Contraception: the best tool for cutting poverty

MoonHowler

Now the Washington Post is singing my song. I have been advocating contraception as the best tool to cut poverty my entire adult life. Somehow, this message always gets diluted into advocacy for sexual empowerment or irresponsible sexual conduct. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Conservatives: Yes. You. The very thing you eschew and spend so much time fighting might just be the answer to your prayers. Contraception leads to less welfare, less abortion, less ignorance, less incarceration. The list goes on.

Contraception has to be cheap, reliable and easily assessable to those who use it. Think about this when you want to defund Planned Parenthood and other places that provide contraception and other medical services without judgement and without asking too many questions.

In the long run, it will be money in your pocket.

Where are the math texts in Prince William County?

MoonHowler

From Prince William County School policy:

Purchasing Textbooks: It is the policy of the Prince William County School Board that in each core curriculum area there is at least one currently adopted textbook on the appropriate level available to every student.

Textbooks and related materials shall be approved by the School Board or the Associate Superintendent for Student Learning and Accountability before being purchased. The following purchasing procedures have been established to assist in procuring textbooks and instructional materials.
A. The following is a suggested purchase allocation for purchasing textbooks after the adoption approval:
1. First year – As many copies as budgeted funds will allow, but at least   50% of student enrollment.
2. Second year – complete total purchasing requirement according to the policy of one copy per student.
3. Third through sixth years – maintain ample copies of adopted textbooks to meet policy requirements, one copy per student.

That sounds to me like there shall be 1 copy of a textbook in core academic areas for every student.  This isn’t the state, this is Prince William County’s own policy.

PWC Schools are not following their own policy in math and haven’t been for several years.  I believe this is a cheating way for the individual schools to save money.  One classroom set of books is bought and that is the name of that tune.  No homework is given in the math book and to the best of my knowledge, most of the math texts do nothing but sit there and gather dust.

Students need to learn to read across the curriculum, including math instruction.  Students also need to have a math book if they need outside help.  Try tutoring a kid without a math book.  It’s fairly difficult to do unless you have a really good grasp of SOL curriculum.   Then you can pull problems out of thin air or rely on old textbooks if you have your own private stash.

Regardless, if you ask  around you will be hard pressed to find a kid who has been assigned his or her own math textbook to take back and forth to school.  Prince William County’s half-assed approach to providing every student with a math book violates their own policy and certainly does not conform to best practice in the field of education.

It’s time for the school system to stop cheating the kids and the tax payers and to assign each student a math textbook.   Yes, it’s getting personal now.  Come on Stonewall High School–get with the program.  Come on Reagan Middle and Stonewall Middle, get with the program.

You are not acting in the best interests of children.  You are handicapping students and creating innumeracy.

Those running for positions on the school board need to address this issue.

 

Government shut down–who is the perceived villain?

MoonHowler

pollingreport.com:

“Is your opinion of Planned Parenthood favorable, unfavorable or haven’t you heard enough about it?”
 
    Favorable Unfavorable Haven’t
heard enough		 Refused  
    % % % %  
 

8/20-25/15

 43 38 17 1  

“Do you support or oppose cutting off federal government funding to Planned Parenthood?”
 
    Support Oppose Unsure/
No answer		    
    % % %    
 

ALL

 41 51 9    
 

Republicans

 66 25 9    
 

Democrats

 13 80 7    
 

Independents

 47 44 9    

“Would you support or oppose shutting down the government over differences about federal government funding to Planned Parenthood?”

 

 

“Who would you blame more for a government shutdown: the Republicans in Congress, or Barack Obama and the Democrats in Congress?”
 
    Republicans Obama and
Democrats		 Both
equally (vol.)		 Unsure/
No answer		  
    % % % %  
 

8/20-25/15

 41 33 17 9  

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Does Boehner’s resignation signal permanent disorder for the GOP?

