You all know where I stand, as a Tea Party Republican. The past two weeks has been an exercise in futility. Mainstream Republicans gave the Democrats all their leverage on a silver platter. If mainstream Republicans were going to cave under media pressure why wait two weeks? Why not just give in at the beginning and save all these back and forth proposals? What did we get after all this? Another stop gap budget. A budget for three months. We'll be back in the same mess in January. The difference next time is the Democrats will know all they have to do is stick to their guns and mainstream Republicans will give them what they want. I think if the Republicans would have stuck to their platform long enough the Democrats would have come to the negotiating table. Now, what intensive do the Democrats have to negotiate? All they have to do is what the Republicans should have done.
People say Republicans should come more to the middle. I could say the same about Democrats but what good is that. Why do we want two parties that are identical? People need choice. Republicans shouldn't come to the middle any more than Democrats should. A party shouldn't change just because one side of an issue is promoted more in the media than another. I get so sick of candidates for Federal office being asked how they feel about abortion, and gay marriage. Why aren't these issue state issues? If both parties have the same view what distinguishes them. I know there are other issues to consider but these are the main two the media harps on.
I've been hearing talk of a third party. This party would be formed by splitting the Republicans. Haven't we learned from history; split the party and the other one wins. Moderate Republicans should become democrats so people will have two clear parties.
I've even heard a small group of malcontents speak of secession. History repeating itself again. Unlike now most people in each region had similar ideologies. If we were split by region I'd be considering secession myself. Unfortunately we are scattered and there's no western frontier we can gather to. We're got to get it together or fall.
Thursday, October 17, 2013
Wednesday, October 2, 2013
Government Shut Down
First, I like to say IT'S ABOUT TIME. I was so sick of the threats to do what we want or we'll shut down the government. Well, finally, for once they didn't cave and the government shut down. Good. Well they call it a shut down but this is a joke. So you can't visit a national park, visit a Presidential library, or you get to stay home because you're an unessential federal employee. If there's a disaster FEMA is still there, the mails will run, and you'll get your checks and food stamps.
The parties are blaming each other. Democrats are so used to Republicans giving in when they threaten to shut down the government. I'm glad the Republications stood their ground for a change. Hopefully when the American people see a government shut down is no big deal, just a ploy, they'll contact their representatives and tell them what they think about the issues at hand.
What puzzles me is how they decided which websites to disable during the shut down. That stupid health care exchange's site is up but the BARD site to order talking books is down. Both sites can run themselves so why is one down? I can understand their not adding any new books but why not allow downloads of books already there? Politics. That's life. I'm willing for the government to be shut down for as long as it takes to get a YEARLY budget. I'm tired of these temporary budgets. Leave it shut down until they vote to put in a debt sealing in place. Let green energy fund itself through private funding. Keep our soldiers out of every other country's skirmishes. Postpone and iron out this healthcare mess if they insist on not defunding it.
The parties are blaming each other. Democrats are so used to Republicans giving in when they threaten to shut down the government. I'm glad the Republications stood their ground for a change. Hopefully when the American people see a government shut down is no big deal, just a ploy, they'll contact their representatives and tell them what they think about the issues at hand.
What puzzles me is how they decided which websites to disable during the shut down. That stupid health care exchange's site is up but the BARD site to order talking books is down. Both sites can run themselves so why is one down? I can understand their not adding any new books but why not allow downloads of books already there? Politics. That's life. I'm willing for the government to be shut down for as long as it takes to get a YEARLY budget. I'm tired of these temporary budgets. Leave it shut down until they vote to put in a debt sealing in place. Let green energy fund itself through private funding. Keep our soldiers out of every other country's skirmishes. Postpone and iron out this healthcare mess if they insist on not defunding it.
Tuesday, October 1, 2013
Way Too Early
When Andrea was in seventh grade we had to catch the bus at 6:00 a.m. to get her to school. We did this by choice. I had exercised the School Choice option and chose to send her to Watson Chapel Junior High, a school out of our home district. With school choice you could attend an out of district school but the school bus didn't transport. So we found ourselves waiting for the city bus early every morning. We took the bus to Beazle's House where my daughter caught the bus with the neighborhood kids. Shame on us. What I'm complaining about is public schools requiring little kids in their own districts to be up and out so early. These parents have little or no choice.
Last Wednesday morning I was out early. I knew school buses ran early to pick up elementary school students. I had no idea how early. A mother with a little boy, maybe first grade, pass me on the street. I heard her say, "Hurry up, son, we don't want to miss the school bus." I was shocked. It was black dark. I say, "What time is it?" as I pull out my phone to look at the time. The lady said it was 6:30, my phone said 6.28. Either way, too early to be picking up such little kids. This is made more ridiculous when middle schoolers are picked up after 8:00. High School students are the only ones picked up at a reasonable 7:15.
