Coming Back...

I'd say that 1 out of 10 email *forwards* makes me laugh. Here'a an example:

This policeman was being cross-examined by a defense attorney during a felony trial. The lawyer was trying to undermine the police officer's credibility...

Q: 'Officer, did you see my client fleeing the scene?'

A: 'No sir. But I subsequently observed a person matching the description of the offender, running several blocks away.'

Q: 'Officer -- who provided this description?'

A: 'The officer who responded to the scene.'
Q: 'A fellow officer provided the description of this so-called offender. Do you
trust your fellow officers?'

A: 'Yes, sir. With my life.'
Q: 'With your life? Let me ask you this then officer. Do you have a room
where you change your clothes in preparation for your daily duties?'

A: 'Yes sir, we do!'

Q: 'And do you have a locker in the room?'

A: 'Yes sir, I do.'
Q: 'And do you have a lock on your locker?'

A: 'Yes sir.'
Q: 'Now why is it, officer, if you trust your fellow officers with your life,
you find it necessary to lock your locker in a room you share with these same
officers?'

A: 'You see, sir -- we share the building with the court complex, and sometimes lawyers have been known to walk through that room.'

The courtroom EXPLODED with laughter, and a prompt recess was called.

The officer on the stand has been nominated for this year's 'Best Comeback' line.

This next one is much funnier:

In a recent interview, General Norman Schwarzkopf was asked if he thought there was room for forgiveness toward the people who have harbored and abetted the terrorists who perpetrated the 9/11 attacks on America.

His answer was classic Schwarzkopf.

The General said:

"I believe that forgiving them is God's function. OUR job is to arrange the meeting."

Boston Celtics - RIP

The Celtics this year started out like a house of fire afire.

But I believe they've only been playing .500 since Christmas. Quite simply they've been terrible - losing big leads often, losing home games, and losing to some of the worst in league history (e.g. NJ Nets).

While I shorted them, kind of, twice this year. I'm still responsible for my widely inaccurate pre-season prediction:

So there's my NBA prediction for the year - a healthy Celtics in four games over whomever.

Now there was a time when they suffered a spate of injuries....but even when they got 100% healthy, surprisingly the team didn't improve an iota. The Siamese twin realities of *age* and *slowness* hit the team all at once.

Lebron or whoever is going to trounce their 'old coot' butts in the playoffs.

And the next bleak decade for the Celts is as great excuse as any to rid myself of this *childish* passion once and for all.

See also:

Time To Short The Celtics

Obsessions Of Yore

Woe Is My Wallet!

Recall from a previous post that I had my banged-up knee MRI-ed.

The procedure wasn't fun, the results were inconclusive, and....

My HMO rammed me on the co-pay!

What should be the co-pay on a procedure that has to cost less than $1,000 now?

They sent me an eye-popping $500 bill and apparently that's what I owe despite paying around $11,000 annually for a family health plan!

I've had MRIs in the past and NEVER paid such an exorbitant amount. Perhaps $100 at best. Heck I think my surgery co-pays have never been more than $100.

And I must say, I've noticed that the bills from dentists and doctors have been getting waaaaaay more aggressive. Seemingly the very next day after any kind of appointment, our mailbox gets spammed with bills regardless whether or not the treatment was covered by our insurance. Surely, many of y'all have also noticed an uptick in aggressive billing.

It's standard, right? They always make you sign that paper agreeing to pay any amount not reimbursed by your HMO. BUT it's never that much or that often in play. From now on I'm going to be a whole lot more careful, a whole lot more financially dilligent before undergoing any medical procedure.

The next time I need an MRI...

I may just walk-in and try to slip the technician $250 cash!

For background, see - Woe Is MY Knee.

Nipping Mind Liberation In The Bud

But guess what...

Swedish blondes, however non-smart they might be, none of will ever achieve their full intellectual potential. That's because homeschooling has recently been banned in Sweden!

Here's the killer line from the article:

Himmelstrand said there are only about a hundred homeschooling families in the whole country, but these are "one hundred too many for Swedish authorities."

See also - Thou Shall Not Be Amorphous.

Government Sick-Care

I just love Mike Adams the *health ranger* over at Natural News!

Today's screed - American Does Not Have A Shortage Of Doctors, It Has An Excess Of Disease

(NaturalNews) Now that health reform relying on monopolized pharmaceutical medicine has become the law of the land across America, the mainstream media is reporting on a sudden shortage of doctors. The nearly one million doctors who already treat a sick, diseased population is no longer enough, it seems, and medical schools are ramping up to churn out more doctors to treat yet more disease. There are never enough doctors to go around when everybody's sick, it seems...

What we're witnessing here is a massive expansion of the sick-care industry which already swallows 20 percent of the U.S. economy. Over the next few years, that percentage will rise to 25 percent, then 30 percent, and this financial sinkhole called "mainstream medicine" may even hit one-third of the entire national economy.

That puts the U.S. in a dire financial situation. If a third of the economic productivity is being spent on sickness and disease, and another third (or so) is being spent on war and imperialism, and another third is spent on debt interest and social security, then where do you get the money to actually build roads and schools, pay government employees or administer the business of government?

We already know that vitamin D, all by itself, can prevent nearly 4 out of 5 cancers (http://www.naturalnews.com/021892.html). It also helps prevent heart disease, diabetes, depression, seasonal flu and kidney disease. Distribute free vitamin D supplements across the entire population and you solve the doctor shortage problem in one year as the public gets healthier and reduces doctor visits.

It's a simple, cost-effective solution that any intelligent nation would embrace without a second thought: Invest a few pennies in the health of the population and save yourself many dollars in reduced health care costs. Regular vitamin D supplementation has no negative side effects and requires no prescriptions, no injections and no visits to the doctor. What's not to like about that?

Except the sick care industry doesn't like it at all. Drug companies, hospitals, conventional doctors, med schools, medical journals and now even the mainstream media all generate extreme profits from the ongoing business of sickness and disease. Vitamin D would disrupt their profit agenda and send people home healthy and well instead of bringing them back into the hospital sick and diseased.

WHOA....hold up.

What's this about Vitamin D?

From his link:

Exciting new research conducted at the Creighton University School of Medicine in Nebraska has revealed that supplementing with vitamin D and calcium can reduce your risk of cancer by an astonishing 77 percent. This includes breast cancer, colon cancer, skin cancer and other forms of cancer. This research provides strong new evidence that vitamin D is the single most effective medicine against cancer, far outpacing the benefits of any cancer drug known to modern science.