MoonHowler

Washingtonpost.com:

When Republicans scored their big victory in the midterm elections of 2010, they looked like a party on the rise after a devastating pair of losses in 2006 and 2008. Instead, they have become a party in almost permanent disorder, torn by warring factions and near-constant tensions between their establishment leadership and a tea party-infused grass roots.

Now, in the wake of GOP House Speaker John A. Boehner’s stunning announcement Friday that he will step down from his post and resign his seat in Congress at the end of October, the question again arises: Can a party so driven by anger, a party divided over confrontation vs. compromise, actually govern in Washington?

Boehner’s decision to quit, and the suddenness with which the news broke, provided one more piece of evidence of how badly strained the Republican coalition is. His inability to corral his unruly members was legendary and, seemingly, never-ending, a series of “Perils of Pauline” moments that brought temporary truces but never fully resolved the debate about the kind of party Republicans want.
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Super, harvest, eclipsing moon starring on Sunday night

MoonHowler

superbloodeclipsing moon

Msn.com:

This weekend, when you look into the night sky you will be able to see a blood red, larger-than-life moon projecting against the stars; the first in more than 30 years.

The rare event is due to the supermoon total lunar eclipse that is expected to happen on Sunday night. Anyone in the U.S. will be able to witness the event from their own backyards or watch the livestream on NASA’s website.

NASA expects the eclipse to last approximately 1 hour and 11 minutes beginning at 10: 11 p.m. and peaking at approximately 10:47 p.m. The live stream will begin at 8 p.m. when the supermoon is shining bright and it’ll end at 11:30 p.m.

NASA will also be answering questions regarding the eclipse via Twitter by using the hashtag #askNASA.

A ‘blood moon’ has always been seen as a bad omen throughout history, but NASA explains the red filtering is caused by particulates in Earth’s atmosphere. Experts have said that when there are a lot of fires or volcanic eruptions, lunar eclipses will appear darker and redder.

Once the moon hides behinds Earth’s shadow—the umbra—during an eclipse, sunlight reaches the moon indirectly and it’s refracted around the edges of Earth, which then causes all colors to be filtered with the exception of red.

Now all we have to do is keep our fingers crossed that the clouds of the weekend will have blown off.  The weekend is supposed to be cloudy and perhaps rainy.

My family always celebrates Harvest Moon, at my insistence.  We go to a Chinese restaurant each year.  The bad thing is, local Chinese restaurants don’t seem to highlight the Harvest Moon any more.  Now anyone with a moniker involving a moon should just get excited over this lunar event.   I am!

Happy Super, Harvest, Blood, Eclipsing Moon!!!!

Climate change: 2 Catholic legislators, 2 different points of view

MoonHowler

earthinhands

Washingtonpost.com:

Kaine said he was “very, very excited” by “Laudato Si,” Francis’s encyclical on the environment generally and on the need to address climate change in particular — something Kaine places in “an area of fundamental truth.”

“I’m sure he’s not going to opine on whether a carbon tax is better than a cap-and-trade mechanism,” he said. “That doesn’t need to be where he goes — but to say, ‘You know, you guys and everybody in power these days, you’ve got the next generation’s future in your hands, and you don’t want to have to face that question later in life: With the science what it was, and with you having the opportunity to do something about it, why did you choose not to?'”

But Rounds — whose given name is Marion, in honor of the Holy Mother — sees a potential conflict between Francis’s focus on climate change and his oft-repeated calls for greater attention to the poor.

 
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Immigrant Catholics: How things once were

MoonHowler

It hasn’t been that many decades since there was real prejudice towards the Irish and central Europeans immigrants, mainly because they were Catholic.    Remember the days of WASP and what it stood for:  White Anglo-Saxon Protestant.

