Meek, Self-Loathing Homeschoolers

The mega-website Pioneer Woman has *homeschooling* blog that's becoming more and more an ANTI-HOMESCHOOLING blog.

The post - 3 Reasons NOT to Homeschool - just teed up all the haters, in the comment section anyway.

So why would a putative homeschooling blog essentially bash homeschooling?

I don't know.

I can only theorize that the Pioneer Woman would rather stay *popular* amongst her mass audience.

With friends/advocates like these out there....who needs enemies?! Really.

One Crazy Homeschooling Broad

Okay my cousin - no, not the latent invert - just sent me a blog post to read titled:

Career Ruin: Homeschooling.

Click the link and check it out.

I don't know that this woman is crazy but she comes off as such anyway.

I mean - she's a purported homeschooling advocate and yet she paints homeschooling as a *career ruin*???

Perhaps she's one of those manipulators who chooses provocative headlines simply to get more hits and more of a reaction a la Tim Ferriss?

Well it works. There are a whopping 250 comments on that post as of now. (And she has an enviable 60k subscribers too. Why?)

Okay I just realized that I linked to this fulminating chick before - in a post where she slams wonder-kid Tim Ferris. How's that for irony?

I just read a couple more of her screaming posts and think I've got her figured out. She's what this gambling, drug-addicted, 3-toothed, South Philly golf jabroni of mine referred to back in the mid-90s as a *Hillary*. (To me he once said, "I'll bet you've got a whole lot of dem dare[sic] Hillary's at UPenn...")

In her divorce (surprised?) post, Penelope self-diagnoses and agrees:

Anyway, during the time between crying and deciding that I'm the queen of resiliency, I stumbled across this information about my Myers Briggs type: ENTJ. There are sixteen personality types. ENTJs make up 4% of the general population and 80% of the population of executives.


Here's the news about ENTJs in a marriage:


"Gender issues are especially significant for ENTJ females. As a type, their arrogant, confrontational manner and need for control can appear to be quite 'unwomanly' to others. Of course, the problem intensifies for the ENTJ female when dealing with men. Their demanding, objective, competent, and independent nature is not particularly endearing to most men."

People tell me all the time they admire the *sacrifice* my wife and I make to educate our children outside the system. I don't really respond to this but if I did I would say, "YOU are the one making the sacrifice, not us."

Will homeschooling ruin your career? Sure, in many ways it will derail and retard climbing the ladder of work success.

But you'll GAIN so much more: a stronger family, better education, better socialization(!), etc....winters in sunny Florida!

I'm not entirely sure why Penelope Trunk homeschools her kids. I have my formidable hunches but would have to read some more for corroboration.

I just don't think I can bear any more of her grating vitriol at this time...

Alright one more....check out this crass post of hers.

Another Web Breakout?

Some *mom* who (I think) was a just a regular yet prolific blogger just published a book - One Thousand Gifts - two months ago. Her subject appears to be *everyday Christian gratitude*. The book trailer:

Now I've only read a little of her work - nothing that I can remember off-hand but it must have been well-done because I subscribed to her blog a little while ago. Heck she has 27,000 readers!

Her book is just out and already has a Tim Ferriss-esque 282 reviews and sports a 5-star rating on Amazon. (Although there is one little controversy.)

You have to root for and admire just about anyone who breaks out from obscurity through the dint of their own hard work, no?

Recommended Reading

Check out Amy's Humble Musings.

Y'all realize that I almost never recommend blogs no less *personal* ones.

Amy's a libertarian Christian. She's smart, a terrific writer, and damn funny (for a chick girl).

I believe she recently moved from Florida to the sticks up north, opting to subsist on a farm and homeschool her brood in hoped-for tranquility.

Marginalize The Watermarkers, Too!

This week Google was in the news with a headline about them beginning to crack down on content farms.

I had thought they were already doing that?

Anyways, I have some advice for Google's search algorithm tweakers:

GET RID OF THE WATERMARKED, FOR-SALE IMAGES ATOP THE IMAGE SEARCH RESULTS.

iStockPhoto, Corbis, et al....these image-renters have no business showing up in generic search results.

Rightfully they ought to be placed in a separate category.