The study involved 1,179 healthy women from rural Nebraska. One group of women was given calcium (around 1500 mg daily) and vitamin D (1100 IU daily) while another group was given placebo. Over four year, the group receiving the calcium and vitamin D supplements showed a 60 percent decrease in cancers. Considering just the last three years of the study reveals an impressive 77 percent reduction in cancer due to supplementation. (The full press release of this study is included below. It provides more details about the findings.)

Note that these astonishing effects were achieved on what many nutritionists consider to be a low dose of vitamin D. Exposure to sunlight, which creates even more vitamin D in the body, was not tested or considered, and the quality of the calcium supplements was likely not as high as it could have been (it was probably calcium carbonate and not high-grade calcium malate, aspartate or similar forms). What does all this mean? It means that if you take high-quality calcium supplements and get lots of natural sunlight exposure or take premium vitamin D supplements (such as those made from fish oil), you could easily have a greater reduction than the 77 percent reduction recorded in this study.

American Cancer Society opposes vitamin D

This research on vitamin D is such good news that the American Cancer Society, of course, had to say something against it. An ACS spokesperson, Marji McCullough, strategic director of nutritional epidemiology for the American Cancer Society, flatly stated that nobody should take supplements to prevent cancer.

If it seems surprising to you that the American Cancer Society -- which claims to be against cancer -- would dissuade people from taking supplements that slash their cancer risk by 77 percent, then you don't know much about the ACS. In my opinion, the ACS is an organization that actually prevents prevention and openly supports the continuation of cancer as a way to boost its power and profits. The ACS is the wealthiest non-profit in America and has very close ties to pharmaceutical companies, mammography equipment companies and other corporations that profit from cancer. Notice the name, too: It isn't the American Anti-Cancer Society, it's the American Cancer Society! What they really stand for is right in the name!

Getting back to the original screed:

America, you see, does not have a shortage of doctors... it has an excess of disease. And that's an excess that the sick-care system seems determined to continue.

This shortage of doctors is an entirely manufactured shortage. America already has nearly one million doctors. If anything, we have way too many doctors. We'd actually be better off with far fewer doctors combined with a Health Freedom Protection Act that would allow naturopathic physicians to practice medicine alongside Traditional Chinese Medicine doctors, chiropractors and other holistic practitioners.

And if we could roll back the FDA censorship of nutritional supplements and superfoods, then we could finally start to educate people about how to prevent disease using supplements, herbal remedies and nutritional therapies. All of a sudden we would find ourselves with far too many doctors -- and too many cancer centers, hospitals and clinics, too.

This should be the goal of any intelligent nation: To protect and enhance the health of its people. But America's leaders (if you can call them that) have chosen a different path for the People: A lifetime of nutritional ignorance, medical enslavement, vaccinations, mammograms, chemotherapy, psychiatric drugs and an endless assortment of other dangerous medications.

There's a whole lot more in this article - man, the guy does have some WIND in his bags! Some of which I don't completely agree with. For example, I'm not onboard with his allegations that Congress wants , entitlement-collecting 'old coost' to die so that it can save the nation money. I think there's a more pragmatic reality at work. Congressmen DO NOT WANT reflexive, card-carrying members of their party to die off. And the true rational statists DO NOT WANT dependents of the state to dwindle in number. So I take issue with Mike Adam's *motivational* hypotheses for Big Government *death-panels* and whatnot.

But that's merely an insubstantial disagreement. Whether or not the pols *want* people to die off is irrelevant because the political-economic machinery is set up to facilitate it anyway. Look at it from another angle - no government school teacher geniunely wants to make children thoroughly Moronic, but that's the system's outcome nonetheless.

This Mike Adams may seem a bit kooky and quacky in his own right. BUT, much of his propaganda dovetails perfectly with my own. If you're convinced, as I am, that Big Government is programmed to create wage-slaves, mind-slaves, and statist-supporting dependents....then it's no big leap at all to wax cynical about every aspect of the long-since, government-monopolized healthcare SICK-CARE system.

Tinkering With Food And Whatnot

I'm not sure how *new* this variation of the classic candy bar is....but it is at least new to me. AND I'm really enjoying it!

But I'm wise enough to not get too excited. Surely, they will pull this one - as they do with all these iterative new products. Oh how I miss Bud Ice, the McRib sandwich, and Crispy M&Ms!

I'll enjoy the Nestle Crunch Crisp while it lasts. Though I've been buying them at three a clip....I'm not about to start stockpiling like Elaine did with her discontinued birth control!



Is he *Sponge-worthy*?

But getting back to the fits and starts of Big Food innovation...

After decades of trying to float countless new products, I'm no *brand expert*, but I believe the record of success from these behemoths is quite poor. I once read that McDonalds hadn't had a new product really stick since Chicken McNuggets in the early 80s. And consider all the billions spent by Microsoft in hopes of carving out new ground. What do they have to show for it - XBox? Bing.com?

The fact remains that the vast majority of successful people and successful businesses merely got *lucky* with a single product and, of course, with timing.

But, as that airhead Mark Cuban wisely says - an entrepreneur only has to be right ONCE!

Mice Body Count - 13

BACK BY POPULAR DEMAND!

I thought I had smelled something funny in my bedroom for the past few weeks - and I discovered the cause last night.

Two things at work here. One, my wife and I agreed to *stop feeding* the rodents in our walls and ceilings. It was better to just hear them scampering ALL NIGHT LONG than to hear them get stuck in and flop around loudly in my baited glue traps each and every early morning.

Secondly, I had run out of the BIG *rat size* traps and so did Lowes. So I had to go with the smaller *mouse size* ones. It turns out they were wholly ineffective - or so I thought until removing the rotting corpse of intruder #13.

My deadbeat landlord slumlord has been out of the country, in fact allegedly on a mission to Haiti, for the past week plus. NEVER have my wife and I enjoyed living here so much as when he's been gone! THAT is how much of a PIA he is. (He's here a lot because he runs his subprime *fraud* operations from a detached office on my property.)

But I fully expect when he returns for legal proceedings to re-commence. Recall that I did not pay him April rent because we lost our hot water and he NEVER even sent a plumber over. There's just simply no way we should have to pay (full rent) to this about-to-be-foreclosed-upon jerk given his full record of tenant torture. A judge will sort that all out.

