While I have a spare second (between wrangling puppies and doctorin’ goats).
If you have a cat, or even a special dog, but a cat is better - give him/her an extra hug today.
Thanks.
And I really can’t comment on either in a “reasoned” way. I wasn’t even going to write about it. But then I was assaulted by an unreasonably stupid person, and felt that if I addressed one, I should address the other.
When I was very, very sick, chemo was both killing me and keeping me alive. Killing the cancer, but preventing me from eating. Preventing me from being well enough for medical science to kill off my immune system so I could have a bone marrow transplant. It was a delicate balance and I was losing.
Then people in my community started praying for me. Hard. And coming to see me and telling me they were praying for me. I would croak out that I wasn’t Christian so I didn’t think their God was interested in me, but that didn’t deter them. About two weeks after they started praying, I suddenly got well enough for the BMT process. And here I am today.
So, maybe it was the prayer, maybe it was coincidence, maybe it was me not wanting to let my neighbors down. I don’t know. I don’t care either. If people want to pray for me, that’s fine.
However, I don’t think it’s practical for the government to call for a special day of prayer. People who pray do it when they want to, not when the government tells them to. What the government is doing by calling for a special day of prayer is drawing attention to the act of prayer, giving the populace both a directive and permission, which is absolutely against the original purpose of prayer, which is a personal communication with the supreme being of choice. What does the bible say about prayer?
Matthew 6:6-6:8
6But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you. 7And when you pray, do not keep on babbling like pagans, for they think they will be heard because of their many words. 8Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him.
I’m not against prayer. I think anyone should be able to pray anytime they want, because if they’re doing it according to scripture - nobody knows they’re doing it. I think the government calling for a special day of prayer seriously undermines the separation of church and state, but in the end, as long as they don’t spend any money on it, I don’t care if a bunch of theistards stand around in public praying - cuz according to scripture, God’s ignoring them.
Now, as for the reason part - finding reason in today’s society is rare. It’s obviously not taught, and it’s obviously not something people come by naturally. Today, I encountered one of the most unreasonable requests I’ve had in a long ass time - and I get more than my share of unreasonable requests, living in a virtual group home of teenagers.
Stay with me, because this gets complicated. I have a sick goat. I found her last night, and her symptoms stumped me. Stumped me after I consulted my Mercks vet manual, after I contacted the vet, and after I searched the Internet. In desperation, I consulted a dairy goat message board - ONLY because I value the advice and opinion of one particular poster. Now, I’ve had goats for long enough to encounter the most common ailments, treat them, and feel confident enough that most people in my county (including the vet) call me when they have a goat problem. So, I break down and post on this board. I’ve avoided it except for desperate situations because the people there are mostly new and obsessed with CAE (a rare and mostly asymptomatic disease of goats which poses no threat to humans). I get a couple of predictably stupid responses (which I ignore), and then get some help, and go tend to the goat. When I check back, I have a nasty-gram from some idiot moderator that demands I start signing my posts (all 5 of them in the last year) with my real name because, as she says, some posters feel more comfortable if they know who they’re talking to. I replied that I would not be signing my real name, that Doc would have to suffice, and that I thought it was a stupid rule. I then posted to my thread that my name was Doc and if that didn’t satisfy anyone, too bad.
I’m now in “time out” and I will probably be banned. She called me “hostile”.
Where’s the reasoning behind signing your “real name” on an advice-type message board, instead of the pseudonym that most people know you by?
On this, Day of Reason, Doc is questioning the reasoning ability of quite a number of people. This of course, is just one example. Most of my rants belong in the category of “stupid, unreasonable people”. Got logic? Welcome! Are you a fucktard? GET OFF MY LAWN!!!
The goat’s still sickly, so maybe those of you who pray? Get with it.
I entered college without much science. In fact, I entered college with virtually no science, and very little math.
My parents traveled a lot for my father’s job; until I was 13 we never stayed in one place longer than a few weeks, except for a couple of months each late summer when we returned to the family compound to help with the wheat harvest.
My mother homeschooled us children, using library books and correspondence lessons from a catholic organization. I started reading at about 4 and so mostly, I read books. When my father’s health forced him to take on less stressful work, we settled into a neighborhood and I began attending a local Catholic girl’s school. My older brothers had all left home for college by then (where their total lack of organized schooling was never a question - I have no idea what the entrance requirements were in the late 60’s, early 70’s - my brothers all became professionals, two doctors, a lawyer, an architect, a teacher, an accountant)
Apparently my lack of socialization and academics didn’t make much of an impact, I remember having lots of friends, going to slumber parties, skating parties, horse back riding parties, all the normal things girls did on weekend in the early 70’s. We listened to three dog night (one is the loneliest number!) and sang along to Rod Stewart’s Maggie May when it came on the radio. I was on the honor roll every term. I played sports. I don’t remember science. I barely remember math.