From Politico.com:

What a difference a few decades can make. Today, the grandchildren and great-grandchildren of these Catholic immigrants occupy the halls of Congress, governors’ mansions and state legislatures. One of them currently resides in the Naval Observatory. And when the head of the Catholic Church comes to visit, he will be warmly welcomed and hailed by politicians of all parties and all faiths.
Indeed, America has traveled a long road since the days when many native-born Americans regarded Catholic immigrants as an ideological and racial threat.

But it’s also a fitting time to recall how things once were. Pope Francis arrives amid a political season rife with violent rhetoric directed at millions of Catholic immigrants and their American-born children. Much like an earlier generation of newcomers who faced a toxic blend of racial and nativist backlash, today’s Catholic immigrants have found themselves the unwitting subject of an intense debate about the very meaning of what it means to be an American.

Are we still revisiting the same old prejudices, just from other countries?  It seems so.

Is the US military turning a blind eye to sex abuse in Afghanistan?

MoonHowler

From the New York Times editorial:

The incidents of sexual assault on children described by American service members who served in Afghanistan are sickening. Boys screaming in the night as Afghan police officers attacked them. Three or four Afghan men found lying on the floor of a room at a military base with children between them, presumably for sex play.

No less offensive is that American soldiers and Marines who wanted to intervene could not. According to an account in The Times by Joseph Goldstein, they were ordered by their superiors to ignore abusive behavior by their Afghan allies and “to look the other way because it’s their culture.”

The Pentagon’s indulgent, even complicit, attitude toward pedophiles among the Afghan militias that it funded and trained is indefensible, at odds with American values and with international laws Washington has taken the lead in promoting.

Pervasive sexual abuse of children has long been a problem in Afghanistan. It is especially pronounced among armed commanders who control rural regions and hold sway over the population there. The practice is known as bacha bazi, or boy play; powerful Afghan men often surround themselves with young teenagers as a mark of social status.

By instructing American soldiers and Marines not to interfere, even if the incidents occurred on American bases, the Pentagon has chosen — reprehensibly — to sacrifice vulnerable children in order to maintain good relations with the Afghan police and militias it needs to fight the Taliban.

Some American service members who opposed the policy have been disciplined or seen their careers ruined because they fought it. In one case, Dan Quinn, then a Special Forces captain, beat up an Afghan militia commander in 2011 for keeping a boy chained to his bed as a sex slave. The Army subsequently relieved Captain Quinn of his command, and he has since left the military. Now the Army is trying to retire Sgt. First Class Charles Martland, a Special Forces member who joined Captain Quinn in the beating.

Continue at the New York Times.

Where is the press?  Where is the Pentagon?  The military brass turning a blind eye to this kind of reprehensible child abuse is simply unacceptable on all counts.   No human being should be used as a sex slave, especially children.  I don’t give a rat’s ass what the customs are.

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Where is the outrage over ” Little Johnny Maple Leaf?”

MoonHowler

maple leaf

Washingtonpost.com:

Earlier this school year, a sixth-grader in the gifted-and-talented program at Bedford Middle School in Bedford, Virginia was suspended for one year after an assistant principal found something that looked like a marijuana leaf in his backpack.

The student, the 11-year-old son of two school teachers, had to enroll in the district’s alternative education program and be homeschooled. He was evaluated by a psychiatrist for substance abuse problems, and charged with marijuana possession in juvenile court. In the months since September, he’s become withdrawn, depressed, and he suffers from panic attacks. He is worried his life is over, according to his mother, and that he will never get into college.

The only problem? The “leaf” found in the student’s backpack wasn’t what authorities thought it was — it tested negative for marijuana three separate times.

All of this is laid out in detail by Dan Casey in a column in the Roanoke Times today. While the juvenile court dropped its case against the student after the tests turned up negative, the school system, in a community located midway between Roanoke and Lynchburg, has been far less forgiving. That’s because stringent anti-drug policies in school districts in Virginia and elsewhere consider “imitation” drugs to be identical to real ones for disciplinary purposes.