And given that I expect to be in court in the next few weeks, I think it wise to have a fresh batch of rodents for evidentiary leverage. Note also I have re-deployed my cage traps in the *wide-open* basement; they are baited with crunchy peanut butter and corned beef which I bought on sale after St. Patrick's Day. Hopefully I can land me another rat!

See also the most recent rodent installment - Another One For The Glue Trap

Living In A HeadBook World...

So last Easter weekend a cousin of mine exuberantly their engagement (no, not that one, he's *unpairable*) ....by changing their status on FaceBook.com!

Some of the older set in the family were taken aback, remarking indignantly "I hope she told her mother first!"

Whatever. While I'm against HeadBook in all its aspects, I'm also against 'old coot' Luddites.

Plus, the couple was already living in sin, co-owned co-borrowed a condo, and was raising a wretched puppy I think. So it wasn't so much an *announcement* as it was an expected formality. As my 96.43 year old grandfather commented in his thick Polish accent, "I don't approve how she live with guy [sic]..."

But I'll tell you what - if they use Evite.com exclusively for the wedding reception....it'll most likely be a pretty YOUNG and hence FUN one to attend!

Disorganizing Sports

I'm breaking new ground in the homeschooling of my son. Phys ed started today.

I went outside with my 5.41 year old son and for the first time had him play catch with me. Like most kids his age, he was a bit afraid of the ball and wouldn't watch it into his hands; his head ended up catching more than a few. We continued until he had caught the oversized wiffle ball 50 times. Then I had him hit a few balls off the baseball tee before we headed over to the (lowered) basketball hoop with a smallish ball. He had to make five baskets before we called it quits.

This *sports work* as we called it will be on his *list* now every morning.

A lot of his age-mates are well ahead of him in terms of athletic exposure. I know several that can throw, catch, hit, skate, play on soccer and T-ball teams, etc. and have been for a while now. Those lucky few who've known me for the long haul might be surprised to learn that I, despite my sport-obsessed youth, am deliberately stunting my son's athletic endeavors.

Why is that? Well personally I feel like I wasted too much of my own time and energy on basketball, soccer, and then golf. I grew up in Central Massachusetts, an economically and spiritually depressed region. Sports is the balm, escapism for the lumpen masses. Even worse, it is more accurately *spectator sports* and *organized sports* that reign supreme.

I believe I myself started baseball when I was 7, quit that for soccer when I was 8, and started playing basketball shortly thereafter (golf began at 15). Even with that retarded start I still managed to over-do sports.

So there's no hurry at all to sign my five year old up for organized team sports - even though the planners are now targeting that age level these days. We'll keep it simple, keep it non-competitive, keep it fun, and keep it mostly *disorganized*.

Plus, I have an undeveloped theory that by turning ball-playing into a *managed affair* that it has to take something away from the pleasure of sports. Just as organized education ruins kids for books and life-long learning, I think having parents, referees, team uniforms, and scheduling most likely diminishes the joy that previous generations had playing sandlot stickball, pick-up basketball games, and that Third Worlders got from kicking ersatz soccer balls around.

While I have suffered some major injuries (back and knees) I can't help but wonder why golf became my favorite pastime. Could it be because I never really played it on an organized level? Could it be because I never had lessons forced upon me?

See also - Marginalizing Sports?

Marginalizing Run Amok

I love this Somax golf guy. He definitely seems to know what he's talking about.

But he's got to at least tone down his Marginalization.

Today his aggressively titled video ripped Phil Mickelson. Yeah, the same Phil Mickelson who romped the field last week at the Masters for his third green jacket.



And the week before, he ripped Tiger Woods' golf swing. Tiger's only the greatest golfer EVER!



Next week I expect him to video-critique the integrity of one Jesus Christ!

Though I do respect anyone who *aims high*. See my thoughts on this in an old post - Elevating The NBA And Marginalizing A Harvard Professor.

Vote For The Worst

One of the towns here on Boston's tony South Shore just had a heated *school committee* election.

Out in a landslide went some 'old bag'; she was vilified on account of her support for *deleveling*. That was a proposal to essentially get rid of honors tracking at the middle-high school levels. She was allegedly a proponent of *heterogeneous classrooms*.

There was a tremendous an uproar for her head, albeit mostly from parents of very young children who arrogantly presume their kids will qualify for the *honors* classes some ten years down the road. Just joking there!

Three newbies stood up proudly to dethrone her; and when her head rolled off the guillotine the whole town cheered - like it matters at all. In the larger scheme of things this amounted to nothing more than a dehydrated 5 year old peeing on a forest fire. There's no difference between 1 on 30 teaching and 1 on 20 teaching.

And, as a matter of fact, one of the best teachers I ever had (5th grade) completely ignored the students. He was the one whom I mentioned before; the one that made us read a 200 page book EVERY SINGLE WEEK and write or deliver orally a book report EVERY SINGLE WEEK; the one who told us to open our math books, read the section, DO EVERY SINGLE PROBLEM, and then go to the next section and repeat the process entirely on our own. Mr. Sullivan facilitated more total learning than almost any other teacher I ever had. So the idea that *more targeted lecturing* is so life-and-death important for these poor kids is nothing more than an ignorant myth.

Lastly, look at this from another angle. Anyone who truly cares about education should not do what these local folk just did. No, instead of voting out the real knuckleheads, they ought to let those Morons reign supreme. Because only when the system is a complete joke, as it is in much of the South (on account of school violence), will parents step up and do the right thing - opt out and homeschool their own.

For background on this post visit - Factory School Spin.

Government Schools, Making Kids Brown

Recall I read up a bit on that *revolutionary* unschool Sudbury Valley in Framingham, Massachusetts. That's the one where there're no classes, no curriculum, chaperones in place of teachers, and the kids aged 5-18 can well do what they please - even if it's playing video games all day long.

One thing that the founder, Daniel Greenberg, of SVS thinks vital to a healthy educational environment is to have decent proximity to, if not outright immersion in nature - trees, trails, bodies of water, and whatnot. His whole shtick is pretty crunchy, pretty hippy so I just figured an outdoors fetish went with the territory.

BUT, as my kids get older, I'm noticing more and more how much they enjoy being outside. From right when they wake up in the morning to late at night, they are continually slipping their shoes on and sneaking outside to hop on their bikes, whack golf balls, poke each other in the eye with sticks, to test the temperature, or just to catch some fresh air for a minute.

