Revenge of the Celebrities
Blogging was a nice little niche for The Rest of Us. Those days are over: here come the Celeblogs. However, the writer of the piece in question appears to be somewhat confused as to what blogs are, seeing as most of the links he provides are to Websites, not blogs. Not that there's anything wrong with www.williamshatner.com and mariahcarey.com besides the obvious.
Food Stamps for Footpads
Also over at the S.F. Chron, Laurel Wellman chats with activist Kevin Keating, who begs the question of whether welfare recipients will necessarily turn into muckers if their benefits are rescinded. The Raven thinks that if one were predisposed to preying on passers-by, one wouldn't let a small government check get in the way. After all, business is business.
They Were Confused
I don't know where the members of the Democratic Iraqi Opposition of Germany get their bright ideas, but here's their explanation:
- "We are taking over the Iraqi Embassy in Berlin and thereby take the first step toward the liberation of our beloved fatherland. Our action is peaceful and limited in time," said the statement received by two news agencies in Germany. "Our path is the liberation of Baghdad."
The DIOG plans to execute Phase Two of their master plan from inside a maximum-security penitentiary. These guys are good.
The Brainwashers
The NEA has been backpedaling pretty hard to distance itself from those September 11 lesson plans that seemed a bit too heavy on the "blame America" message. Not that there's anything wrong with having an intelligent in-class discussion about what motivates terrorists - better that than some jingoistic class singalong of "Kick Ass, USA." But when you read about how the NEA seems to consistently direct curricula with all the logical precision of the Democratic Iraqi Opposition of Germany (see above), then you certainly understand why so many parents across the country are opting to homeschool their kids.
In California, loveable bureaucratchik Joanne Mendoza of the State Department of Education issued a memo that appears to make homeschools illegal in the state unless the parent doing the teaching has a credential.
- "In California, 'home schooling' [~] a situation where non-credentialed parents teach their own children, exclusively, at home whether using correspondence courses or other types of courses [~] is not an authorized exemption from mandatory public school attendance [thus] a parent's filing of the affidavit required of a private school does not transform that parent into a private school...those parents who home-school their children are operating outside the law..."
Requiring parents who school their own children to be certified to some extent isn't necessarily a bad idea. The view from here is that an adult-ed program for teach-at-home parents could potentially have value, provided that the NEA has absolutely nothing to do with it.
10:12:06 AM 
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Wednesday, August 21, 2002
