Sing it loud. Sing it proud!

 

I sometimes think I should have titled my blog "The Guilty Gaper" because that is exactly what I am. I am old enough now to claim it. I think Norman Rockwell painted this thinking of me.

 I love to sing. When I was a little girl, my mother thought I went up to my piano teacher's house (Mrs. Ina Harrison who played with Chautauqua. Her husband owned a pharmacy downtown.) to learn to play the piano. I learned one piece a year, but got her to play for me to sing the rest of the lesson. That was my joy. Then I would sing those songs to the trees in my front yard from the balcony of our home, pretending I was singing on the stage of an opera. 

On Sunday mornings before my mother took me to church at the old Presbyterian church downtown,  But first, I would climb to the top of the slide and sing made up songs of praise to God. My father and mother encouraged my singing. Back then there were booklets you could purchase at the IGA with the words of the songs on the radio. When we would travel, Daddy, who hated the radio, would turn it on for me to sing along. Mother's favorite was "When You Walk Through A Storm."

When I listened to Miss Essie Mae Smitherman sing "The Star Spangled Banner" at the football games where I stood on the field as an unexpected cheerleader, I aspired to become a teacher at Dothan High School and maybe one day do the same. There was something thrilling there in the dark watching the flag raise over the stadium hearing her clear, beautiful voice and our wonderful Dothan High School band play. 

I have many happy memories of singing. I sang "The Little Drummer Boy" at First Baptist and watched my little son, Drew, walk down the aisle with his little drum. My heart swelled and the words were hard to come as I watched God's gift to me walk down that aisle.

I sang "The Old Rugged Cross" at my grandmother's funeral. My grandfather, Pat Gillis, had sat listening to the Gospel Hour on the radio the Saturday before his death. He heard the words of that song and said to my grandmother who sat rocking her six month old baby next to him, "When I die, I want them to sing that song." The next weekend, the ropes broke on the truck in front of him as he was on his way to TR Miller Mill Company in Brewton, Alabama and he was crushed. That song meant something to the precious woman who raised my mother and her four siblings alone all those years that followed. As she died in the hospital, she lifted a hand, looked beyond those gathered beside her, and said, "Pat?" 

I sang "The King is Coming" at Joe's cousin Dick Moseley's funeral. 

My dear friend, Agatha Bennett in Panama City, requested that I sing "The Lord's Prayer" at her funeral. She was Presbyterian but the funeral was held at the Baptist Church because it was bigger and she and Julian were much loved and respected. The pianist of the church and I practiced a bit before the service. I do not think the others who sang, or spoke, really knew her and their delivery was staid and mechanical, But I knew her and I knew her faith. The song and the music gelled and it created a praise moment that still sings in my heart. One I knew she would have loved. Hands raised in praise and a true moment of worship occurred. But not everyone received it well to my consternation. 

And then, after attending church one Sunday with my father so he would not have to sit alone, the pastor's wife walked past me and said, "You sure sing loud." Yes, the Norman Rockwell picture reminds me of me singing in church. And yes, there have been times when small children turned to look. But, with her words, every doubt, every weakness, every inhibition I ever experienced returned. I must say her words took me back to Sunday school at that church when no one wanted to sit beside me. Until I was 12, my mother took me to the Presbyterian Church. Then Daddy decided we would all attend church in the denomination he had grown up in. I was a chubby little girl, the last to be picked for any sport. Truly a late bloomer. Two of the boys in that Sunday school class had been the boys who said to me one day in Junior High, "You are so fat, how do you get down that hall." Such wit. Both were chubby themselves. A mean bunch of children who considered themselves the elect. One died long ago. Someone said of AIDS.  And the other is going blind, I hear. And I guess the girls in that church thought fat was contagious. 

Lauren Daigle's song, You Say, expresses it best...

