Many years ago, I considered myself a pacifist. As a teenager, I dealt with a father who avoided culpability for abusing me by sicking my older brother on me and standing back watching. I would run from the fight, and when my brother would complain, I would protest that I was a pacifist and wouldn't fight. My father, the consummate liberal, sneered, "A REAL pacifist wouldn't RUN from a fight". And so I stood there and took the beatings, without fighting back. Which is, I believe, precis...
Lyndon Johnson stole something substantial from America and I want it back. As even the most amateur of historians knows, Johnson was the architect of "the Great Society". The idea of this socialist piece of propaganda was that everyone in America was owed a certain standard of living, no matter how little they contributed to the society at large, and that the federal government would simply increase taxation until that dream was realized. Forty years later, a whole generation has come o...
Link Ok, so now the FDA's fessing up to Paxil's suicide risk in young adults. While I find this ironic, I also find it tragic because of the lost lives over the years of doctors overprescribing antidepressants to individuals. I know all about depression. I've dealt with the worst of it. One of the reasons I haven't spend an inordinate time seeking help whenever I'm in a depressed state is because I have seen what these drugs have done to my family. While I have no problem with someone g...
I have a confession to make. I have not read "The Da Vinci Code". Nor, in fact, do I intend to. An even greater blasphemy is laid to my credit when I confess that I will also not be seeing the movie. There will be a tendency for those among you to assume that my decision has something to do with my rather conservative religious leanings. Not so. The reason I haven't read the book and will not be seeing the movie is quite a novel one, actually. It is the fact that I am simply not interested. L...
Homeschooling has its "toughlove" moments, as I am discovering with my extremely bright but underperforming, "edge of 11" year old daughter. As she is struggling to find her identity, she is slipping into rebellion that is not atypical of the age. This past year has seen us deal with plagiarism and constant redirects to encourage her to finish her assignments. Her assignments have deteriorated in quality, rather than improve. And so yesterday was the time to put the hammer down. I informed he...
As the debate on the Harvard undergrad's discovered plagiarism continues, I find it compelling that so much time has been spent arguing that she should not be punished for her actions, when we spend so much time pursuing pirates. While I'm not a fan of punishing the small time music downloading college kid, I do believe that those engaged in commercial software and movie piracy, among other things, should be punished pretty heavily, as do most Americans. So I find it compellingly odd that the...
George Clooney tops my list of interesting celebrities. While I don't hold the same political views as him much of the time, I respect the fact that he takes the opportunity to actually LEARN about something before speaking off the cuff about it (much of the time, anyway). And, to my own surprise, I am agreeing with him on the need for US involvement in Darfur. But Clooney has missed something. You see, the reasons we should get involved in Darfur are the same reasons we were right to get inv...
Found this source of interest here ( Link ) (Come on...in an article on plagiarism, you didn't think I'd take extra care to provide the link?). With the debate on the discovered plagiarism of Harvard undergrad Kavvyaa Viswanathan, I thought it would be prudent to research the esteemed university's policies. While the policy on plagiarism deals with work submitted for credit, compelling justification for action by Harvard can be found in its general regulations (all emboldened type added by ...
Barry Bonds is on the tail end of a career that will quite likely see him enshrined in the Hall of Fame. While Bonds is a great athlete, he became so with the help of steroids, and passed many people who worked hard to get up the homerun list without chemical enhancement. While there are a number of fans who feel Bonds should not be in the Hall, the number of fans who are cheering him on to the record regardless seem to be shouting louder. Kavvya Viswanathan, a Harvard undergraduate, is a new...
As events seem to heighten with Islamis terrorists throughout the world, it would seem that the doomsayers would have cause for their predictions. After all, islamofascist violence is on the upswing, and we don't hear enough of the sane voices of Islam speaking out against these individuals. As negative as things might seem, though, I believe that Islam is going through a growth process that is as common to religion as it is painful. They are going through a reformation, and a battle between ...
In the case of the Harvard undergrad, one blogger began pleading her case for a second chance. Another blogger has been staunchly rallying to her cause. But the question is, DOES she deserve a "second chance" with Harvard University? While there's a tendency for most of us pedestrian Americans to dismiss Harvard students as a bunch of "preppy snobs" (out of jealousy mainly, methinks), the fact is, they have a high standard for admission for most Americans. Granted, they let in their share of ...
With the climb in gas prices at the pump, it is only common sense that we need a vast change in our way of living to bring them back down, or at least, check their double digit inflation. But it's not a "Republican" issue, as some would have you believe. While Democratic spinsters have successfully spun the blame to Bush, just as GOP spinsters successfully spun the blame for the 2000 spike to Clinton, the truth is, it is ALL of our policymakers, of both parties, but notably among the democrats w...
It's the dawning of a new day. Apparently, some 30 people in Nigeria have all selected me to move their money to America via my bank account! What an honor! Along with the various offers for viagra and numerous marriage proposals (related? Naaaah, I'd figure a woman would be looking for a mate who DIDN'T need chemical assistance to perform), are the multiple emails written in Cyrillic characters. I have no idea what they say, but if the person had to send it off so quickly they couldn't bothe...
It's the dawning of a new day. Apparently, some 30 people in Nigeria have all selected me to move their money to America via my bank account! What an honor! Along with the various offers for viagra and numerous marriage proposals (related? Naaaah, I'd figure a woman would be looking for a mate who DIDN'T need chemical assistance to perform), are the multiple emails written in Cyrillic characters. I have no idea what they say, but if the person had to send it off so quickly they couldn't bothe...
In this PC world, it is becoming increasingly obvious we need someone to jeer, to make fun of. Our collective self image is so low, so debased, that we cannot manage when someone's jokes target our disability, ethnicity, gender, sexual preference, cola preference, you name it. In that spirit, I would like to unveil my new business concept: Professional Victims, Inc. The idea is that, for a fee, someone will step up to be a victim you can humiliate, deride, kick in the shins, you name it. You ...