Depriving a student of an education for a year does have a long-lasting, harmful effect.   It has better be done over something extremely important.  Most codes of behavior within the state speak of placebos–look-alike pills.  A leaf is not a pill.

Kids act silly about things that are forbidden.  So do adults.  I have continually joked that the Prince William County seal looks like it honors the marijuana plant even though I clearly know it does not.

So what if the kid said his maple leaf was “marijuana.”  Where is the harm?  I could even understand if the kid were hauled in and interrogated for an hour and his leaf sent off to some lab somewhere (maybe).  I could understand if his parents were called.  What I don’t understand is the kid being long-term suspended for a year  after the leaf tested negative three different times.

The article in the Roanoke Times is has not been found.  However, there is great coverage in some of the alternative newspapers. Inquistr.com covered the entire story as did several other periodicals.

What is the difference in Ahmed and “Johnny Maple Leaf” some might ask.  The difference is the public safety as well as the degree of consequence.   A real marijuana leaf doesn’t have the potential to detonate.  Ahmed’s punishment lasted 3 days.  Johnny’s lasted a year.   Where is the outrage on behalf of Johnny Maple Leaf?

Disclosure:  I have a similar tree in my yard.

 

Open Thread………………………………………Wednesday, September 2

MoonHowler

hello september

 

The leaves won’t be changing for a while.  Right now August is in September.  Soo the skies will turn bright blue and the air will be crisp.  The nights will be cool and at times chilly.

The crickets and jarflies are loud–loud enough to drown you out if you are sitting on your deck.  In the evening, the frogs try to outsing the crickets.  Ants are marching many by many trying to store up food for the winter.

Everything is alive in fall, hurrying to get the last of the warmth and light in before the cold winter sets in.

The Pope goes to Congress

MoonHowler

washingtonpost.com:

Pope Francis’s address to a joint session of Congress on
September 24, 2015 (10:00 AM ET) will mark a first in the history of the
Catholic Church and United States.
 

Invited by Speaker John Boehner, a Catholic and product of Jesuit education, Pope Francis will speak to a Congress where over 30% of members self-identify as Catholic and nearly 15% attended a Catholic college or university.  In addition, 55 of the members were educated at Jesuit universities or high schools.  His address to Congress will be an opportunity to invite legislators to reflect on the U.S.’s response to those who are marginalized by poverty and injustice, especially migrants, those plagued by climate change, workers treated unjustly, etc.

 

First off, I love the Pope.  I think he is a neat man and he behaves, in my opinion, as a man of Christ should.   To me, he has humility, has eschewed much of the opulence and ostentation of the Vatican in favor of a simpler life.  He seems to listen to the real needs of people.

 

However, I am far too much of a “wall of separation” person to be giving this Congressional address a 100% thumbs up.  I just am not sure that religious leaders should be addressing Congress.   I confess that I would be having a fit if Billy Graham or Jerry Falwell had  addressed Congress during their lifetime.  The Pope is a little different because he is a head of state.

 

This isn’t my sword to fall on.  The Pope has a good message of brotherly love.  I might not agree with all he says.  ( I don’t expect to) but I don’t believe he has a political agenda.   I will be watching to hear his address.  I know there are those who will boycott.

 

Does anyone here plan to see the Pope?   How do you feel about him addressing Congress?  Should we be treating him like royalty or just a head of state?  How many of us have Papal fever?  I just admit to having a slight case.

Republican debate lies

MoonHowler

Several outright lies were told during the debate Wednesday that went unchallenged.  Several of them will have long-lasting fallout if the majority of the people watching believe them.

Trump declared that he knew of a 2 year old who “caught” autism right after receiving vaccinations.  No medical evidence has ever been established regarding vaccinations and autism.   According to the Washington Post opinion:

There were a lot of half-truths and out-right falsehoods peddled at CNN’s Republican debate Wednesday night, but perhaps the most damaging among them was the assertion by Donald Trump that childhood vaccinations cause autism, and others’ skepticism about the safety of the vaccine schedule set out by the American Academy of Pediatrics. It was particularly galling watching two physicians who are president candidates, Ben Carson and Rand Paul, pander when they clearly know better.