I keep fighting voices in my mind that say I'm not enough

Every single lie that tells me I will never measure up

Am I more than just the sum of every high and every low

Remind me once again just who I am because I need to know

Ooh-oh

You say I am loved when I can't feel a thing

You say I am strong when I think I am weak

And you say I am held when I am falling short

And when I don't belong, oh You say I am Yours

And I believe (I)

Oh, I believe (I)

What You say of me (I)

I believe

But, God gave me a mother who won a battle ribbon for her participation at the Battle of the Bulge. She told me to tell them "You don't buy my groceries, so don't worry about it!" Not a great comeback, but good enough for me. Much better than tears. She was the oldest of those children my grandmother raised after my grandfather died. She went to work keeping the books for a dime store and helped her mother as early as possible. Her gumption and big heart led her to sign up for the Army after borrowing money for nursing school and graduating. 

I found out later that some girls' mothers forbade them from being my friends. They called my mother coarse and vulgar. I called my mother loving, courageous and a wonderful example of stepping out of her comfort zone to do what she felt God called her to do. And yes, she could curse like a soldier and loved a good joke. She had an infectious laugh and people from all over town would call her to tell her the latest joke they heard. Yet, she washed my mouth out with soap if a curse word escaped. 

Mother once saved a horse destined for the glue factory and set him to work on our farm. When you rode that horse, he went hell for leather and you had to run him into a fence to stop him. Sometimes I think that is how I do things. I write and tell it true. I sing and I sing with every feeling I experience. That horse died when his heart burst while herding cattle. Not such a bad end. Dying while doing what you love. 

I loved my Joe and love my children and grandchildren with every fibre of my being. As someone once said, "You are only as happy as your unhappiest child."

I remember how hurtful children (and their parents) can be. And so now, when my precious gifted granddaughter tells me that her hands shook and she could barely speak in a spelling bee or that they had a singing contest and everyone ran away before she could begin singing, I get her to sing this Lauren Daigle song for me and tell her...What you have is a gift from God. Those who try to rob you of your gift are not speaking from God's heart. We know from where their crippling words of doubt and destruction come. I get taken back to those early painful years and remember. And I tell her the lessons my mother taught me. 

Sing it loud and sing it proud. Sing it from your heart and articulate every word so that people will hear the words and not just the music. Music speaks to our very soul.

I think of the arrogance of that woman who meant to shut me up and I want to ask her if she has ever heard of the church of Laodicea. 

The History of America's Children Being Groomed: How We Got to Sodom and Gomorrah

 America's children are in real trouble. 

While some may have thought the domestic terrorist, Bill Ayers, had turned over a new leaf when he got his PHD in education at Columbia, the truth is Ayers still works on dismantling America from the inside, and, through Barach Obama he set up a framework to do so. 

For those who are not well-versed on 60s politics, Ayers was a leader of the Weathermen, the most radical of all 1960s revolutionaries.  Among other things, the Weathermen bombed the Pentagon and the U.S. Capitol and sprung Timothy Leary from jail. His wife, Bernadine Dohrn, was on the FBI's list of most wanted criminals.

As Ayers puts it, “There’s a lot in white Americans that we do have to fight, and beat out of them and beat out of ourselves,” Ayers said in a speech. “We have to be willing to fight white privilege, racism, male supremacy–in order to build a revolutionary movement.”

Ironically, Bill Ayers is allowed to speak on college campuses, unlike conservative speakers. His T-shirt reads: “America is like a melting pot: The people at the bottom get burned and the scum floats to the top.”

He is formerly Distinguished Professor of Education and Senior University Scholar at the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC). He works in the university’s elementary teacher education program. His specialty is school improvement. He has written one book on early childhood education and another about teaching. He publishes regularly in scholarly journals. Each year he trains dozens of would-be teachers for private, public, and parochial schools. And he was the director of the Chicago Annenberg Project which Barach Obama chaired from 1991-1995. As Ayers sees it, teachers and students are victims of an oppressive schooling system that “manages and controls” instead of “opening possibilities.”