NO ONE, no individual, is going to pay $129 or $300 or $400 for that pic above. Perhaps some media company will, so let them transact with each other directly, no?

They definitely ought to boot these *content farms* from the top pages of Google search results.

Screed, over.

I'm Shocked! - One Of These Guys *Lied*

An online marketer/affiliate skimmer just came clean about his professed income and *4-Hour Workweek*. See - I'm Sorry I Lied.

For sure it'd be easy to rip this guy - after all he still has all sorts of *commercial intent* on his website.

But he should probably instead be praised for at least righting his wrong.

I actually just came across him for the first time the other day and via this *apology*. Some of the stuff he does I actually found rather interesting.

HOWEVER the last thing I was going to do was subscribe to his feed, not now....maybe in a year or so. Admire his gumption to come clean so publicly, yes. But he has to at least be put on *time out* for a year or so, no?

As a rule I don't completely believe ANY of these clowns - not even my boy Tim Ferriss. They ALL lie....polish the truth.

It's quite frankly naive to expect earthlings - who've been programmed to lie TO THEMSELVES - to always be completely honest.

Other Homeschool Blogs

I've been immersed in the online world and blogosphere now for six solid years.

While it was very easy to find the best and most popular trading, financial, and political blogs...

It's been rather difficult for me to find the most readable homeschooling blogs.

Homeschoolers simply defy categorization, time and again!

But here's a spot worth looking:

Winners of the 6th Annual Homeschool Blog Awards

Having never heard of any of them previously save one, tonight I added about 70% of these blogs to my Google Reader.

Great Domestic Mom/Wife Blog

I want to recommend this terrific little *chick blog* - Or So She Says - to my readers, especially the female subset intent on becoming ideal wives.

Yeah I do read it - and I'm certainly virile enough to admit it!

Perhaps they'll let me guest post...

At Least Another ONE Out There!

There just aren't that many *homeschool dads* out there - I don't think.

Although the other day, while pondering my absence from the nominees for the Best Homeschool Dad Blog Award, I did come across another male who looks like a very active homeschooling parent - Almighty Dad.

Get this he also went to HS in Massachusetts and he's the exact same age as I am.

The similarities continue:

Look at that, he's almost as ripped as me!

I think he's a martial arts instructor or something so he'd probably last more than a round with me...

From what I can tell, his blog is well-written and widely-read and, surprise, surprise, he also sports a pagerank of 4.

Frontierswoman

I don't think one could legitimately call this my *competition*...

But the most popular homeschool blog is - The Pioneer Woman.

Ree Drummond is some self-described city chick who was whisked away to a cattle ranch by a *cowboy*. She blogs on cooking, photography, and feminine frivolity in addition to homeschooling.

Let me just say that her digital photos are SPECTACULAR.

Anyways, her blog supposedly receives a jaw-dropping 22 million hits per month!

This is a lesson to anyone aspiring to viral popularity - find a way *in* with the herd of desperate housewives. Methinks the subtext of life story - running away with a rugged man - explains most of Pioneer Woman's appeal.

Ethical Pricing?

In my Better Blogging research, I've come across a bazillion online hucksters selling their wares.

They use every techno-slick tactic out there to convince MORE people to buy their products. They have testimonials, SEO-optimized keywords, money-back guarantee hooks, affiliate bribery, and use what are now scientifically proven *internet marketing* templates.

Sure, I'd like to make some money online, who wouldn't? But my ambitions are, and have forever been, held in check by my morals. The last thing in the world I want to be is an *online skimmer*.

If I want to *skim*....I'll just stick with trading - only I'll actively solicit OPM ("other people's money") to gamble with.

There's a thin moral line, I think, when it comes down to pricing and marketing a product.

For example, say you want to sell an informational product that claims to teach people how to make $$$$ online - with their blog, website, or whatever.

And say you price it at $100.

But, only 1 out of 1,000 of your customers has success with it. Assume they go on to get rich, move out of their mother's basement, live like Tim Ferriss, etc.

That's great, right? You can, and without a doubt will, tout this success in additional marketing for your product.

Except that you might have 999 people who feel like they were ripped off - who feel like they were sold a bill of goods.

This is only a personal judgment, but I'd feel bad about the people I duped into buying. I'd feel more like I just conned $100,000 out of delusion Morons than I'd feel like I *made* one success story.