I don't think it's merely a reaction to the cabin fever suffered over the past five months; there's definitely something else at work here. Perhaps Greenberg has a not-to-be-dismissed point.

Perhaps locking kids away all day in walled rooms as the *system* does is so unnatural that it stunts *natural mind development* in unforeseen ways?



And so long as my kids keep hacking at bushes, tree limbs, and flowers with baseball bats (the Princess takes the scissors to them!)....I won't be scared of them turning into little eco-pagans!

See also - Sudbury Valley Empricism.

My Crazy Parents - 5 - Our Lady Of Blessed Vindictiveness

After 35 years at their local Catholic Church my parents have moved on down the road - to another Catholic Church.

My mother apparently was miffed at how their long-time parish handled the funeral of her mother last year. So she's taking her business elsewhere.

But here's the crazy part - SHE DOESN'T EVEN GO TO CHURCH and hasn't for years, only my father attends mass regularly.

So essentially SHE told him he had to go pray (for her?) somewhere else!

I just don't get it. One doesn't, or shouldn't, go to church based upon the imperfect HUMAN minister. That detail should be mostly irrelevant in the larger scheme.

And I know for a fact that my angelic grandmother wouldn't have given two hoots about the alleged *mishandling* of her funeral.

Lastly, now what are we going to do with my vindictive mother when her time comes?

A *burial at sea*?

See also:

My Crazy Parents - 4 - The Cluttered Fridge

My Crazy Parents - 3 - Russian Gangsters

My Crazy Parents - 2 - Bend Over

My Crazy Parents - 1 - Tiny Pics

How To Unclog A Garbage Disposal

As a consequence of my deadbeat landlord's *deferred maintenance*....I'm learning a lot about fixing stuff around the house: infestations, flooded basements, re-lighting hot water tanks, etc.

I've had two clogged sinks for some time now that the scumbag has refused to fix. I could always call a plumber, pay them to take care of the problems, and then deduct the bill from my rent. The only problem is, now I probably won't be paying any more rent. So everything I pay comes directly out of my pocket.

Today I unclogged my kitchen sink's garbage disposal - a Badger 7.

All that I had to do was insert a 1/4 inch allen wrench underneath it and turn it 90 degrees. That freed up whatever it was that had jammed it. Instantly, I could hear the water gushing down the drain.

I wrote this post because significant Googling did not reveal this very simple solution. Perhaps others will find this post and save themselves some time, effort, and a plumber's bill. Although the solution ended up being easy, that doesn't mean I didn't bend over backwards trying to figure it out!

Be sure to unplug the disposal before jamming any metal tools into it.

Next up - I'm going to have to kill three hornets' nests that have appeared in my storage shed. At least in that deparment, I have some experience.

Introducing C.S. Lewis

My spiritual journey marches onward and upward.

I just read a bit of C.S. Lewis - The Weight of Glory. Yeah, that's Lewis of the Narnia fame. He was also a famous Christian apologist. Here's an excerpt from the 66 page primer that made it into my notes:

No Christian and, indeed, no historian could accept the epigram which defines religion as "what a man does with his solitude". It was one of the Wesley's, I think, who said that the New Testament knows nothing of solitary religion. We are forbidden to neglect the assembling of ourselves together. Christianity is already institutional in the earliest of its documents. The Church is the Bride of Christ. We are members of one another.

In our own age the idea that religion belongs to our private life - that it is, in fact, an occupation for the individual's hour of leisure - is at once paradoxical because this exaltation of the individual in the religious field springs up in an age when collectivism is ruthlessly defeating the individual in every other field. I see this even in a University. When I first went to Oxford the typical undergraduate society consisted of a dozen men, who knew one another intimately, hearing a paper by one of their own number in a small sitting-room and hammering out their problem till one or two in the morning. Before the war the typical undergraduate society had come to be a mixed audience of one or two hundred students assembled in a public hall to hear a lecture from some visiting celebrity. Even on those rare occasions when a modern undergraduate is not attending some such society he is seldom engaged in those solitary walks, or walks with a single companion, which built the minds of the previous generations. He lives in a crowd; caucus has replaced friendship. And this tendency not only exists both within and without the University, but is often approved. There is a crowd of busybodies, self-appointed masters of ceremonies, whose life is devoted to destroying solitude wherever solitude still exists. They call it "taking the young people out of themselves", or "waking them up", or "overcoming their apathy". If an Augustine, a Vaughan, a Traherne or a Wordsworth should be born in the modern world, the leaders of a Youth Organization would soon cure him. If a really good home, such as the home of Alcinous and Arete in the Odyssey or the Rostovs in War and Peace or an y of Charlotte M. Yonge's families existed to-day, it would be denounced as bourgeois and every engine of destruction would be levelled against it. And even where the planners fail and someone is left physically by himself, the wireless has seen to it that he will be - in a sense not intended by Scipio - never less alone than when alone. We live, in fact, in a world starved for solitude, silence, and privacy: and therefore starved for meditation and true friendship.

That religion should be relegated to solitude in such an age is, then, paradoxical. But it is also dangerous for two reasons. In the first place, when the modern world says to us aloud, "You may be religious when you are alone," it adds under its breath, "and I will see to it that you never are alone."....In the second place, there is the danger that the real Christians who know Christianity is not a solitary affair may react against that error by simply transporting into our spiritual life that same collectivism which has already conquered our secular life. (p30-31)

I guess I'll read Surpised By Joy next - if only because it mysteriously showed up on our bookshelf. Neither my wife nor I have the slightest clue where it came from. (clicking that link - it appears that the entire book is online)

Nowhere To Run!

So my first wife ran a local 10k road race today.

She runs a little bit, but has never before gone that long - 6.21371192 miles.

AND, making it even more difficult, we were *out* last night.

Before she was about to leave she articulated her primary fear to me.

You see, when Mrs. C-Nut goes running, it activates the *terminal stages* of her digestive system. In fact, there was a particular ice cream shop in Brooklyn Heights near the end of her *loop* that she often had to go barreling into!

Me? I never have any scat issues. I go when I want, with plenty of warning, and in a matter of a minute or so. No back-ups, no gushers, etc. I need not coffee, reading material, or any other catalysts.