At the Chicago Annenberg Challenge, “the brainchild of Bill Ayers,” they funneled more that $100 million to radical groups which used the funds to promote radical education. This initiative was also promoted by Arne Duncan, who became Secretary of Education. Also as board members of the Woods Fund, Ayers and Obama channeled money to ACORN (Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now) and the Midwest Academy: Organizing for Social Change.

In 2003, Barach Obama supported Illinois Senate Bill 99, which despite his denials and false claims by the mainstream media was not a bill to protect children from sexual predators. On the contrary, it was a sweeping, comprehensive sex-education bill that lowered the age of instruction from sixth grade to kindergarten. It gutted an abstinence emphasis and prohibited "bias" based on "sexual orientation." The term "sexual predator" is nowhere in the bill. 

 

In 2007, a group from the American Educational Research Association (AERA), including Ayers, demanded major accrediting organization for schools, colleges, and departments of education include categories of "social justice, sexual orientation and gender identity" in its standards. Ayers and colleagues called their effort "Call to Action: A RED Campaign for Social Justice and Queer Lives." Formerly vice president for curriculum of the AERA, Ayers was the spokesman on behalf of the effort and called on the National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education (NCATE) to include these categories.

Would all schools in the U.S., under the muscle of an Obama administration, be forced to drill youth in the talking points of "gay" sex and gender–switching, calling it "justice"? Would Ayers' idea that America is an oppressive regime with way too much heterosexuality become a core tenet of your child's value system?

Ayers wrote an endorsement on the book, Queering Elementary Schools: Advancing the Dialogue about Sexualities and Schooling for which Kevin Jennings, founder of GLSEN (Gay, Lesbian &Straight Education Network), wrote the foreword. Ayers recommended Jennings to be Assistant Deputy Secretary of Education for the Office of Safe and Drug Free Schools. According to the GLSEN website, the National Association of School Psychologists, the Learning First Alliance, the National Education Association, the Council for Exceptional Children, Social Workers Association of America and the American Federation of Teachers are their longtime partners in the education world. They say the purpose of GLSEN is to transform America's K-12 schools into an "affirming environment".

Please take note: The Alabama Psychological Association (aPA) was established in 1950 and is a state affiliate of the American Psychological Association.  So when the Alabama legislature passed the Numeracy Act and included putting psychologists in every school, you might wonder why.

 A transcript from a 1997 speech shows Kevin Jennings, Office of Safe Schools chief in the U.S. Department of Education,  expressing his admiration for Harry Hay, who was one of the nation's first homosexual activists who launched the Mattachine Society in 1948, founded the Radical Faeries and was a longtime advocate for the North American Man-Boy Love Association, NAMBLA. 

“One of the people that's always inspired me is Harry Hay,” the transcript shows Jennings saying, “who started the first ongoing gay rights groups in America. 

 “Hay was a prominent American gay rights activist, communist, pro-pedophilia activist (NAMBLA), and … founder of the Mattachine Society, the first sustained gay rights group in the United States as well as the Radical Faeries, a loosely-affiliated gay spiritual movement.” Among these, NAMBLA is the infamous North American Man/Boy Love Association. (Wikipedia)

Harry left Communist Party of the USA and in 1950 joined a group of homosexual communists in forming the so-called Mattachine Society, the pioneering organization of gay communists. From there, Hay did remarkable work in spreading both gay-rights propaganda and communist propaganda and forging the two under a mighty left-wing rainbow umbrella that would revolutionize what we now called the wider “LGBTQ” movement. (Actually, writers at People’s World, flagship publication of Communist Party USA, have now started using the term “LGBTQIA.”)

“Well, [in] 1993,” Jennings continued, “Harry Hay marched with a million people in Washington, who thought he had a good idea 40 years before.

Bob Hamer writes about a SEXUAL PREDATOR’S STRATEGY: GROOMING. He states:  "For the persuasion sexual predator, “grooming” is the vehicle used to manipulate and seduce the vulnerable child. I didn’t learn about grooming in a college classroom or from a textbook. I learned it from the pedophiles themselves." Read more below. 

Is this part of multicultural education? Are our children supposed to celebrate this? 