Where were the 2 doctors when Trump was making his bold claim?  Carson equivocated rather than just calling BS.  Rand Paul was silent.  Trump told an irresponsible lie.  His opponents who were in a position to challenge him, didn’t.  Shame on all three of them.

 

Carly Fiorina also  lied.  She challenged to Hillary to watch a fabricated video of a fully-formed baby with kicking legs being dismembered for its brain.  She lost all credibility on that one.  There is no such video of such any such  event.

Shame on her.  She has a lot going for her as a candidate.  I have scratched her off my list because of her lie.  That is not how stem cell research works.

Hopefully, the more reasonable, truthful  Republicans will bump off the wannabes.

Clinics no longer required to have special building codes and hospital rules

MoonHowler

Washingtonpost.com:

RICHMOND — The Virginia Board of Health voted Thursday evening to reverse hospital-style rules and building codes for abortion clinics, fulfilling a campaign promise of Gov. Terry McAuliffe and delivering a setback to abortion foes.

The amended regulations — if finalized — will no longer require the state’s existing abortion clinics to comply with the inpatient hospital code. Nor would the regulations mandate that the clinics have transfer agreements with hospitals or impose strict construction and design standards. However, future clinics will have to follow parts of the construction code.

“Today’s vote is an enormous step forward in the fight to get extreme politics out of decisions that should be between women and their doctors,” McAuliffe (D) said in a statement. “I applaud the Board of Health for ending this disturbing chapter in our history and for heeding the advice of experts, medical professionals and Virginia women about the best way to provide safe access to health care.”

The move also drew praise from the American Civil Liberties Union of Virginia, NARAL Pro-Choice Virginia and ProgressVA.

Don’t be mislead.  These TRAP rules and codes were meant to shut down clinics, not make abortion safer.  Hopefully all new clinics, regardless of the type of medical service provided will have to follow codes that make all procedures safer.  Plenty of us have out patient services that are far more invasive and dangerous than abortion.

Good for the State Board of Health for coming to its senses, now Cuccinelli and McDonald are peddling their influence elsewhere.

The thought occurred to me as I created this post that now our local clinic is closing, the protesters will have further to drive.  Please know that the clinic owner always appreciated them being out there.  Protester presence saved her thousands of dollars annually in advertising.

The best way to end abortion is to do all we can to reduce unwanted pregnancy.  Yet, as we speak, members of the Senate and Congress are trying their best to defund Planned Parenthood.  The Hyde Amendment has made it illegal for any federal money to go towards abortion.  Those chasing after Planned Parenthood with pitchforks and torches need to think about the cost of unwanted, unplanned pregnancy.  Birth Control ought to be a national priority.

I have to go write my check to Planned Parenthood.  You can also designate them through amazon.com.

*TRAP* laws = Targeted Restriction of Abortion Providers 

 

I do NOT stand with Ahmed Mohamed

MoonHowler

washingtonpost.com:

Ahmed Mohamed just wanted to impress his teachers with a homemade invention. The story of what happened next has made the 14-year-old from Irving, Tex., the object of national outrage and attention.

Eager to show off to his engineering teacher, Mohamed walked into MacArthur High School on Monday morning with his hastily assembled invention: A digital clock.

Hours later, the ninth-grader was escorted out of the school in police custody after teachers mistook the device for a bomb.

The incident has triggered allegations of racism and made a Texas school district the target of outrage that began online and quickly spilled into the most powerful offices in the land.

As the story spread, along with a photo of Mohamed in a NASA T-shirt and handcuffs, support came flooding in.

He was escorted out in handcuffs, not shot, for God’s sake. My criticism of the school and/or police is that hours later he was removed rather than immediately.

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