The local CASA group is organizing to build a foster care shelter in our area. The shelter will include other facilities for CPS and law enforcement officials to handle SUSPECTED cases of abuse and neglect (the press releases related to this venture do not point out these are SUSPECTED cases, but rather treat them as founded). While CASA is a group that, properly trained, could make a substantive difference, they are trained on the presupposition that CPS never makes a mistake; that every child ...

Now I have the district, county and precincts out of the way. I mailed the required forms to the Secretary of State to be on the ballot in November. One more hurdle down on the race to the statehouse. I would like to point out that I am, technically ahead of Gubernatorial candidate Kinky Friedman in this regard, as he has yet to collect all the signatures necessary for ballot access. I am ahead not because I have worked harder, but because of the ballot access efforts of the Libertarian Part...

But for the grace of God, I could be serving out the remainder of my life in a prison somewhere rather than developing as a writer and running for political office. It's a world most don't know and, frankly, don't consider. A few days ago, I wrote an article detailing how some people NEED their hands held to get out of poverty. It met with all sorts of responses, and the quite legitimate point that it isn't the government's job to do that for MOST US citizens was brought up. But as I bro...

A news story yesterday revealed that my esteemed opponent in the upcoming race for Texas State House of Representatives is headed down to Austin to drum up his support for the school finance bill that will be the subject of the sixth special session of the state House and Senate to discuss this very issue. He's trying to be the knight in shining armour, declaring that he will cut property taxes to fund the schools, because the issue revolves around property taxes, state law, and a Texas Supreme ...

For some reason, I got to thinking back to a discussion about whether it was appropriate for aid agencies to teach budgeting, menu planning, and other skills to families applying for aid. The more I think about it, the more I realize it is not only appropriate, it is in some cases absolutely NECESSARY. No, I'm not watering down my libertarian philosophy and advocating for a nanny state. I am simply stating a matter of fact, gleaned from personal experience. See, I come from a world with w...

Ok, ok, so the title of this blog is misleading. I don't think anyone totally understands teenagers, and mine aren't teenagers yet, so I can't speak with authority, but I think I've figured something out. I can't use my own teenage years for a model because they were so dysfunctional they were hardly typical. But my oldest daughter is starting to take on the "teenage" traits (the moodiness, the sulking, the distancing herself from her younger siblings from time to time, the establishing of he...

Here in the Texas Panhandle, most of the November elections have been concluded. As of April 11, all but one county level office will have been decided. The reason? The Democrats have completely given up on the Texas Panhandle. They're not even running PAPER candidates for office, they've ceded the region altogether. The problem is, this is not the only area in the United States where this is the case. And while it's not just the Democrats who are doing it, they seem to be the more promin...

There are a lot of religious topics I don't discuss publicly. There's a reason for it. See, when I first logged onto the internet in 1997, I was like a kid in a candy store. Suddenly, my personally held religious beliefs didn't seem so marginal, as there was a message board and a chat room for just about everything (and more than a few things I'd rather not even think about). The problem is, there was a bit of "culture shock" in my adjustment to the medium. I treated my new "friends" pret...

As I am working on my diet again, I can't help but think of the things I am missing that I simply can't get around here. Some of those items require refrigeration, and probably wouldn't be practical to have shipped, but some of those things are shelf stable (at least if unopened), and can be shipped if I can find a good supplier. I'm listing some of them here so that those of you more familiar with the internet can direct me to good sites for supplies, if you have them. First up is soy sour c...

I received a message today that was at the same time encouraging and disheartening. A mother who has been fighting to have her children returned received notice that the children would be returned at the end of the school year. Excuse me? How can this be justified? These children BELONG with their biological family. They were taken through UnConstitutional actions of the state to begin with, and they were taken without regard to the emotional well being of the family and the children. The ...

We've all heard the stories in the months since Hurricane Katrina -- children affected by the tragedy, whose parents couldn't be found, rescued by the "knights in shining armour" of Child Protective Services. As the dust has settled on the hurricane, I'm inclined to think that most of the stories we have heard have been little more than finely grouns bovine excrement. We should be very suspicious here. While I was always suspicious, I chalk that up to my being a cynic, as well as being a ...

We all have them. House rules for our favorite board games to make the games more interesting from our perspective. I detailed a few of mine in my article on monopoly and economics, and chip detailed a few of his in his "Calvinopoly" post. Probably my favorite house rules of all time were appropriated to games like "Risk" and "Axis and Allies". You see, we liked to make the game interesting by making EVERY land space on the globe available for occupation, including Antarctica. In our games, ...

NFL commish Paul Tagliabue has announced is retirement in July ( Link ). Tagliabue, whose tenure began in 1989 when he succeeded Pete Rozelle, is staying on until NFL labor talks are complete. As an NFL fan, I can't say I'll particularly miss him, but it does seem like another era is over. Now if we can only inspire MLB's Bud Selig to follow suit, we'd be set.

Lately I've been feeling less than optimal. I've had a couple health scares, but I know what I need to know to monitor my own health to know that they are just that: scares. But I'm also smart enough to realize that those scares are there for a reason: if you don't watch out, they quickly become a reality. So I'm working on shedding pounds again. I've maintained within 20 pounds of my current weight for almost two years (losing about 100 pounds to get here), so now I'm going for my goal weigh...

When 7 year old Autumn Ashante of New York City was honored by being asked to present her poem for Black History Month, it would seem at the surface that this was a deserving honor like the so many we use to encourage our children. Instead, the school district was giving a pulpit to a racist. After asking all blacks in the classroom to stand (and humiliating the non-blacks by insisting they sit), Ashante led them in the "Black Children's Anthem", a nice little propaganda piece brought to us cou...