Probably the enlightened libertarian/capitalist response to my wussy conscience is - "People have to be or assumed responsible enough to make their own purchasing decisions..."

And I get that, I think.

Except that....that ought to be weighed against all the scheming and sneaky marketing that was utilized upfront.

So what's a morally confused business man to do?

I don't well know.

Price things low - to be safe, maybe?

And, perhaps only target customers whom you think the product appropriate?

Ferriss....Still On A Roll!

The Four RAP Workweek?

I've mentioned Tim Ferriss a few times recently on this blog. He's definitely someone worth heeding.

Tim wrote a post the other day that was, much like his book, positively drenched with good, useful information (for aspiring authors or bibliophiles anyway).

Check it out - How Authors Really Make Money.

While I was reading it I couldn't help but think how profoundly informative his post was - answering questions that no doubt tons of people were ecstatic to see answered.  And I noted the stark difference between it and the snarky/sophomoric content that I generally churn out.  As someone who's keenly interested in amping up their blog readership....these days I'm paying special attention to the style and content selection of Ferriss and other standard-setters.

See also:

Book Review - The 4-Hour Workweek

Ebook Goldrush

Better Blogging Chronicles 7 - PageRank

Who's A Rat?

There's a great government watchdog website for the town of Hingham, Massachusetts.

The other day it aired the greivances of a Teamster sewer guy against his superiors:

Things came to a head in late 2006 when Commissioner Brandt discovered that a pair of new pumps had been placed at Walton Cove Station for installation and hadn't been installed for over a year. This caused Brandt to start investigating and he discovered that Rosano-Davis had been getting the bulk of the contracting, yet there was very little visible sign of any work being performed.
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After a short time I began to notice some peculiarities in the Department. Supervisor Dow was rarely at work. He would however come in at night with various companies such as Rosano-Davis to perform inspections and cleanings of various stations and lines. When I asked if he needed help, the answer was always "no". He would also come in and take OT calls for what we call "nuisance" alarms. These alarms were usually resolved with a flick of a switch. This practice enabled Jim to accrue an immense amount of comp time every year. I believe more than the State Law allows. This practice continues to this day.

Once a week or so, he would have breakfast or lunch with Paul Davis (of Rosano-Davis!) or sometimes other contractors that the Town is supposed to have impartial business with.
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I had several meetings with the Commission while I was Supervisor. At that time, Commissioner Salerno and I were on the same page. Our goal was to get the department running efficiently again.

While I was catching up on the work in the office, I received calls from various companies asking me to order various items, such as ice melt for instance. We had enough ice melt stored at the New Building behind the Fire Museum to melt the North Pole. In fact, the amount of ice melt that kept arriving previous to this particular phone call became a joke amongst the crew.

When I told the salesman; "No thanks" he said; "Why don't I sweeten the deal by giving you a free gift out of the Cabella's Catalog? You're still fishing, aren't you Jim?" I said; "This is Steve, and again, no thanks."

Hah! Rule 1 in the Handbook of Public Official Bribery....make sure you are paying off the right guy!

Every town in America ought to have a website like that - where people can drop a dime and shed some sunlight on otherwise unchecked public malfeasance.

Granted, at this point, with every level of government in the nation bankrupt three times over, they may not be able to make a difference. But hey, it's still good clean fun to trap exterminate weasels, rats, and other vermin who were bred, fattened, and abetted by Big Media's abject negligence.

Why Couldn't I Have Learned This Stuff 20 Years Ago?!

Getting a job and trading your time for money may seem like a good idea. There’s only one problem with it. It’s stupid! It’s the stupidest way you can possibly generate income! This is truly income for dummies.

Why is getting a job so dumb? Because you only get paid when you’re working. Don’t you see a problem with that, or have you been so thoroughly brainwashed into thinking it’s reasonable and intelligent to only earn income when you’re working? Have you never considered that it might be better to be paid even when you’re not working? Who taught you that you could only earn income while working? Some other brainwashed employee perhaps?

Don’t you think your life would be much easier if you got paid while you were eating, sleeping, and playing with the kids too? Why not get paid 24/7? Get paid whether you work or not. Don’t your plants grow even when you aren’t tending to them? Why not your bank account?

