Happy Saint Patrick’s Day!
Lá Fhéile Pádraig Sona Duit!(La ale-lah paw-rig son-ah ditch)
Sláinte!
Caturday
He was small once.
Daylight Saving Time
Set your clocks ahead one hour before you go to sleep tonight. It’s Daylight Saving Time. 
Of course, if you’re up, you can set them to 3:00 am when the clock strikes 2:00 am.
Many clocks in your home will change automatically, the cordless phones, the cable boxes, computers.
Don’t forget your programmable thermostats, microwaves, stoves, coffee pots and other appliances when changing the clocks.
Don’t forget your vehicle too.
Change your clocks and you won’t be an hour early to church.
Now is also a good time to change the batteries in your smoke detectors and carbon monoxide detectors.
Spring is just around the corner!
Hugo Chavez is Dead
My prayers go out to his family. They are dealing with a great loss. The loss of a family member is hard.
Way back on September 20, 2006 I actually scooped the Associated Press on this story:
Chavez Recommends Chomsky – Calls Bush ‘The devil’
I happened to be watching the news, and it was showing Chavez speaking at the U.N. Then I heard him recommending Chomsky. That piqued my interest. So I backed it up on TiVo, hit the record button, and started transcribing.
I think that the first people who should read this book are our brothers and sisters in the United States because their threat is in their own house. The devil is right at home. The devil, the devil himself is right in the house. And the devil came here yesterday. Yesterday the devil came here. Right here. (crosses himself) Right here. And it smells of sulfur still today. This table that I am now standing in front of, yesterday ladies and gentlemen, from this rostrum, the President of the United States, the gentleman to whom I refer as ‘the devil’ came here talking as if he owned the world. Truly as the owner of the world. I think we can call a psychiatrist to analyze yesterday’s statement made by the President of the United States. As the spokesman of imperialism he came to share his nostrums. To try to preserve the current pattern of domination, exploitation and pillage of the peoples of the world. An Alfred Hitchcock movie could use it as a scenario. I would even propose a title, ‘The Devil’s Recipe’.
As Chomsky says here clearly and in depth, the American Empire is doing all it can to consolidate its hegemonistic system of domination and we can not allow them to do that. We can not allow a world dictatorship to be consolidated.
I pray for the Venezuelan people, that they get a leader who’s first for them, not him or herself. Someone who won’t steal private property and make it “public” property. Someone who will develop policies that benefit the people while not being “benefits” that someone else has to pay for.
Education
I went to a meeting last week with the School Board and parents. The school board is talking about some restructuring they need to do because the district isn’t meeting the NCLB standards.
At the meeting there was a parent of a couple of children in the district. She also is a day care provider. She said that she gets two-, three-, and four-year-olds who don’t know their colors, shapes, numbers, or letters. These are things parents should be teaching their children. But they’re waiting for the government to do it for them.
The district just started to accommodate our gifted children with accelerated classes. Last year they started with fifth grade mid-year because enrollment required another classroom and they put together a class from all the five elementary schools at one of the schools. This year they added fourth grade to the fifth grade class and provided accelerated math and language arts classes at one of the middle schools.
Common Core is requiring changes. TheIllinois State Board of Education is raising the scores required to meet standards on the Illinois State Assessment Test (ISAT). As parents we were told that our childrens scores might “fall” in relation to meeting standards based on last year’s scores due to the range increase. Personally I’m glad they’re increasing the score needed rather than dropping it to give the impression that more children are meeting the standards than actually are. Finally, they are raising standards. Children will rise to meet them.
There are about one hundred schools on the chopping block in Chicago alone because they are failing the children. Teachers and parents are up in arms over the closings.
One union hack said something like, “they want to close the schools only so they can reopen them as charters!”
Unions don’t want the charters in Chicago to expand. Charter schools are consistently doing better even with the same students (no changes from previous student body – no “getting the best students into the charters” crap…)
Charter school teachers aren’t in the union. They work longer hours. They have more flexibility to do what works for their students rather than being hogtied by the union to certain work rules.
Parents don’t want to lose their free daycare.
Paperman
The full video is now available at YouTube.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aTLySbGoMX0
This is so sweet. I saw it at the theater before Wreck-it Ralph last November and I was very moved by it.
Great Song
We sang this song at church last week and again yesterday. I love it.
Roadside Memorials
I’m sorry you lost your loved one to some kind of accident. You and your family have my condolences.
But that’s it. I don’t know who you are. I don’t know who your loved one was. I don’t know the circumstances of the accident. I don’t know when it happened. All I know is that some time in the past someone’s loved one died nearby.
