There is no theory of evolution. Just a list of creatures Chuck Norris has allowed to live.
(For anyone who'd like to see the full list of Chuck Norris Facts, just click the link above. They really are worth the read.)
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I've been thinking a great deal about feminism and manliness lately. Two articles/posts have come out recently that led me further down this path. One is from a well-known blog known as Dooce; read the post here. The other came from today's Opinion Journal, the op-ed area of the Wall Street Journal. There's also an interesting "feminism" site that I actually agree with a great deal, known as I-Feminists. Heather Armstrong, who runs Dooce, is usually a rather crass, classless individual, and I don't read her much. Heidi does from time to time, found the post, and forwarded it to me. To be honest, it's the best thing she's ever written. I highly recommend it to anyone who thinks about feminism or is bothered by how most modern feminists deride any woman who plays anything like a traditional woman's role in society. The Opinion Journal piece is by a Harvard professor discussing the concept of manliness and how little we have of it now.
I think the thing that always bothered me with these culture wars, these huge battles and struggles for "equality", was how obvious it was that the "oppressed" didn't/don't actually want equality...they want role reversal. They want the you-losers-have-oppressed-us-long-enough-so-let's-see-how-you-like-it result, rather than true equality. Race, gender, creed, all the things that humans use to oppress other humans, the fight to get away from this oppression always goes over the top. To return to I-Feminists, I like that site because it is sincerely seeking equality. Sincerity in the equality battles is more and more lacking today.
It's human nature to profile, to prefer like to unlike, to gather and group and clique and do all of these things socially; it's part of our survival instinct to do so, so I think we should cut ourselves a little slack. We can only go on our own experience. It's a complex problem, to be sure, but seeking "equality" without actually wanting equality will never solve it.
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So a kid here in Colorado recording his geography teacher bashing George W. Bush and America in general during his class, and he went public with it. The school district suspended the teacher, then student walk-out protests ensued (though, remembering my own high school experiences, I was always ready to take any opportunity I could to get out of school). The teacher himself planned to file a federal lawsuit after the school told him not to go to the media. It's become a huge national story.
Why would this be a huge national story? What difference does it make? We already know 48% of America hates Bush and are borderline anti-American, anyway, and we also know a sizeable percentage of the educational establishment hates Bush. My theory is that this is not really about hating George Bush, though that has become the focus. I suspect it comes from the whole captive-audience idea. When I was a senior, my high school put in something called Channel 1. It was supposed to give us 10 minutes of exposure to news and current events a day, and all students were forced to watch, though many of us tried to show our displeasure by purposely turning our backs. Channel 1 even provided free A/V equipment to the entire school, with centralized video distribution and a 24-inch TV in every classroom. However, Channel 1's "news" programs also included about 3 minutes of commercials, so the REAL purpose of Channel 1's existence was quite obvious. The school gets free A/V equipment in every class, the kids get news, and the sponsoring companies and advertisers get captive eyeballs. Remember, we were made to watch and got in trouble when we didn't want to. In fact, some teachers actually were stricter on us while Channel 1 was running than they were during their own lessons.
The point of all this is that students are young, impressionable, and captive. Teachers know the power they have over their students; students go into class expecting to learn, to be told how it is. This holds especially true in junior high and high school, where development of critical thinking skills is at its most crucial point. These kids aren't ready to weed out garbage from real facts and information, so they just absorb it and regurgitate it. That's the danger of a situation like this one here in Denver; let one loud-mouth teacher go in a spout his personal beliefs to impressionable teens, and they'll be more likely to believe it and take it to heart.
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Along the education debate continues to rage in this country as more and more parents demand school choice and the ability to make better decisions about what their children learn and how, rather than merely being contented sheep led around by the education elites. For too long, parents have trusted those who run the schools and accepted the direction they went. My parents almost never went to PTA meetings, mostly because it wasn't necessary and the schools then were still OK. Today, with schools putting more emphasis on stopping future Columbines and pushing liberal agendas while standardized test scores continue to fall and grades continue to be inflated, parents are increasingly refusing to accept the status quo. In Colorado, the charter school movement is very big, and getting bigger every day. My home district, Jefferson County Public Schools, has no fewer than SIX applications for new charter schools that it's currently considering, including one for a charter high school, something the area doesn't currently have. Parents clearly want charter schools, where they can be more involved and have more say in what the school actually does. Most PTA organizations are merely fronts put up by the districts to fool parents into thinking they have a say, when actually they have none. Charter schools let parents have direct access to board members and take very seriously the idea that we're all in this together, trying to give our kids the best education we can and thus increase their future quality of life. I send my kids to a charter school, and they love it and I love it. Best of all, charter schools actually have a smaller pool of resources to pull from, yet in most cases here in Colorado, charter school students score as well as or better on standardized testing than their public-school counterparts. In short, we're doing more with less. After the terrible experiences we had with the local public school and the complete turnaround and improvements we've seen in both kids in the charter school, I'm a believer. It's the closest thing we've got to school choice. If you want school choice, support your local charter schools.
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What beautiful weather we've been having for the past week! I love it when the weather is like this. It's no secret that I'm a huge warm-weather fan; if I lived somewhere that never got colder than 50 degrees, I'd be happy. Life is good when the sun is shining and you can go outside and actually use God's creation. Spring must be coming, and that always makes me happy.
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Heidi and I found some great information about the situation with my parenting time. My kids have been telling me that their mom told them they might have to move. To be honest, after the special advocate released her report recommending that we move to a 50-50 split parenting schedule, I expected this to come up. Here's what I foresee: my ex-wife will drag out implementation of the report, but will not be able to prevent it from going into effect. So once it goes into effect, she'll feel her only way out is to move out of the state. OR, she won't get accepted into grad school at CU like she plans, and she'll end up moving somewhere else to go to whatever grad school accepts her.
The good news is, thanks to recent changes in Colorado case law, I have a good chance of being able to stop her. In the past, Colorado courts gave the parent with the majority of the parenting time the benefit of the doubt if they wanted to move. Now all that has changed, and the courts have to decide what would be in the best interests of the child. This gives both parents equal weight in the eyes of the law, since it balances one parent's freedom to travel and move with the other parent's right to maintain a relationship with their children. The burden of proof is on neither parent; each parent just presents their arguments, and the courts weigh all the factors that they can, then rule as to what's in the best interests of the child. If she wanted to move, Lisa would have to notify me of where she's going and why, and would have to provide a full new parenting plan. If I don't agree with the new plan, we go to court. I could even file a counter-motion to become the primary residential parent. Then the courts weigh everything and make their ruling. I feel very confident that, with the outcome of the special advocate's report, as well as the possibilities of what would happen with the kids, she would not be able to just willy-nilly pick up and move them all out of state.
To me, that's EXTREMELY comforting.
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Thanks for reading along.
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