IntenseDebate - NikStuart

15 years ago @ Big Government - Troubled Teens Born in... · 0 replies · +6 points

Typically when families start homeschooling an older (late elementary to Sr. High) child, a substantial part of the first year is spent just building a parent-child relationship.

15 years ago @ Big Government - Troubled Teens Born in... · 2 replies · +9 points

Back in the early '90s there was a bill HR6, that would have severely restricted all private education, and almost certainly "restricted to death" homeschooling. It was sponsored by George Miller (D, NEA).

The Home School Legal Defense Association got the word out to it's membership, and other private school groups.

The capitol switchboard MELTED DOWN, primarily due to home schoolers. And not just one day, it was day after day after day of protest. The bill died with something like 434 votes against it.

Homeschoolers will not gently acceed to being restricted to death. The modern day heir to the pioneer woman, baby in one arm, rifle in the other, is the homeschool mom.

15 years ago @ Big Journalism - Media Wants A Brawl Be... · 0 replies · +8 points

Newsweek should be glad Dana read the piece, that doubled their readership.

15 years ago @ Big Journalism - Media Wants A Brawl Be... · 0 replies · +6 points

Complaining about secularists in the Tea Party would be like a Marine on Okinawa complaining that the Marine in the foxhole next to him had BO.

15 years ago @ Big Journalism - All You Need to Know a... · 0 replies · +5 points

Breitbart has a pair of steel to face down that rent-a-mob.

15 years ago @ Breitbart.tv - Trump Lectures MSNBC H... · 0 replies · +2 points

O'Donnell and the blond lady (Mika?) need to spend some time in the real world.

O'Donnell's smirk is infuriating, as is Mika's naivete.

15 years ago @ Big Government - Union Jobs vs. Childre... · 0 replies · +2 points

I don't blame the teachers for not wanting to stick their necks out. Blame the lawyers. If the trained, volunteer screws up, or there's a bad outcome in any respect for any reason, not only the volunteer, but the teacher, administrators, and school district will get sued. Won't matter what the law is (if any, because the plaintiffs bar will bend heaven and hell to make sure their highway to zillion-dollar damage awards is straight and unimpeded in any way), they'll get sued anyway and have to defend themselves, even if the suit is meritless and gets thrown out it will cost them time and money.

Just another reason why public funding of education needs to go to the parent in the form of a voucher. Then Ms. DeLorenzo could send her child to a school that will take proper care of her (on pain of not only being sued if they dont, but of losing a customer). As a special needs student, the extra funding the local school gets should follow her.

15 years ago @ Big Journalism - You Know You're Near t... · 0 replies · -2 points

Boy Scouts Boo Obama (part 4)

For enquiring minds who might wonder my background for writing about the Boy Scouts. Two of my sons are Eagle Scouts, as am I. I helped start a scout troop and was the Troop Committee Chairman for 6 years and have well over 100 camping days of adult field leadership of a scout troop.

15 years ago @ Big Journalism - You Know You're Near t... · 2 replies · 0 points

Boy Scouts Boo Obama (part 3)

My hypothesis is that we saw a manifestation of the growing anger over a government that seems increasingly out-of-touch and uninterested in the views and customs of a large number of the governed, as described in the last week by Peggy Noonan in her August 7 Wall Street Journal column America Is at Risk of Boiling Over (http://online.wsj.com/article/declarations.html), and Pat Caddell in an August 6 (?) Fox News Interview (http://www.examiner.com/x-35976-Conservative-Examiner~y2010m8d7-Video-Democrat-pollster-warns-American-anger-has-become-prerevolutionary)

Some of the adult leaders may have been disenchanted with the president’s policies, others may have been disgusted. Still others may have joined in the booing. For whatever reason they were not as energetic in quelling the booing as them might otherwise, and should have, been.

When the Democrats booed a Boy Scout color guard flag ceremony at (I think I recall it was) their 2000 convention, it was dog bites man. When the Boy Scouts booed President Obama at their Jamboree, it was man bites dog. One wonders if the president was listening.

15 years ago @ Big Journalism - You Know You're Near t... · 0 replies · -3 points

Boy Scouts Boo Obama (part 2)

That said, I will indulge myself in the sort of “root cause” analysis that some on the left use to exonerate rapists, rioters, and other bad actors.

The scouts themselves are mid teens, ages 13-18. Kids do dumb things and it was no doubt something of a “wave” phenomenon. The president chose not to attend, as has been customary, the scouts booed the video. Having been an adult scout leader for some 10 years I can assure you that boys that age are not interested in the kind of policy analysis that might lead an adult to be critical of the president.

Which brings us to the adult leadership. Had I been one of them, I would have squashed any booing by the scouts under my supervision. I have no doubt that is what many of the adult leaders did. So the question is why did some adults allow it? My experience with adult scouters has been that they are by and large a pretty fine group of (mostly) men, whose political persuasions run the full gamut of far right to far left.

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