Before I begin, let me apologize for once again gracing the pages of JU. I promised I would leave, and I fully meant it up until I discovered a couple of (two months old) messages from former JUers. As many of you know, there was a great deal of conflict that erupted over things that occurred between me and the family of another JU member almost three years ago. While many lies were spread (such as the fact that I NEVER raised my children in a home without utilities or had my wife isolated wi...
Several years ago, my brother manned a suicide hotline. In the course of doing this, he would often refer troubled callers to the Covenant House for help. About the same time, I was seriously considering giving a year's service to the Covenant House. I had received the paperwork and was looking it over and it was a topic of discussion among us (we were sharing a place at the time). One of the requirements of the Covenant House is that its volunteers must spend a specified amount of time in pr...
I've finally found the political compromise that will end the smoking debate once and for all. And I actually have Al Gore to thank for it. It will also add the benefit of helping to solve our national health care issues in the process. So it's a win for everyone. The plan is modelled after Gore's "Carbon Credits" plan. The idea of the carbon credits, for the uninitiated, is that you pay for the pollution you create. It's kind of a special indulgence for the new millenium (if you don't kno...
The state of Texas reported a few weeks ago that two of the children seized in the raid of the FLDS ranch were pregnant and about to give birth. Now, they are admitting that one of the young ladies was of age. The woman, Pamela Jeffs, it turns out, is 18. And the article goes on to say that the other young woman also may be 18. The question, then, is what did Texas officials know and when did they know it? If these women lied about their ages to obstruct, then there's really not much that ...
I'm not a big fan of sex education in the schools. I think it's a shame that it is even debatable as a necessity, and I almost always disagree with the perspectives of those teaching it. Ideally, sex education should be taught at home in a proper environment. But it's that word "ideally" that muddies the waters. And it is because of that that abstinence only sex education should not be the choice for public schools. See, I'm among the crowd that refuses to concede failure. I am not going t...
I heard an educator this past week report that high school dropouts are at an all time high. A few google searches seem to confirm this; that as recently as 2003, only 70% of our high school students are getting their degree in four years. While it's hard to find reliable stats for the last few years (in part because some of the students may go back), it seems this trend is indeed occurring among our young children. The irony is that this apparent epidemic is not even mentioned in the nationa...
In about 8 1/2 hours, I will walk out of this office for good. I will unload my truck, head home, and we will load it once again and head up to a new house, new college, and Monday, to a new job. It's a process I've undergone many, many times in my life. Although most of my other moves have been somewhat more tumultuous, I have to say, orchestrating a "smooth" move isn't any easier. We've had the school squared away for two months, the job squared away for one month, and the house squared awa...
(Note. This is a rant. This is only a rant. While it was triggered specifically by a response by a specific individual, some of the comments in here are very general and do not represent my feelings towards that individual, whom I generally like despite our disagreements). There's a trend on the Internet that has me pissed off. It's a trend for us to look at any post on the Internet that is written with proper grammar and spelling and a smidgen of intelligence as having the weight of law. ...
Last semester ended on a high note for me, a low note for some of my colleagues. Not only did I finish my Associates maintaining a 4.0 through all three semesters that I attended this college, but I got my Network+ certification. And the "rest of the story" is where the topic of this article is going. The first year students were able, through an arrangement with the college, to get one free shot at their first A+ exam. Always looking for an angle, I approached my instructor about extending t...
About 7 years ago, I sat in a marketing "class". Oh, don't get me wrong, it contained a lot of good information. A lot of VERY good information, in fact, that I use to this day. But the marketing class was just a sales pitch for the latest Internet marketing company that had set up shop. At the end of the day, we all received a very nice quality certificate, printed out on quality parchment paper. It was well presented, but all it was, effectively, was a sales pitch. It was at the moment t...
Yesterday, in the land of the free and the home of the brave, federal agents arrested one Bernard Van NotHaus, seized his computer and all of his property. Nothaus' crime? Producing an alternative currency known as the Liberty Dollar. Unlike the money that has been produced for years by the Federal Reserve Bank, the Liberty Dollar was based on gold and silver standards, the way money had been minted for thousands of years before our government decided to write us what are essentially promissa...
I've always had people appreciate my ear for music. Before I sang, I would have people buy me beers to select the playlist on the jukebox. When I started singing but before I began playing, I would have people buy me drinks to sing their favorite song on karaoke. But a couple of weeks ago, I received my first buck as a musician. A friend had come in from out of town and I was at work. I went to meet him after I was done at work. He was at a restaurant, which was closing. I pulled into the par...
On another forum I frequent, the question was asked about fingerprinting children as a form of ID to speed up the lunch line. I’m going to leave you with your thoughts on that, while I take a few steps back. When I was in high school, we read the standard dystopian novels. Orwell’s “1984” and Huxleys “Brave New World” were required reading, especially among the G/T set, which is where I spent much of my academic career. It was years ago when Ritalin and Prozac be...
One of the pitfalls of IT is that the demand is strong enough, a lot of people get hired out before they get their degrees, then never go back and finish. I'm trying to avoid that. But I got a clipping yesterday I can't ignore entirely. It is an IT position, and I am almost the perfect candidate. My only shortcoming is that it requires an Associates degree, and I am 3 months short. But since I can make it work with my schedule, I will at least discuss the position with these guys. After all, ...
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070909/ap_on_fe_st/odd_salty_burger In Union City, Georgia, a McDonald's employee was arrested because meat that she had oversalted was served to a police officer. The officer claimed it made him sick, and samples of the burger were sent to a state crime lab. Kendra Bull is free on $1000 bail. She is charged with misdemeanor reckless conduct. The rest of the news you can get there. What follows is my opinion. This story is an example of absolute insanit...