Who cares how many hours you work? Only a handful of people on this entire planet care how much time you spend at the office. Most of us won’t even notice whether you work 6 hours a week or 60. But if you have something of value to provide that matters to us, a number of us will be happy to pull out our wallets and pay you for it. We don’t care about your time — we only care enough to pay for the value we receive. Do you really care how long it took me to write this article? Would you pay me twice as much if it took me 6 hours vs. only 3?

Non-dummies often start out on the traditional income for dummies path. So don’t feel bad if you’re just now realizing you’ve been suckered. Non-dummies eventually realize that trading time for money is indeed extremely dumb and that there must be a better way. And of course there is a better way. The key is to de-couple your value from your time.

That is from a most worthwhile blog post - 10 Reasons You Should Never Get A Job. Be sure to read the rest of it.

See also - Book Review - The 4 Hour Workweek.

For Would-Be Etymologists

Dictionary.com has started blogging.

See the Hot Word Blog if you find the origin of words interesting as its lessons are somewhat spunkier than reading straight through a etymological dictionary.

Even though I do in fact joyously indulge in the latter....I've personally found the Hot Word Blog a decent read.

I'm going to rerun one of my favorite Will Durant quotes.  From the Age of Faith:

By adding French and Latin to its German base, English could triply express any one of a thousand ideas (kingly, royal, regal; twofold, double, duplex; daily, journal, diurnal,...); to this it owes its wealth of discriminating synonyms and verbal nuances. He who should know the history of words would know all history.

Better Blogging Chronicles 7 - PageRank

PageRank is a number that Google assigns to web content to label/measure its *importance*. It's on an integer scale (why not a decimal?) from 0 - 10, with 10 being most important.

For example, Mike Shedlock, aka Mish, his highly popular blog has a PageRank of "7" at the moment.

And over here at Marginalizing Morons, we have a PageRank of "4".

Here are some other's for sites my readers may be familiar with:

Boing Boing "8"

Calculated Risk "7"

Zerohedge.com "6"

Mises.org "6"

Ritholtz.com "6"

WellTrainedMind.com "5"

Paul Mitchell "5"

Perry Eidelbus "5"

Micheal Davey "4"

Prince C-Nut "1"

How do I find all those PageRanks?  Well, I used this website - one of many out there.

Essentially, I think, PageRank measures the authority of a website. And the higher the authority, the higher up in the search rankings one's content will appear. Since more web traffic comes from search than anywhere else, these higher search results should translate into more site visitors.

So anyone looking to raise their web profile (moi!) should be keenly interested in an elevated PageRank.

I really don't see why, given the above rankings and my prolific content, that I shouldn't be able to move up to a PageRank of "5". This is now to be one of my immediate goals.

For a more in-depth discussion of PageRank, read a higher authority like Yaro Starak. (though I'm surprised he's only a "5"!)

How exactly does one elevate their PageRank?

Well, I think it pretty much amounts to getting others - ideally with very high PageRanks - to link to Marginalizing Morons. Google will interpret such links as contagious, authoritative acceptance.

The best case scenario would be for say, Boing Boing - PageRank "8" - to link directly to my blog in one of their posts OR, even better, on their sidebar. But that's not so easy to accomplish.

Instead, and there's some controversy about the effectiveness of this, I could go on Boing Boing, post a comment, and in the body of the comment embed a link to something I have written on my site. This is an obviously self-promotional practice that I've always hated to indulge in. Usually when I do it the link had to be highly relevant to the discussion at hand.

Another way to manufacture links to one's site it to volunteer to write guest posts for other people's blogs - but only, obviously, if they allow you to include a link back to your site in the content. I also think that the key is to write posts for sites ranked higher than your own or this doesn't work.

But that's about all I know about PageRank....I'll talk about it some more, when I learn more.

Here's something interesting on the subject. From Wikipedia:

PageRank is a link analysis algorithm, named after Larry Page,[1] used by the Google Internet search engine that assigns a numerical weighting to each element of a hyperlinked set of documents, such as the World Wide Web, with the purpose of "measuring" its relative importance within the set. The algorithm may be applied to any collection of entities with reciprocal quotations and references. The numerical weight that it assigns to any given element E is also called the PageRank of E and denoted by PR(E).