I don’t know if the deceased was old or young, male or female, married or single. I don’t know if she was a mother or he was a father. I don’t know if the children left behind were young or adults. Maybe this person was a beloved uncle or aunt. Had just started college or just finished. Finally had that dream job. Just got married. Just found out the family would be growing.
I also don’t know the circumstances of the accident. Was it a single- or multi-vehicle crash? Was the driver responsible drunk or high? Had she just broken up with her boyfriend and was driving angry and with tears in her eyes so she didn’t see the oncoming car? Were the road or weather conditions dry and clear or wet, icy or slippery? Was it night or day?
I don’t know any of this from a roadside memorial. I might see a cross. I might see it covered with limp balloons, dying flowers, and rotting stuffed animals. All that it tells me is that someone died there.
It doesn’t help me avoid whatever caused that accident.
If you must buy a teddy bear or other stuffed animal, take it to the police station, fire station, or a local hospital or emergency room. Put a note on it to say who it’s in memory of. Police and Fire personnel can give it to a child who is need of comfort. Maybe their house just burned down. Or there’s a domestic or criminal issue going on and the child needs to be removed for his or her own safety. Maybe a child’s been in an accident and brought to the emergency room. Her parent is hurt as well. Other adults in her life can’t get to her right away. A teddy bear can help comfort her or keep her company while she waits. A stuffed animal can help a child in chronic care in the hospital too. The nurses will know which child would be best served.
The child can be told that the gift is from an angel in heaven. And it will be.
Dear Senator Kirk
I sent this to Senator Kirk today via his website contact form:
Senator Kirk,
First, congratulations on your return to the senate. I am very glad you are better.
The paper today said you were in favor of an assault weapons ban. Please reconsider. There is no such thing as an “assault” weapon. The previous ban under President Clinton, did absolutely nothing. It made certain weapons illegal based entirely upon cosmetic aspects of the weapon that had nothing to do with how the weapon fired or its rate of fire.
Full automatic weapons have been illegal since the 1930’s. Semi-automatic sounds scary, but those weapons can fire one shot per trigger pull and no more. Even 20 years ago in the US Army, my M-16 had one shot per trigger pull or a three-shot burst – and I had to set the weapon for the three-shot burst. The civilian AR-15 version of the M-16 doesn’t have that capability. As a member of the military, I thought you’d be aware of this.
We don’t need MORE gun laws. We don’t need to further restrict law-abiding citizens from their Second Amendment rights.
Criminals will obtain weapons illegally no matter what. They are criminals. They don’t care about laws. Look at Chicago. Weapons are pretty much banned and gun violence is through the roof. Gun crimes go down when the law abiding citizenry is free to have weapons. Criminals don’t know who might be able to fight back which deters them. On the other hand, knowing that a victim can’t fight back only encourages them.
Thank you for your attention to this matter.
Twitter Clients
I am looking for a Twitter client for Windows 7 that will allow me to monitor multiple Twitter accounts at once and have an option to remain static until I refresh it. I hate it when I’m reading something and it disappears because it’s auto-updated.
I went to Seesmic and Tweetdeck today to check out their browser-based and desktop-based options but I am having issues with both of them. I have accounts with both because I used to have them both installed on an old computer.
When I went to Seesmic I tried to log in with my email address and password. It said I had incorrect credentials and to try again. So I clicked the <Forgot your password?> link. I put in my email address and it came back with: “Something went wrong, or we could not find the email in the database”. Then when I tried to sign up, it told me my email address is already in the database, use another.
When I went to Tweetdeck I had a similar problem. I tried to log in with my credentials and it said to “Please check your password.” So I clicked the <Forgot your password?> link there too. The screen flashed for a moment, but nothing else happened. No confirmation that the request was received, no notification that an email would be sent, nothing. A short while later I received an email with a link to change the password. I clicked the link and entered the new password twice as required. Then it told me I hadn’t requested a password change – or I had clicked the link twice. Nope. I hadn’t clicked it twice.
I just tried again and got a notice that an email was sent., but it’s been half an hour and I haven’t received the email.
Tried again and received an email. Clicked the link, entered the new password twice. Received this:
Password Reset
Sorry, xxxxx@xxxxxx.xxx, it seems that there’s no record of you requesting to reset your password.
It’s probably because the password reset link that you clicked on in your email has expired or isn’t valid anymore (meaning, you’ve already clicked on it once).
Please request a new one.
This is all very frustrating.
Does anyone have any suggestions?
Update: Finally got logged in to Tweetdeck. Still no luck with Seesmic. (01/03/13 10:50 pm CST)