Okay, we had “ecology of Oregon” in 8th grade, remembered only because of the backpacking trip that ended the class. I took some kind of rudimentary general science in 9th or 10th grade, but science isn’t real important at a Catholic girl’s school. Lots of English, literature, and just enough math to pass whatever requirements Oregon had in 1977, the year I graduated (with honors). I never took chemistry, physics, or advanced math. I think Algebra II was it. I did take honors Latin though!
I entered college and took classes designed to turn me into an electrical tech, something I figured I could get a job doing so I could afford more school. My parents would have sent me to university but I was stubborn in a weird way and wanted to do everything on my own (and the apples don’t fall far from the tree around here, sigh). I had to take more math, which wasn’t a problem because apparently all my public school peers didn’t take enough math either and we were all in the same classes. In two years of community college I somehow battered my way through a bunch of electronics courses (with no science background) and advanced math (calculus and trig) without understanding that I was unprepared - because the classes were full and we all seemed to be on the same page academically. I passed all my courses with A’s.
I’ve always wondered how one is supposed to be prepared for a class they haven’t yet taken. If you already know the material, why take the class?
I went to work for a huge electronics company in Oregon, you can guess which one if you’d like. They had tuition reimbursement and I took full advantage, working and going to school. Somewhere along the way to what I assumed would be an electrical engineering degree, I had to take biology to complete a stupid science requirement. Biology! Ugh. Bugs and dissecting frogs. Three weeks into the course I was hooked. I quit my job at big name electronics, applied for student aid, took every biology class (and microbiology, chemistry, physics, anatomy, pre med, and pseudo science like sociology and behavioral science) class the university offered. I transferred to Oregon state and took even MORE science. I kept graduating and then going back for more, until they got sick of me and made me start teaching classes and doing research. I guess that wasn’t so bad.
The real point is, it didn’t matter if I was “prepared” or that I’d had very little science and math. I took them in college. If I’d had more math and science, I’d still have had to take them in college for the undergrad requirements. If every student in public school is so much more prepared academically, then why do they offer 100 level science and maths, and why are those classes always full? I can guarantee you this - not once did any of my professors ask me about my previous schooling - since I was in their lower level class, they assumed I didn’t know anything and taught me. It wasn’t a big deal.
And I can also tell you this - 99% of the time, I never knew my own students academic background. They may as well have all come from caves. They were in my class, and either I taught them, or they figured out the class was too high a level and they dropped down. Or it was too easy and they withdrew and took a higher level. I didn’t ask them if they were homeschooled - the only times I knew - when the student shared that info - usually the fundies who wanted to question a few minor science topics. When you get your schedules at the beginning of the term, it doesn’t tell you where the students went to school, so all this BS about public school teachers “knowing” their homeschooled students is just that - b u l l s h i t. I would venture that ALL the students I ever flunked were publicly schooled.
Educational gaps? Show me a high school graduate who doesn’t have gaps. Show me a bright student with little or no science background who can’t handle an entry level biology class. Please, if you’re too lazy to teach science to your students, find a new career. They come to you to learn, don’t expect someone else to have taught them. Biology isn’t rocket science. Okay, sometimes it is, but it’s not like it can’t be learned as easily at 19 as it is at 12. In fact, it’s usually easier.
Unprepared for college? Says who?
This is my entry for the Thinking Parent’s Wiki, April 30th edition. Visit the site for more entries.
If you’ve read Doc’s blog for any amount of time - you’ll know I’m anti spanking. I’m anti hitting a kid out of anger, and I’m anti hitting a kid as punishment/discipline, and I’m especially against hitting a kid in a ritualistic way as outlined by such fanatics as Michael Pearl or heck, a lot of middle of the road bible-bangin’ Christians. The bible doesn’t say to hit your kids.
I’m not going to reinvent the wheel. I’ve written extensively about spanking. About kids dying. About alternative forms of child rearing. There’s no recognized research that says that spanking is good for a child, and tons that say it isn’t. It’s a lazy, stupid way to parent.
A parenting tip from Doc: If you’re spanking a small child because it’s continuously touching some object (especially one you touch all day long, like the remote), put the fucking thing up where the kid can’t reach it. Children learn by modeling behavior, not by being beaten. If you get into drawers and cupboards, your small child is going to want also. Invest in some damn cupboard latches and leave a lower drawer full of plastic stuff for the kid. It’s that simple, you idiots.