And now we come to one of the most radical of all agents of change: the Southern Poverty Law Center in Montgomery, Alabama, that has been promoting this agenda for years under the guise of "Conflict Resolution" and "Teaching Tolerance." 

Dr. Tommy Bice, former gay Superintendent for the state of Alabama, is a board member of the Magic City Acceptance Academy (grades 6 through 12), one of Alabama's first charter schools. They state on their website:

 "...educational pedagogy and curriculum design that best meets our needs as a community of learners will be rooted in Constructivism. The basic tenet of Constructivism is that learners, simply put, construct learning through a variety of experiences. Learners construct knowledge rather than simply sit and take in information. As people experience problems and situations they reflect on what they experience and they create or build their own representations and incorporate new information into their pre-existing knowledge (schemas).

The essential components in constructivist theory are to elicit prior knowledge, create cognitive dissonance, and apply the knowledge with feedback and reflection on learning. These components are best utilized in project-based, cooperative, learning activities that reflect elements with meaning to, or are relevant to the students’ lives and community." 

There is nothing innocent about the phrase "create cognitive dissonance." Cognitive dissonance is a state of confusion brought about by conflicting beliefs. There are a number of different situations that can create cognitive dissonance, such as "Forced Compliance." 

"Sometimes you might find yourself engaging in behaviors that are opposed to your own beliefs due to external expectations, often for work, school, or a social situation. This might involve going along with something due to peer pressure..," according to the verywellmind website. So, are kindergarteners strong enough to withstand the peer pressure and proselytizing of an agenda "contrary to the fixed beliefs of their parents?"  And how is this Constitutional? 

"Constructivist" equals "cognitive dissonance"

Alabama scores dead last nationally on math scores.  We have two Auburn College of Education professors, Gary Martin and Marilyn Strutchens, who have been awarded nearly $600,000 to establish professional learning communities in mathematics. Strutchens served on the board of directors of the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics. 

 National Council of Teachers of Mathematics encourage the move away from the traditional emphasis on computational skills like multiplication tables and algorithms—a teaching method that university mathematicians still favor but that many K–12 math teachers dismiss as “drill and kill.” Teachers (particularly liberal and left-leaning teachers) instead use a “constructivist” or “discovery-based” pedagogy, sometimes called “fuzzy math.” Here students learn mathematical concepts by trying to solve real-life problems, like social justice lessons on how military budgets for the war in Iraq deny poor Americans their fair share of resources as an advance beyond problems about baseball statistics, shopping, or building.

Remember "Constructivist" equals cognitive dissonance.  And when you see "social justice" you might as well think about the Bill Ayers and all he supports and why he promotes "constructivist" education and the creation of cognitive dissonance. 

Martin and Strutchens have been on nearly every state math committee in Alabama; in fact, Dr. Strutchens chaired the committee in 2019. 

With math teachers more concerned with social justice lessons than actually teaching math we fear that Queer Mathematics will soon be in our schools if it isn't already. 

"For the last decade or so, largely working beneath public or parental notice, a well-organized movement has sought to revolutionize the curricula and culture of the nation’s public schools. Its aim: to stamp out “hegemonic heterosexuality”—the traditional view that heterosexuality is the norm—in favor of a new ethos that does not just tolerate homosexuality but instead actively endorses experimenting with it, as well as with a polymorphous range of bisexuality, transgenderism, and transsexuality. The educational establishment has enthusiastically signed on. What this portends for the future of the public schools and the psychic health of the nation’s children is deeply worrisome." writes Marjorie King. 

 

 

https://gellerreport.com/2022/08/queer-mathematics-in-public-schools.html/

 And now we discover a leftist organization called "The Queer Mathematics Teacher" is seeking to embed gender theory in K-12 math classes. Brandie Waid, the director of The Queer Mathematics Teacher, laid out a plan for incorporating gender theory into math classes in a blog post on the Collaborative for Academic Social and Emotion Learning (CASEL) website. CASEL is sponsored by the Allstate Foundation. 