By the time the little kid's mother finished telling him to
hurry I hear the bus. Unbelievable. I had to take a picture. This may not be the greatest shot but I had to get it; high ISO, hand held, black dark.
True, the little kids get home from school really early, around 2:30 p.m. but I'd rather see them get home a bit later than having to be at the school bus stop at 6:30 in the morning.
IMO this is part of why kids are performing so poorly in school these days. What time do these kids get up in order to be on time for the school bus? Did they eat breakfast at home or do they go to school hungry and scarf down a school breakfast before class? If they get up at 4:30 or 5, do they go to bed at 8:30 or 9?
I tell you, if I had small children and they had to be at the school bus stip by 6:30, we'd be homeschooling for sure.
Last Wednesday morning I was out early. I knew school buses ran early to pick up elementary school students. I had no idea how early. A mother with a little boy, maybe first grade, pass me on the street. I heard her say, "Hurry up, son, we don't want to miss the school bus." I was shocked. It was black dark. I say, "What time is it?" as I pull out my phone to look at the time. The lady said it was 6:30, my phone said 6.28. Either way, too early to be picking up such little kids. This is made more ridiculous when middle schoolers are picked up after 8:00. High School students are the only ones picked up at a reasonable 7:15.
By the time the little kid's mother finished telling him tohurry I hear the bus. Unbelievable. I had to take a picture. This may not be the greatest shot but I had to get it; high ISO, hand held, black dark.
True, the little kids get home from school really early, around 2:30 p.m. but I'd rather see them get home a bit later than having to be at the school bus stop at 6:30 in the morning.
IMO this is part of why kids are performing so poorly in school these days. What time do these kids get up in order to be on time for the school bus? Did they eat breakfast at home or do they go to school hungry and scarf down a school breakfast before class? If they get up at 4:30 or 5, do they go to bed at 8:30 or 9?
I tell you, if I had small children and they had to be at the school bus stip by 6:30, we'd be homeschooling for sure.
Homework
An assignment for Andrea's music appreciation classes states they must attend a concert and write a report about it. If the attend a live concert and attach the program to their report they will get extra credit. Straight forward in theory buy oh, so frustrating in practice.
We decide extra credit is the was to go. I have Andrea find a free concert held before the due date of the report. She finds a string quartet holding a performance at the Emory University Planetarium. The Marta map says no bus goes by there so I call para-transit. I tell the MARTA rep where we're going and that the concert starts at 7:00 p.m. I had already called Emory to find out what time the concert ends and they didn't know. I was told to call back tomorrow and they will have found out by then. The man said concerts usually last an hour and a half to two hours. I told MARTA to pick us up at 9:15 for the trip home. I was told we'd be picked up at 5:30 from home. This seemed reasonable. I was dead wrong.
So we get ready and 5:30 comes and goes. At 6:00 I call to see where the van is. I'm told he's dropping somebody off in Lithonia and will be picking us up in about twenty minutes. After we get on the van we suffer through a pick up and drop off of another person. It is after 7:30 before we get to the Emory Planetarium.
Sigh of relief; we can finally hear the music. Not so. the lady at the door informs us that the planetarium is filled to capacity. I'm dumbfounded but persistant. "Is there some place we can listen?" I ask. I don't know why I asked that because not a peep could be heard from where we were. She said there wasn't. I ask about a program, I explain about the extra credit for a live concert. I hoping Andrea's teacher will give her the extra credit if she knows Andrea tried so hard to go to a live concert. The lady at the door said they were all out of programs but she'd write a note explaining the situation. The lady wrote the note and I took a picture of Andrea outside the building with the name displayed so her teacher will know we tried. We stayed close to the entrance in case someone left early. Everyone stayed to the end around 8:00 p.m.
Now we have a long wait until we're picked up. What a waste. I told Andrea to go on Youtube and find a concert to report on.
We decide extra credit is the was to go. I have Andrea find a free concert held before the due date of the report. She finds a string quartet holding a performance at the Emory University Planetarium. The Marta map says no bus goes by there so I call para-transit. I tell the MARTA rep where we're going and that the concert starts at 7:00 p.m. I had already called Emory to find out what time the concert ends and they didn't know. I was told to call back tomorrow and they will have found out by then. The man said concerts usually last an hour and a half to two hours. I told MARTA to pick us up at 9:15 for the trip home. I was told we'd be picked up at 5:30 from home. This seemed reasonable. I was dead wrong.