Here’s a whole website devoted to GET OFF YOUR BUTT PARENTING Stop relying on a stick, your hand, a paddle, or a switch. Parent your kids, don’t hit them.
Hey baby beaters - do your kids a favor. Take the day off. And read some of my links.
There is the famous old family story of the day I dumped a bowl of cereal over John’s head. He was seven then. He’s 26 now, and the kids still bring it up and laugh at me. The last time they did this was Saturday night, while we were all sitting by the campfire enjoying the summer night. I looked at their faces illuminated in the firelight, marshmallows and hot dogs extended on skewers. These kids are now in their mid-20s, the age I was when I threw the cereal, and I found myself telling them, “There’s more to that story. John’s teacher had called and given me a big condescending lecture because John was skinny and wanting to eat his lunch at morning recess. She said to make sure I fed him breakfast in the morning, that he was hungry and he needed to eat more. I was absolutely mortified that she thought I wasn’t feeding him, and I was hell-bent on making him eat his breakfast!” Of course the whole thing was a disaster. John wouldn’t eat a bite, slithered around on his chair in the dining room whining and pouting, and it ended up with me chucking the cereal, and as the tale goes, “and the milk dripped off his long curly eyelashes.” After I dumped the cereal, I phoned my mother to come over and help me because I was sure I was headed directly for the nuthouse. As the kids listened to the part of this story they hadn’t heard before—the part about the teacher—their expressions changed from snickering to wide-eyed sympathy. “Oh, Mother! Is that what was going on?”
I told them there was even more to the story. Around this same time a separate disaster happened with Dan, who is a year younger than John. A neighbor came to the door to tell me Dan had thrown rocks at some girls, and had also used foul language. I said I’d talk to him about it. Well, of course Dan clammed up. I demanded to know.
He got a spanking. I behaved like an absolute ass and yelled. Later on, the whole story was told: Some girls they knew had thrown rocks at them, and they lobbed them back. It was all for fun. They weren’t actually throwing them at anyone; nobody was hit, not even close. And the swearing, he probably did do. That sounded like him. Again Saturday night in the firelight, I apologized once more. He waved me off like it was nothing, a generous gesture. But the whole incident was important too because it made me face a part of myself that needed to be dealt with, something to do with insecurity and being a fool.
This was a turning point for me, getting a clue, as they say, at age 24. Here I had been nasty to two little boys I loved, actually hit Dan in a spanking—all spankings are hitting after all—and it’d had nothing to do with me, or them, or eating cereal, or rocks, or bad language. It was all because of judgments I felt put onto us by some third party! I took it all on, and like an idiot felt embarrassed and more concerned about what they thought of me than about what I actually cared about (or didn’t, as the case was.) I didn’t care what the kids ate then, and still don’t, beyond the extent it’s inconvenient for me I say, “Honey, suit yourself.” And as for wise guys tossing rocks—probably not smart, but hardly something to get mad about, and cussing I’ve never cared about. Swearing is a manners issue to me, not a life crisis. And yet here I was, being absolutely asinine to my little boys. That wasn’t guidance. That was my insecure ego.
Additionally ridiculous was that the teacher and the neighbor weren’t even people who had any credibility with me. The teacher was a sour, crabby person, unhelpful and critical all the time. This neighbor—he was no angel. He was one of those unwashed types who left upholstered furniture sit outside in the rain, and more than once I had overheard him swearing all the way over from his yard across the pond to ours. Yet I’d still be ugly to my sons over their judgment. What in the hell was wrong with me anyway??
It was at this point that I decided #1 I would never discipline a kid for someone else, or because of what they thought. I needed to get a hold of some personal integrity on that, and #2 We became a no-hitting house, including spanking. I have never regretted either decision. If I’m going to lose my temper, it at least has to be about something I actually care about. And I will not be spanking anyone, that’s for sure. When I rant and rave and carry on, we call those “Joan Crawford Moments.” (In case you’re wondering, the kids did not spiral into brathood growing up in our no-hitting house. They’re okay. Well, actually a lot better than okay. They are wonderful.)
So I’m at the age now, in my 40s, with 26 years of parenthood experience behind me, where I occasionally feel compelled to give advice. (And we all know how everyone loooves advice.) I say this ruefully laughing because I don’t want to be obnoxious, and I also don’t want anyone to bog down in issues of how a parent should handle clean plates or kids cussing. As you could expect in my giving of advice, I don’t care about the details of family preferences about behavior. What my heartfelt hope is though, is that I might save someone else from making the mistakes I have, that I could steer another mom or dad away from stupidity and asinine behavior, toward a more respectable way to be. The bottom line is that even our “Mommie Dearest” side ought to have a clue, and that’s a good thing to know.
City Mom