I scolded my dear wife and suggested she *take care* of her needs beforehand. We are on our way out of town, but still an *accident* of this nature amidst 1,700 neighborly participants could be ruinous. To my chagrin, she pushed back, declaring absolute powerlessness in that department.

In a last ditch effort to convey the seriousness of the risk she was taking....I ushered her over to my computer and made her behold the pic of that poor fellow above.

The Hoops A Bad Parent Has To Jump Through...

Recently, in Marginalizing Off-Droppers, I criticized the insane obsession parents have with dumping their kids elsewhere - and mentioned briefly the wintertime focus on *summer camp*. To extend this rant, check out this exchange I had last night with a *mom* from Scituate, Massachusetts.

ScituateMom - I'm tired. I was up at 5am this morning.

CaptiousNut - So was I, actually 4:45am to get ready for golf. What were you doing?

ScituateMom - I had to get in line for summer camp registration.

CaptiousNut - What?

ScituateMom - I had to get in line for summer camp registration.

CaptiousNut - What do you mean?

ScituateMom - I was scared all night that I wouldn't wake up. I woke up like three times.

CaptiousNut - WHAT are you talking about?

ScituateMom - And there was already a bunch of people there. I got the 10th spot...

CaptiousNut - WHOA, wait a minute. You mean you had to essentially camp out to register your kids for the town's little summer rec camp.

ScituateMom - Yeah.

CaptiousNut - When did the doors open?

ScituateMom - There's only 15 spots for the young kids....The first person in line got there at 3:30 AM!

CaptiousNut - [growing frustrated with this ludicrous conversation] But when did the doors open? HOW LONG DID YOU HAVE TO WAIT?

ScituateMom - Sign-up began at 8 AM.

Last year my son did a week at an overpriced summer *sports* camp; and his sister didn't go, if memory serves me, to any camp at all. They're babies for crying out loud - 3 and 4 years of age at that time.

We all, including the ScituateMom live near the beach. So as far as I'm concerned, that's where we hang out in the summertime. We have plenty of cookouts and we go the parks.

There are people all over the world in places like Iraq, Africa, Haiti, or even closer to home in the *projects* that endure REAL HARDSHIP in life. Contrary to local maternal opinion, being at home with your precious children with *nothing to do* in a gorgeous seaside community most certainly does not fall into that category!

Feeding Rich Jerks

I randomly caught this show, the premiere in fact, on color television last night. Let's just say it was so ridiculous as to be *watchable*.

In this episode they had to cater three typically Beverly Hills events:

• A "Doggy Debutante Ball" in which dogs were served Kobe beef burgers and drank out of glasses!


• A "Glamping", i.e. glamorous camping, affair where a bunch of *networking* millionaires roughed it under the stars (notwithstanding the private chefs, of course)


• And a "Botox" party where ugly vain people downed appetizers in between facial injections!

It looks like the first episode is re-airing tomorrow. Check it out if you're swimming in free time.

Battered Men's Shelter

We're at that age now, 35+, where our parents are getting old (drooling, napping, forgetting, cluttering, ailing, etc.) and essentially need help.

In fact, the C-Nut family is moving to Long Island; we're moving in with my beloved MIL sometime soon. There'll be much more on that development later. Essentially, I'm trading one crazed landlord for another!

But again, this is the age we are at. I was talking to a friend yesterday who just lost his FIL. There was genuine concern for his recently widowed MIL - how she'd get on, would she be lonely, etc.

My buddy told me they invited her to come down to live with them. His only lament was that she had a *dog* as well.

Mind you, this overly-hospitable friend of mine already has his SIL *living* on the premises as well.

CaptiousNut - Ouch....and now your MIL AND a dog? That's rough. You don't even have a yard. The dog is pushing it.

Buddy - The things I do for $ex once a month...

Ha!

I laughed all night long thinking of that line - almost more tragic than any above it on this post!

Book Summary - The Well-Trained Mind

I read/skimmed the 700+ pages of that book last week.

Hmmm....so what exactly is a *classical education*?

My mind immediately thinks: rhetoric, logic, philosophy, Greek, and Latin.

And according to this book, my hunch was mostly spot-on.

Author Susan Wise Bauer (and her co-author mother) also wields the term trivium - which is defined as grammar, logic, and rhetoric.

For general observations on this important work, I direct you to her website and to the reviews on Amazon.

This is my blog and the book was rather lengthy, so I'm going to focus on what I took away from it. Bear in mind that I've been actively homeschooling my kids for almost two years now and have probably read more books on the subject than 95% of even long-time homeschoolers. Thus I can gloss over a lot of material that demands others' attention.

So, for me, the most important element was Susan's treatment of history, a subject near and dear to my heart, to Napoleon's:

My son should study much history, and meditate upon it....for it is the only true philosophy.

...and even for that clown Nietzsche's who admitted:

All philosophy has now fallen forfeit to history.

Susan Wise recommends taking a systematic (almost scientific!) approach to studying history.

First she divides it into four eras:

• Ancients 5000 BC - 400 AD
• Medieval - Early Renaissance 400 AD - 1600 AD
• Late Renaissance - Early Modern 1600 AD - 1850 AD
• Modern 1850 AD - present

And then she has students cycle threw each era for three entire years apiece. For grades (I hate this term!) 1, 5, and 9, kids delve into the Ancients. For grades 2, 6, and 10, they cover the Medieval - Early Renaissance period. And so on.

How exactly do the poor kids approach each period?

Well, she provides plenty of direction on that front. Susan gives lists of important figures, important events, and scores upon scores of book recommendations for each given period and each iterative study thereof. In fact, check out Google's search suggestions:



As you can see *book list* and *reading list* come right up in the results. From what I can tell, and have heard, many value The Well-Trained Mind primarily for the exhaustive and thoughtful history outlines provided. I myself borrowed the book from my homeschool co-op - but will definitely procure my own copy for these comprehensive lists.

Susan is also very big on having the brats memorize historic dates, lists of Presidents and monarchs, etc. And, importantly, her students have to *outline* everything they read - culling significant events, figures, and breakthroughs from the readings and inserting them into time-line organized notebooks. This all may sound fairly obvious and undiscerning minds may even mistakenly think this is precisely the approach of government school curricula - but it's most certainly not.