Once again we find Bill Ayers. Linda Darling-Hammond is a radical left-wing educator and close colleague of William “Bill” Ayers. Hammond was Professor Bill Ayers’ choice for secretary of education during the first Obama administration. Hammond served as an education adviser and transition team leader in 2008. Hammond serves on the board of the Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning (CASEL), the godfather of SEL in the U.S., and co-chaired the Aspen Institute’s National Commission on Social, Emotional and Academic Learning. 

"Schools should be focused on teaching children core curriculum and not on asking intrusive questions that have nothing to do with core subjects," Parents Defending Education President Nicole Neilly told Fox News Digital. "Injecting Social Emotional Learning into math class not only distracts from teaching students the basics, but it also undermines the program's purpose - because higher self-esteem is a direct result of subject mastery."

Contrary to what parents want in their children's math education, the Queer Mathematics Teacher site states, "The ability to consider sexuality irrelevant in the mathematics context is a heteronormatively privileged position." They note that some areas of their expertise include "queer pedagogy," "teaching mathematics for social justice," "Fostering Students' Growth Mindset (While Advocating for Systemic Change," and "Humanizing Mathematics Education for LGBTQ+ Students."

Brandie Waid, the left-wing activist promoting the Queer Mathematics Teacher, even goes so far as to suggest that activist educators should teach critical race theory and gender theory, even if it means breaking the law. Waid writes, “I implore my colleagues to ask: How can we work within (or outside) the confines of these laws to center Transformative SEL and student thriving in our teaching?” 

 So, not only do we find Bill Ayers' agenda, we find that the National Education Association, and therefore its affiliate, the Alabama Education Association, supports-- I would say-- even promotes this sexualization of children.  

NATIONAL EDUCATION ASSOCIATION C-12 

Student Sexual Orientation, Gender Identity and Gender Expression

    "The National Education Association believes that all persons, regardless of sexual orientation or gender identity, should be afforded equal opportunity and guaranteed a safe and inclusive environment within the public education system. The Association also believes a safe and inclusive environment ensures that all transgender students have access to the bathroom or locker of their choice and protects them from breaches of confidentiality. The Association believes that LGBTQ students have the right to privacy and confidentiality regarding their sexual orientation, gender identity, and gender expression. Further, educators must respect these students and their choice of whether or not to reveal their orientation, identity, or expression. 

    The Association further believes that, for students who are struggling with their sexual orientation, gender identity or gender expression, every school district and educational institution should provide counseling services and programs--staffed by trained personnel--that deal with high suicide and dropout rates and the high incidence of teen prostitution. The Association further believes that therapies designed to alter a student's orientation or identity are harmful to the emotional development of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, non-binary, and questioning (LGBTQ+) students. Therefore, students should have access to gender affirming health care. 

The Association believes that all transgender students should be able to use the bathroom or locker room of their choice."

What do they mean when they say students should have access to gender affirming health care? Do parents get to be involved in this "gender affirming" health care? Do these people support the mutilation of small children whom they have confused (gender dysphoria) with their "lessons" (cognitive dissonance)? Are they coming at innocent children during a time of their natural development when they prefer playing with children of their own sex and confuse them into thinking this is a "trans" issue? They admit, no they boast, that they  intentionally use constructivist methodology to create cognitive dissonance in children. 

Jane Robbins, attorney, researcher, and author in Atlanta, GA., writes in "The Cracks in the Edifice of Transgender Totalitarianism, "The epidemic of supposed gender dysphoria among children and adolescents—“transgenderism”—has often been described as a cult. The designation is in some ways apt. Though lacking a charismatic leader usually found in such movements, other expert descriptions of cults certainly apply: “designed to destabilize an individual’s sense of self by undermining his or her basic consciousness, reality awareness, beliefs and worldview, [and] emotional control.” Cults also lead the target to believe that “anxiety, uncertainty, and self-doubt can be reduced by adopting the concepts put forth by the group.” The promise is a “new identity” that will solve all problems, even as it separates one from family and previous life."

