mild woman for whose sake
There's many a one shall find out all heartache
On finding that her voice is sweet and low
Replied, 'To be born woman is to know—
Although they do not talk of it at school—
That we must labour to be beautiful.'

I said, 'It's certain there is no fine thing
Since Adam's fall but needs much labouring.
There have been lovers who thought love should be
So much compounded of high courtesy
That they would sigh and quote with learned looks
Precedents out of beautiful old books;
Yet now it seems an idle trade enough.'

We sat grown quiet at the name of love;
We saw the last embers of daylight die,
And in the trembling blue-green of the sky
A moon, worn as if it had been a shell
Washed by time's waters as they rose and fell
About the stars and broke in days and years.

I had a thought for no one's but your ears:
That you were beautiful, and that I strove
To love you in the old high way of love;
That it had all seemed happy, and yet we'd grown
As weary-hearted as that hollow moon.

Not One Thing

We've passed Obama's first 50 days in office, and I don't think there's a single thing that he has done that I agree with. I cannot think of one. Call me an alarmist for feeling so much gloom about this Presidency, but then give me an example of something he has done which will bring us "life, liberty or the pursuit of happiness." If you can, please do.

Off the top of my head:
*He has reversed the ban on federal funding for oversea abortions.
*He has taken the country into greater debt we have ever seen. Don't buy his clever little quip about inheriting the deficit from Bush. He has already outspent Bush's ENTIRE eight years in less than two months. If you don't agree with Bush's spending, how can you spend so much more and continue to pin the blame on Bush?
*He signed another spending bill loaded with "earmarks," barely admitting that the bill went against his campaign promises.
*He treated Great Britain's Prime Minister abominably, presenting our greatest ally with an embarassing gift of 25 DVD's, and cancelling a joint press conference.
*He has allowed school vouchers to be ceased via the Omnibus bill, courtesy Dick Durbin.
*Attacked Rush Limbaugh, misquoting him in order to create a distraction on his disastrous beginning as president.
*He has promised to raise taxes on productive members of society, calling them "the rich" as if it were a bad word.
*He is bailing out bad mortgages with, again, our taxes.
*He is reducing tax incentives for charitable giving.

The list could go on. The latest to hit hit the headlines is his reversal of Bush's policy on Embryonic Stem Cell funding. People mistakenly believe that Bush outlawed research on Embryonic Stem Cells. He did not. He only denied it federal dollars (tax revenue). He said it was in the name of "science." Science showed us that adult stem cells were more effective than Embryonic Stem Cells. If embryonic stem cell research was so promising, how come more private companies haven't been jumping all over it to make their millions? This isn't about Science, Obama.

As if he were reading my mind (it's comforting to know that there are many voices like mine which are being heard), Obama responded by mocking dissenters. Along with Rush Limbaugh, Dick Cheney and Laura Bush are popular White House targets. Very professional, indeed. Obama suggested that people like me would have him do nothing at all. Actually...he's right.

a step backwards for parents and homeschoolers

I think this is an example of how socialism punishes those who excel. In spite of the fact that these children tested ABOVE their age level, a North Carolina judge decided it was in the children's best interest to attend public school--for "social" reasons.

Now, my main concerns with homeschooling are, in fact, social. A close second is that my kids exhibit a strong reluctance to learn anything from their mother. HOWEVER--this should be a parent's perogative, NOT a decision that should be decided in a courtroom.

HAHAHAHAHA

A much needed laugh on Fox opinion.

update

After noting Butch Otter named alongside the likes of Bobby Jindal and other honest Republican Governors for speaking out against the stimulus bill, I sent Butch a note supporting him in rejecting bailout money.

Did I speak too soon? Today I got a letter from the Governor in response to my email, and it was confirmed in an article in the Idaho Statesman, describing how he has put together an 8-member panel to decide how to use the stimulus money from the Feds.

In the letter, I was assured none of the money would be used to permantly enlarge (oh, an image of Viagra just flashed across my mind--get it out!) any government programs, just to take advantage of our state's allotment. In the Statesman article, a good section is spent describing how hospitals will benefit, due to increased Medicare funding. That doesn't make sense to me. How is a government program not growing?

Should we accept any money from the Feds? Earmarked money from the latest Omnibus bill, or from the ginormous spendulus plan? Should we reject all money on principle, or should we go along with most politicians who say, "as long as the money is being handed out, we want a piece of it?"

From Writer's Almanac

It's the birthday of the poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, born in Portland, Maine, 1807. He went to Bowdoin College and became a scholar of literature and modern languages. In 1826, he traveled to Europe to study German, French, Spanish, and Italian. He got married, and in 1835 he returned to Europe to learn Scandinavian languages, but his wife came with him, and she had a miscarriage and died in the Netherlands. He fell in love again, with a young woman named Fanny Appleton, but she rejected his marriage proposal. So grieving for his first wife, despairing over Fanny's refusal, he threw himself into his work and became a popular American poet.

In 1843, Fanny agreed to marry Henry after all. They were very happy, they had six children, and Fanny helped her husband with his work. Longfellow wrote incredibly successful book-length poems, like Evangeline (1847), about separated lovers in Nova Scotia, and The Song of Hiawatha (1855), about an Ojibwe leader. Whenever he published a book of poetry, it would sell out almost immediately.

But in 1861, Fanny Longfellow was using sealing wax and her dress caught on fire. Longfellow rushed in from the next room and tried to smother the fire by throwing his arms around his wife. But Fanny died the next day, and Longfellow was heartbroken. He wrote "The Cross of Snow" in her memory.

The Cross of Snow
by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

In the long, sleepless watches of the night,
A gentle face—the face of one long dead—
Looks at me from the wall, where round its head
The night-lamp casts a halo of pale light.
Here in this room she died; and soul more white
Never through martyrdom of fire was led
To its repose; nor can in books be read
The legend of a life more benedight.
There is a mountain in the distant West
That, sun-defying, in its deep ravines
Displays a cross of snow upon its side.
Such is the cross I wear upon my breast
These eighteen years, through all the changing scenes
And seasons, changeless since the day she died.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123561668718178625.html

more for my collection of articles about education.

Bridal Shower, by George Bilgere

Perhaps, in a distant café,
four or five people are talking
with the four or five people
who are chatting on their cell phones this morning
in my favorite café.

And perhaps someone there,
someone like me, is watching them as they frown,
or smile, or shrug
at their invisible friends or lovers,
jabbing the air for emphasis.

And, like me, he misses the old days,
when talking to yourself
meant you were crazy,
back when being crazy was a big deal,
not just an acronym
or something you could take a pill for.

I liked it
when people who were talking to themselves
might actually have been talking to God
or an angel.
You respected people like that.

You didn't want to kill them,
as I want to kill the woman at the next table
with the little blue light on her ear
who has been telling the emptiness in front of her
about her daughter's bridal shower
in astonishing detail
for the past thirty minutes.

O person like me,
phoneless in your distant café,
I wish we could meet to discuss this,
and perhaps you would help me
murder this woman on her cell phone,

after which we could have a cup of coffee,
maybe a bagel, and talk to each other,
face to face.