The classical education is more in-depth and better targeted. While students are memorizing facts just like their conventionally-schooled peers, Susan's pupils aren't wasting time on superficial tests that are only designed to test fleeting knowledge. Instead they are building a robust map of chronological history in their heads and in their notebooks; one that if built properly will not only stand the test of time, but will be able to accommodate a life of continued learning as incoming facts fall neatly into fertile mind slots. Without a systematic and meticulous approach, unclassically trained minds forget most everything a day or so after the exams - I know I certainly did. Even to this day, though I've read copious amounts of history books, I still can't really sit down and accurately outline the major events of the past as someone with my educational pedigree should be able to.

So to summarize the WTM on the history front, let's just say that Susan Wise's approach is PRECISELY what I had in mind for my homeschooled children before I had even read her book.

Moving on to some minor criticisms...

One thing that I've heard from a few parents who've read the book is that the WTM's course of study is too daunting, if not downright scary in scope. But these aren't parents who necessarily tried to follow it; they are forward-looking *moms* of young children. I believe, if memory serves me, that Susan's *day planners* typically had the older kids anyway doing upwards of 5-6 hours of formal work each day; by formal work I mean grammar exercises, handwriting, reading, outlining, memorization, transcription, etc. That's significantly more than the typical homeschooling parent who, I believe, does only 2-3 hours of work - *done by lunch* is what I generally hear.

My stance is this....5-6 hours might sound like a lot, but Susan, I believe, gives her kids the weekends, holidays, and summers off. Here at the C-Nut homestead we do *work* 365 days a year. So if one spreads it all out, it's not quite as much work as it seems. Or, one can look at it from another angle.

Why should anyone be afraid of *work*? Everything that is genuinely rewarding on this planet requires hard work, does it not? Parents spend 40-60 hours a week wage-slaving for perishable fiat currency each Monday-Friday. It's nothing short of a human tragedy that most of them consider sitting down and learning with their children for a few hours each week a tedious and unnecessary chore - a burden even.

And, now that I think of it some more, 5-6 daily hours still pales in comparison to what I used to inefficiently devote to my studies in high school. Between getting ready, getting to and from, 6 hours of soporific classes, and an average of 2-3 hours of homework every night....I had to be putting in roughly 10 hours per diem, five days a week!

Susan is big on a couple of other things: transcription and grammar. At this point in my homeschooling odyssey, I'm only with her on the former.

Transcription is simply having the kids devote time and effort to copying verbatim, quotes, verses, and passages from the time-ordained greats: Plato, Edmund Burke, Voltaire, Shakespeare, the Bible, et al. As my regular blog readers well know, not only am I a huge advocate of transcription, I myself practice it all the time. See two of my latest posts here and here - or, just check out my random quote generators in the upper left margin of the blog.

But as for grammar, well, at this point I don't think it demands as rigorous a study as Susan Wise accords it. I believe that if students read and transcribe plenty of erudite works, that they'll soon enough learn the rules of proper grammar indirectly, by osmosis. Of course I diagrammed sentences when I was in 7th grade, learned a bit about subject-verb agreement somewhere along the line, etc....and perhaps I unconsciously minimize the role such formal study played in my literary development. I simply don't know. I can only go with my gut and my best analysis at the present moment - though I'll try not to become closed-minded on the subject of grammar in my homeschooling. If my kids start punctuating sentences in the middle....

Here's Susan on math:

All college-bound students should complete two years of algebra plus a geometry course. This sequence should begin in eighth or ninth grade. (p528)

That's it?

Obviously, with my 5.38 year old son already immersed in algebra and fluent in geometry, I have set far higher mathematical goals - and proven they're attainable!

Here's Susan on computers:

...we think that every high-school student ought to read at least one neo-Luddite work on the computer age (for example, Data Smog, Resisting the Virtual Life, or one of the other titles listed at the end of this chapter) to balance out the techno-ravings of software executives and Internet providers. (p571)

While that quote doesn't summarize her complete thoughts on computer-based learning, it at least gives a window. Essentially, Susan is an old-fashioned (surprise, surprise) *paper-and-pencil* advocate. She takes shots at *image-based* and *computer-based* learning, at chatrooms, email, and virtual friendships here and there throughout her book. I believe the WTM was first published in 1999 - a time when the web was still coming into its own as a fount of useful information; and Susan is a bit *older* than me so her smidgen of technophobia isn't surprising.

Nonetheless, I know she's dead wrong on this one. Personally, I've learned orders of magnitude more from surfing the web, from cultivating online friendships, and from blogging than I ever did from 15.5 years of textbooks and curricula - and that includes time at a very well-esteemed high school and an Ivy League college (UPenn).

Furthermore, I see the educational benefits of the web everyday with my kids who are already non-stop Googlers, who learned to read online, learned their states and capitals efficiently, learned to spell,....and my 5.38 year old son is already blogging his book reports and science experiments.

We are all irretrievably biased by our own personal experiences and Susan, not only was she herself educated with books and paper-and-pencil, she's now a college professor, an *academic* from root to leaf. Susan repeatedly refers to *college prep* in her book. But I submit that's a sub-optimal focus, "Why not life-prep?" If my homeschooled kids end up going to college and wasting hundreds of thousands of dollars, AND four precious years of their lives....I'll feel like I failed in my homeschooling.

In this sense, my stance is kind of funny. How many millions of Americans aspired to have their children *be the first in the family to go to college*? Or to get into a *better college* than they did? Now I'm of the opposite opinion, trying to raise my children to a higher plateau by them NOT SEEKING fraudulent, over-priced, and meaningless college degrees!

A well-trained mind is a necessity for any job - from car repair person to university teacher. The mechanic with a classical education will be more successful than her untrained counterparts; she'll know how to plan her business, how to relate to her customers, how to organize her responsibilities, how to think. A classical education is the best possible preparation for the job market.

Throughout this book, we've maintained that the classical education is not intended to teach all subjects comprehensively - history, science, math, language. The classical education is designed to teach the student how to learn. In its constant demand that the student read and then analyze and then write about what she's read, the classical education trains the mind to gather, organize, and use information. And the student who knows how to learn - and has had practice in independent learning - can successfully do any job. (p601)

The *best* possible preparation for the job market?

Perhaps - if we are talking about the *wage slave* job market - and even then perhaps not. The kids might turn out too knowledgeable to bow to bureaucratic hierarchies...

The best plan for raising economically viable children is to teach them economic history, to cultivate their productive creativity, and to get them as quickly as possible on the path to self-propelled entrepreneurship. It most certainly has nothing to do with Socrates or memorizing the chronology of Egyptian rulers!