So we get ready and 5:30 comes and goes. At 6:00 I call to see where the van is. I'm told he's dropping somebody off in Lithonia and will be picking us up in about twenty minutes. After we get on the van we suffer through a pick up and drop off of another person. It is after 7:30 before we get to the Emory Planetarium.
Sigh of relief; we can finally hear the music. Not so. the lady at the door informs us that the planetarium is filled to capacity. I'm dumbfounded but persistant. "Is there some place we can listen?" I ask. I don't know why I asked that because not a peep could be heard from where we were. She said there wasn't. I ask about a program, I explain about the extra credit for a live concert. I hoping Andrea's teacher will give her the extra credit if she knows Andrea tried so hard to go to a live concert. The lady at the door said they were all out of programs but she'd write a note explaining the situation. The lady wrote the note and I took a picture of Andrea outside the building with the name displayed so her teacher will know we tried. We stayed close to the entrance in case someone left early. Everyone stayed to the end around 8:00 p.m.
Now we have a long wait until we're picked up. What a waste. I told Andrea to go on Youtube and find a concert to report on.
I'm Sick of It
Is there anywhere in these United States that has fully accessible transportation for those of us who don't drive? Fully accessible means more than getting us to the doctor, work, and school, with maybe a shopping center nearby. The sooner public transit and paratransit systems realize this the better for all of us. Next Tuesday there's yet another event we can't independently attend.
Georgia Cyber Academy has gone all out for their Stone Mountain meet and greet. We're to "We will be meeting for fun, games, music, crafts, bounce houses, competitions, student performers and more!" To add to that Stone Mountains has lots of things for visitors to see and do. Andrea and I were looking forward to it until I called MARTA's para-transit for a ride.
The MARTA representative said the van will let us out at the west gate to Stone Mountain Park but she didn't know how far that is from the Fireside Pavilion, where I need to be. She said, "It's a big place. You should call them to find out. She was nice enough to give me the number to Stone Mountain park.
I call the park and get disappointing news. According to the lady at the park the Fireside Pavilion is two and a half miles from the west gate where the para-transit will be letting us off. I ask if there's a shuttle and she says the shuttle only runs on weekends.
We already got volleyball practice moved because of this event. More than likely we'll stay home and do schoolwork. There are roads running through this park. GCA sent out directions for parking near the pavillion. I don't understand why the para-transit can't travel these same roads.
I don't want to ask for a ride because I want to leave on my own schedule. I don't know how many of the GCA activities we'll participate in. We're mainly going to take pictures and may want to stay longer than a ride may. I'll have to thing about the pros and cons of asking a neighbor or another GCA family. Sometimes I want to do things with just us.
I flet Pine Bluff because I wanted Andrea and myself to be able to do more things. We missed out in pine Bluff because the busses were very limited in range and hours. Here we have both for the most part and I know I should be grateful. But as they say the more you have the more you want. I want more. I want to decide not to go someplace because of my own reasons, not because I can't get there without involving somebody else, their schedule, and desires. I am so looking forward to a year of freedom between when Andrea gets her license and when she leaves for college.
Georgia Cyber Academy has gone all out for their Stone Mountain meet and greet. We're to "We will be meeting for fun, games, music, crafts, bounce houses, competitions, student performers and more!" To add to that Stone Mountains has lots of things for visitors to see and do. Andrea and I were looking forward to it until I called MARTA's para-transit for a ride.
The MARTA representative said the van will let us out at the west gate to Stone Mountain Park but she didn't know how far that is from the Fireside Pavilion, where I need to be. She said, "It's a big place. You should call them to find out. She was nice enough to give me the number to Stone Mountain park.
I call the park and get disappointing news. According to the lady at the park the Fireside Pavilion is two and a half miles from the west gate where the para-transit will be letting us off. I ask if there's a shuttle and she says the shuttle only runs on weekends.
We already got volleyball practice moved because of this event. More than likely we'll stay home and do schoolwork. There are roads running through this park. GCA sent out directions for parking near the pavillion. I don't understand why the para-transit can't travel these same roads.
I don't want to ask for a ride because I want to leave on my own schedule. I don't know how many of the GCA activities we'll participate in. We're mainly going to take pictures and may want to stay longer than a ride may. I'll have to thing about the pros and cons of asking a neighbor or another GCA family. Sometimes I want to do things with just us.
I flet Pine Bluff because I wanted Andrea and myself to be able to do more things. We missed out in pine Bluff because the busses were very limited in range and hours. Here we have both for the most part and I know I should be grateful. But as they say the more you have the more you want. I want more. I want to decide not to go someplace because of my own reasons, not because I can't get there without involving somebody else, their schedule, and desires. I am so looking forward to a year of freedom between when Andrea gets her license and when she leaves for college.
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