The name "PageRank" is a trademark of Google, and the PageRank process has been patented (U.S. Patent 6,285,999). However, the patent is assigned to Stanford University and not to Google. Google has exclusive license rights on the patent from Stanford University. The university received 1.8 million shares of Google in exchange for use of the patent; the shares were sold in 2005 for $336 million.

That was a nice windfall for Stanford there, no?

See also - Better Blogging Chronicles 6 - Monetization?.

Better Blogging Chronicles 5 - Learning From Masters

With my blog output lower the past few months, an explanation is due.

While I have been busy busier with landlord fighting, moving out of Boston, limbo at my parents' house, and then moving back to New York...I've also changed the way I look at this endeavor.

A few months ago, when I resolved to take Marginalizing Morons to the next level, the fruit of my work/research screamed at me to change my approach.

So although on its face nothing looks different here....it soon will, hopefully.

I've traded some of the time that I would normally spend writing posts for time spent reading all the *internet marketing* gurus. I've been combing through their *pillar content*, aka *killer articles*, and been downloading all their free ebooks. Here are a few whom I've been consulting on the cheap:

Copyblogger

Daily Blog Tips

John Chow

Yaro Starak

Erica Douglass

Seth Godin

Chris G

ProBlogger


They all peddle their own books, other peoples products, and consulting services. Indeed they all do read like informercials and some of them are outright hucksters....promising to lead wannabes to internet gold, but there's still a whole lot of insight there. Note just about every one of them has a $500-$1,000 product where they will re-do your entire website to bring in more hits, more subscribers, and more monetization.

And it is pretty darn ironic - that almost every one of these dudes and broads made some money online but have now turned turned their attention to selling their insights as their chief product. That be like someone finding a handful of gold nuggets in 1849 and then investing that windfall in saloons, brothels, and a pick & shovel company to bilk all the latecomers!

Somehow I was thrust, at least mentally, to the frontier of the blogosphere. I now have so many ideas buzzing in my dome that I don't know where to begin. It's going to be a big job to re-organize my site, re-brand myself, work on my ebooks, AND keep spewing out content.

Having said that, I think it's time to send my kids to summer camp!

See also - Better Blogging Chronicles 4 - Too Slow?

Better Blogging Chronicles -3 - Aesthetics

I think my blog has a *neat* look in the sense that abs ads are nonexistent and in that the site is relatively uncluttered by the links, feeds, and buttons that cover most other blogs.

But I do admit my site looks unsophisticated and altogether ancient compared to what most other serious bloggers front. So reluctantly, I'm going to do something about that.

Wordpress is all the rage these days. I guess because it's more pro-blogger friendly - more customizable. And in re-thinking the focus of my blog, I contemplated starting a new one strictly dedicated to homeschooling on a Wordpress template. I still may do that but at the moment I'm stumped on picking a new name (there's actually a lot of *science* in that, supposedly).

Although I may not have to go elsewhere. Did anyone really think Blogger (i.e. Google) was going to sit back and let some upstart gobble up their blogging business?

I just came across evidence that Blogger has started to *upgrade* its templates:



I have resolved to improve my blog aesthetics....but it's going to take some time. I'm going to start noting the attributes of other sites that I like and dislike.

See also:

Better Blogging Chronicles - 1

Better Blogging Chronicles - 2

Plateaued Blogs

One of the older blogs out there is Little Green Footballs. I used to peruse it many years ago. I believe its real coming out party was an exposé it did of the infamous Dan Rather documents - one that just about proved them a forgery.

Recently, when writing Dead Blogs, I decided for the first time in probably 4 years to check out LGF.

I must say I was surprised to see the term *wingnut* used so pervasively. From past, albeit ancient, experience I more expected to see that pejorative's polar opposite - *moonbat* - littering the content.

I also noticed the traffic on that site seemed to be only a little more than I remember it being 4 years ago - though I could be wrong. But I would have expected it to have risen substantially, as *blogs* in general have gained exponentially more traction in that time.

"What was going on here?" I wondered...

I had a notion, but wasn't interested enough to research the matter.

Then just now I saw this post - Charles Johnson: Why I Parted Ways With The Right - over on that coward Barry Ritholtz's site.