I have to end this post here. While my last several bits were critical in nature, in no way do they discredit this wonderful book. What can I say? I can't help my Captious self - it's what I do better than anyone, pounce on the smallish mistakes.

This remains a highly recommended book for those who've first read and digested the introductory homeschooling propaganda - like John Gatto, John Holt, David Albert, etc. And even then it can be put off until one's homeschooled kids are maybe 5, 6, or 7. Because otherwise, this tome might scare some poor parent right back into the clutches of government schools! In fact, many would argue that teaching the *trivium* as Susan would have one do is ANTITHETICAL to the (their) concept of home schooling. These unschooler types, John Holt chief among them, passionately believe that re-creating *school at home* via narrowly defined curricula and assignments is, and I'll quote their refrain, "the worst thing a homeschooling parent can do!"

But demonstrate your parental homeschooling credentials and use your own brain; read the book and just take away from it what you need - as I did. There's certainly plenty in it to chew on.

Movie Skip - Donnie Brasco

I don't care if it's ranked highly, 7.7 out of 10 stars, on IMDB....I thought the film was pretty weak. As a *Mob* flick, I found the dialogue and plot cheesy and incredible compared to, well, shows like The Sopranos or even compared to *personally knowing* a few Italian waste management consultants in Philly and NY/NJ.

It's no small feat to botch a true story!

And I never did think much of Johnny Depp as an actor. Why exactly is he so *critically acclaimed*?

To see my other movie Recs and Skips - click here.

Mocking Tiger

Somebody sent me this one approximately titled *New Flags At Augusta*:



And then I just heard about this hilarious prank. Apparently someone went into their pocket to fly this banner over Augusta National yesterday - the first round of this year's Masters:



For more on that reference see -
Buddha Bogey.

And for more Tiger hijinks low-kinks, visit:

Not "Pathetic"?

Moralizing From Hypocrisy Island

Win Some, Lose Some

Tiger, Fully Loaded For 2010

Be Happy For Tiger - Soulmate Found!

En Passant

I did it. I finally did it. I beat my 96.42 year old grandfather at chess!

Alright, not quite. I played him to a draw this past weekend - the best result I've ever achieved against him.

He's Polish/Ukrainian so he's played quite a bit in his life and he's also highly proficient in the math/engineering department. In the tragic but likely scenario that my private investigator shatters my dreams, and informs me that I was in fact *not adopted*....it'll have to be inferred that I received all of my brains from the parents of my parents - with my grandfather chief among them.

Grandpa isn't doing well. He lost his wife last May and has been battling skin cancer and sundry other maladies for quite some time. His eyesight and hearing are shot; his toes are mis-aligned, with one languishing under the others; he often suffers sharp pains in his hands and arms; and he's depressed and altogether tired of this world.

Yet he claims to play chess about the same as he ever did; and he claims to still see *four or five moves ahead*.

Since I was up a piece and a pawn on him for most of the game, I was really ticked off that I didn't land the elusive victory. The 'ancient coot' is a wily one for sure. I played him so well that he's convinced I've been *practicing* hard. (I most certainly have not!)

The next morning I stopped by his house and told him that I stayed up all-night strategizing for our next match. He didn't even laugh at my comic braggadocio:

Grandpa - C'mon....I wipe floor with you. [sic]

Our Easter Sunday rematch was intense. I had him on the ropes, my hands wrapped firmly around his neck...

I had his rook pinned in front of his king, AND I had a pawn one square from being crowned a devastating *second queen* for at least 20 moves but his hamstrung forces somehow kept me at bay - and he eventually checkmated me out of his ass the blue. After both games he apologized profusely for the results. Still unsatisfied, Grandpa wanted another game but my head was throbbing and my spirit crushed, again.

There's a darn good chance that if I actually do *practice* a bit (I'm about to teach my son the wonderful game), AND if my grandfather does hold on to see a 99th or 100th birthday....that I may in fact be able to beat the grandmaster, once.

And as much as I'd like to checkmate his cocky a$$ after all these years, I think I'd so much rather remember him as the *invincible giant*.

(This post's title is certainly obscure, but I believe technically appropriate.)

Marginalizing Off-Droppers

A couple of weeks ago, IN MARCH, I was at the park on a beautiful afternoon.

I was surrounded by all these shiftless *moms* who were breathlessly yammering about the *summer camp* they were ALL sending their children too.

"But do we get to meet the individual counselor who's watching our....oh, good. I feel so much better..."

My wife laughed at me re-telling this story. She said I had *no clue* and that all the *good camps* were already booked sometime in the winter.

And there was this other *mom* there that I knew. After morning kindergarten, she dropped her kids off at *Su Escuela*, a preschool whose shtick is that it supposedly *teaches Spanish* to kids who well, don't even know English yet. She was killing time at the park, an hour or so, and then had to leave for her third *off-dropping* destination of the day.

CaptiousNut - Where are you going?

OffDropperMom - I have to take them to MyGym (an indoor gymnasium)...

CaptiousNut - What? Are they in a class or something?

OffDropperMom - Yeah.

CaptiousNut - How long is it?

OffDropperMom - 45 minutes.

CaptiousNut - Ouch. That's 25 minutes away from here. What are you going to do while they're at MyGym?

OffDropperMom - I don't know. I'll probably go to Starbucks.

CaptiousNut - Well, it's too bad you have to leave the park when it's so beautiful out and there's so many kids here...


Today after my daughter's ballet class I had to endure more of this *outsourcing* blather. A few *moms* were going on about which *pre-K* program FOR NEXT YEAR was best; which ones have waitlists; which ones were their second choices; etc.

While these broads just sit there, sipping coffee and prattling on and on about strategies to give them more time to.....well, just sit and yap some....I spend that 45 minutes in the adjacent room, reading to and doing algebra with my 5.38 year old son. (And if I'm not doing that, I'm reading a weighty book...)

One of the local community centers nearby is awesome - only it's extremely underutilized. So why is that? Why don't all the parents take their kids there to play, eat lunch, and *socialize*?