(Yeah, BR is a coward for a few reasons. Here, for example, he who claims to be a *both sides basher* is at it again, but only links to the dirty work of others. He outsources his clueless vitriol, like a real man! Also, Barry's a coward for what he did to me a few months ago. See here and here.)

From what I can tell, Charles Johnson has undertaken a personal crusade against *global warming deniers* and *religious* people - which is fine, and totally his perogative.



And it looks like he's taken to deleting unfriendly feedback. Perhaps Charles Johnson should go back and read his own posts on cognitive dissonance!

All this might explain why his site seems to have stagnated. A self-styled libertarian who believes Big Government has a mandate to protect that little, all-encompassing thing called *the environment*???

Well, it's certainly a niche demographic he's targeting! Good luck to him.

It really is a truism that the faster they (civilizatons, countries, companies, celebrities, blogs, etc.) rise, the sooner they fall...

Better Blogging Chronicles - 2

In - Better Blogging Chronicles - 1 - I promised more discussion of the professional bloggers I've been researching.

The first gurus I came across, wrote the above book. I plopped down the $15 for it and read it last night (only 200 light pages).

And I also read Daniel Scocco's free ebook - Make Money Blogging.

And I discovered Yaro Starak's blog and perused much of his free online content. (He charges wannabes $600 for blog coaching!)

I must say that while I know plenty about blogging as a hobby, in a few short days I've learned that I knew little about blogging as a business.

I had just never before looked at my blog as a commercial enterprise before.

It turns out, that a lot of the stuff I do has very little potential in terms of monetization. The bloggers who make money, in contradistinction to moi, are *narrowly focused*. And they generally choose subjects that are inherently very commercial like cars, cameras, trading systems, techno-gadgets, etc. There is almost nothing I can do with say a snippet of a Boston Globe article and an insightful, witty take on it. There's almost nothing I can do with anecdotal posts which rip the Morons I come into contact with. (Of course, the reason I rip them is *therapeutic*!)

Also, as far as Google Adwords go, mostly only dumb, docile people click on them - that's the polar opposite of my intended readership. Michael Davey even confirmed this for me. He said that his trading blog doesn't have nearly the *ad hit rate* that his original blog - Wordlab - does.

But the book that I read last night also gave me some encouragement. It said a blogger had to be original, somewhat prolific, write great blog post titles, skillfully use pictures, etc.

All that I've got down pat. Thank you.

But I have to make my posts, my content, more *searchable*. I need to stake out some territory (demarcated by *keywords*), focus on it, and steadily climb the search results if I want to increase my blog hits (not the same as *readership*).

By jumping around from trading to movies to homeschooling to eco-pagans to golf, I am spreading my keywords around too thin, apparently. The search engines get confused about my *authority* and unfairly knock me down in results pages. So again, the advice from the *monetizers* is to stick with one subject.

Now I happen to think that's one of the problems with our Moronic society - the elevation of specialists and the dearth of genuine polymaths. But let's move on.

Another thing I learned from these guys, is that to climb in the search rankings I have to re-title and re-focus my content. It's good that I write posts full of practical information, like posts about how I'm teaching my kids. But these experts would have me frame the content differently. They have me title it, e.g., "How To Create A Math Genius", "How To Teach A Toddler To Read", or "How To Teach Long Division".

Why?

Because people routinely search for precisely "how to raise a math genius" and the like!

You see, as a blog that desires more traffic, I have to get in front of people by answering SPECIFIC QUESTIONS that they may Google. These experts bleated this over and over again: good content is important, but the content has to USEFUL and DESIRED to drive blog traffic. This all seems like commonsense, and it is. But, again, I'd never before looked at my blog this way. My traffic has been steadily rising since I started so I was just content with that.

Click the following graphic to enlarge. It's some *Google Webmaster Tool*:



Those are my *impressions* and *clickthroughs* from the past week. Sure I look at total hits and occasionally where they come from. But never before have I looked at an analytical tool such as the one above.

Notice the glaring absence of the term *homeschooling*!

According to Google, I have no *authority* on the subject.

This I'll have to set about fixing.

See also:

Better Blogging Chronicles - 1

Better Blogging Chronicles - 3 - Aesthetics