They don't take advantage of this wonderful place, not even in the middle of the 5 month winter or during the week-long monsoons because IT'S NOT A DROP-OFF PLACE. And that's all these malpracticing parents are looking for - something nearby that will *relieve* them of their children. For proof I offer this one particular BS *class* they do offer there for off-droppers. On Thursday nights, twenty 5 year olds are shuttled in by slender *moms* in their flattering yoga pants. By my calculation, 90%+ of these children are never EVER at the community center for anything else. While it may be a great place for the kids....the place doesn't allow *mom* to get her tennis, yoga, or shopping in!

I submit that this is off-dropping is a disease; it's just that 97% of parents are afflicted so they haven't a relative clue how sick the mentality is. Sick sheep, that's what they are!

Reason #1,482 To Homeschool

It was 89 degrees here today in Boston, a record high for April 7th I believe.

My father drove in last night. So I got up early and went to the driving range at 7am this morning. But I saw the parking lot empty and decided to play a round. *Cart path only* slowed me down - it took me a full hour and 45 minutes to finish.

I was home before 10am and that was with a stop at the grocery store. I proceeded to help my kids with the *work* I left out for them this morning; then I barbecued a nice lunch for my father and my kids which we enjoyed out on deck.

Right after that, I started packing up the car for the beach. No sunscreen was to be found so I stopped at the local convenience store and paid an obscene ten bucks for their last tiny bottle.

We spent four glorious hours there today, sipping beers and chatting with the local *moms*. The kids were great - entertaining themselves and playing with randoms and a few of their friends who happened to be there. I don't think I lifted my hiney out of the chair for more than 30 minutes total the whole time.

At first, around 1pm, the beach was well populated. But it was mostly 'old coots' with their mangy mutts and new parents with their 2 and 3 year olds. Noticeably absent were the older kids. They were all stuck in *school*.

New England is certainly NOT like Southern California. There just aren't too many nice weather days in a calendar year. I believe last year I was at the town beach 3 out of 4 consecutive days in April, a couple of times in May, BUT not a once in that rainy month of June.

Much later on, around 4:30pm people started pouring in. *School* was out. I don't know. Even if I had kids enrolled in a school....I think I might have given them the day off it was so beautiful today. Hopefully, the teenagers were wise enough to skip.

Magnifying Morons

Saturday, after golf, I was basking in the unseasonably warm weather on my deck when I noticed my 5.375 year old son holding a magnifying glass close and steadily to his bike. He turned and said to me, "Dad, I want to start a fire."

Say what? Where did he get this idea?

Of course, I instantly recalled, that I had told him about this neat *trick* some time ago. The little bugger doesn't forget ANYTHING. I think I told him how my brother once singed the hair of our cousin with a magnifying glass while she was sitting and watching a soccer game.

"This is just great," I figured, "now I have to put the magnifying glasses out of reach next to my knives and semi-automatics..."

That's all I need - for my son to become a little pyromaniac....like I was.

I used to play with matches every chance I got. I even set a blaze (or two) in the woods that attracted the fire department. However, my worst offense was, along with my brother and another neb$hit, starting a fire under the raised wooden deck of a neighbor's above-ground pool. We were caught red-handed on that one. It's no wonder those people, the victims, never really liked me after that.

Fire is nothing to mess around with. Kids just can't possibly fathom how dangerous it is. So I was going to address my son's curiosity with the gravity it deserves.

I had him come over and hand me the magnifying glass - then I summoned his little sister.

I then proceeded to show him how to *do it*. I held it carefully above my shirt, concentrated the bright spot on my stomach,....and burned a hole in the shirt I was wearing!

But I really shouldn't worry and/or draw false comparisons to my childhood.

That's because my son is HOMESCHOOLED....whereas I was bored, angry, and most likely acting out against the government school penitentiary my malpracticing parents sent me to.

War And Peace

Shoot. Has it really been five full days since my last post? I guess I'll have trouble making my *100+* posts this month.

I've been busy. The weather has been spectacular and I've been golfing. Today my kids had a closing ceremony with our homeschool co-op. And of course, we had Easter in between that.

Now for the *war*...

Yep, I'm in YET ANOTHER all-out battle with my landlord. Recall from my prior post that flooding (and more accurately, his deferred maintenance) knocked out my hot water late last Tuesday night. April rent was due on Thursday and he actually had the stones to DEMAND it when I was still without hot water. I told him he'd get it when a plumber came. Here we are five days later and there's still no plumber - so there's no rent.

I did grab a plumber next door and get him to re-light my pilot light on Friday (day three of no hot water) but I wasn't going to tell my landlord - he didn't deserve to know.

And get this, late Friday night, after an entire day where he made no communication to me about when a plumber was coming or anything, he had the STONES to email me and tell me that he *is going to show the house* on Saturday at 7pm and on Sunday at 11am. Can you believe his nerve?

(House showings, when allowed, require a minimum of 24 hours written notice AND, according to judicial precedent, can only take place Monday-Friday 9am-5pm. In other words, *no nights* and definitely *no weekend nights* or *holidays*!)

I waited until Saturday afternoon, when there was still no plumber here and when I was about to hit the road to my parents' house to email him:

CaptiousNut - Since you were non-responsive to our lack of hot water I took care of it myself....Under no circumstances is ANYONE permitted to enter my house this weekend, no less on Easter Sunday....You'll get your rent check on Sunday night less what I had to pay the plumber and less an additional amount that I've yet to determine.

Y'all aren't going to believe his response:

DeadbeatCriminalMoronicLandlord - I never authorized you to hire ur own plumber. I told u that the plumber was busy. Your rent is due in full. The property needs to be shown as I am working with the reactors [sic], the appraiser, and the attorneys. If tomorrow easter is not working for you. I will reschedule but you must allow the showing tonight.

I wasn't *authorized*? I guess I was supposed to just sit there taking cold showers until whenever he got a plumber to re-activate my hot water heater.

I actually had a rent check made out to him minus only $250 that I was going to give him last night. My wife and I figured that we pay April and just stiff him for the whole amount come May.

But after that email exchange and his mind-numbingly arrogant attempt to *show* our house on a holiday weekend, with short notice, WHEN he's having us sit there in cold water....I decided that he wasn't going to get April rent, period.

I just can't imagine any judge not reaming him for this past week's events - and that's on top of everything else. I'll take my chances in court.

BTW, not only did I set little *booby traps* in my house to see if scumbag defied my orders and entered my house on Saturday night, I also sent spies by at 7pm! From what I can tell, he changed his mind and didn't come in. I was actually hoping he would because that'd be a trump card in any legal proceeding.