And so you can see the effects of creating cognitive dissonance through Constructivist methodology.

A program established under the Alabama Accountability Act of 2013 establishes a tax-credit scholarship that students assigned to "failing" schools can use to attend any "non-failing" public or private school in the state. A "failing" school in this case has a broad definition: It includes any school getting a D or F grade on the state's accountability system; any school in the lowest 10 percent of scores on the state's standardized assessment in reading and math; any school labeled as "consistently low-performing: by the state education department in a state application for a federal School Improvement Grant; or any school otherwise deemed as "failing" by the state superintendent. 

The tax credit is equal to 80 percent of the state's per-pupil cost of attending a public school, or the actual cost of attending a non-failing public school. For parents applying for tax credits, the legislation creates a new Failing Schools Income Tax Credit Account to distribute the funds. The law also allows for scholarship-granting organizations to receive donations from both private individuals and corporations, and in turn provide the funds for parents to use in the school choice program. The donation cap for individuals is $7500 annually, and corporations may receive a tax credit of 50 percent of their total donations. The law also institutes a statewide cap on tax credits of $24 million annually. 

When one considers the failure of our schools to teach our children reading and math, and the massive intrusion into parents right with psychological manipulation of small children contrary to the attitudes and beliefs of their parents, perhaps parents could consider this when claiming "tax credits" or "vouchers" to take their children from the schools violating their trust to the school of their choice. 

Accreditation remains a problem as the entities promoting this agenda control credentialing of teachers. The only way to really eliminate the progression of this agenda is to bypass credentialing by giving the money to the parent who can choose schools who hire teachers with degrees outside of education and to attend schools that adhere to curriculum that is knowledge based. Like Saxon Math and reading programs using Systematic Intensive Direct and Early Phonics education. 

Parents need to be aware that the "award winning" books available to their child sometimes contain graphic information on sex that may not fit their idea of appropriate. Those who determine those awards have themselves accepted an agenda that may not fit that of the child's parents. These books are available through the Media Center at Dothan Preparatory school, grades 6 through 9. There is no parental group to oversee physical books chosen for the library like there once was. 

This is your child's media center. 

As Ayers puts it, “There’s a lot in white Americans that we do have to fight, and beat out of them and beat out of ourselves,” Ayers said in a speech. “We have to be willing to fight white privilege, racism, male supremacy–in order to build a revolutionary movement.”

Maybe it's time to protect our children and fight back!

TIPS ON HIP AND KNEE REPLACEMENT SURVIVAL

TIPS ON HIP AND KNEE REPLACEMENT SURVIVAL

 

 

 Nearly five weeks out from the total right knee replacement, I am finally able to sit at my desk without too much pain. I have now had two hip replacements and a right knee replacement and I can say with great assurance that the knee replacement is pretty much the greatest pain I have ever experienced, including having babies which was formerly my top register for pain.  As my granddaughter told me, I am pretty much a bionic woman now. So, let me share some things that just might help should you ever venture forth with these surgeries. 

1.     DIAL SOAP Bathing and washing hands with Dial soap helps kill the bacteria that might cause problems later with the surgery and its healing. 

2.     BUY CLOROX LAUNDRY SANITIZER and LYSOL to go in with your laundry detergent when you wash your sheets and clothes you will wear beginning with the Hibilens regime five days before surgery. 

3.     PRESS AND SEAL OR SARAN WRAP. Make sure you have someone close to you with you for the first two weeks because when you bathe, someone will have to wrap the incision to keep the incision dry and stay close by to make sure you do not pass out because you have lost a lot of blood. 

4.     BIDET  I ordered the $39 version on Amazon recommended by my friend. I wish I had known earlier that you could make your toilet into a bidet. I had the plumber come and install it. This would have been so helpful when I had the hip replacement because it hurt so badly to turn and reach behind me. Do not think this is a female thing. One setting is for one’s aft and one is for one’s fore. 

5.     FRAME FOR A BEDSIDE TOILET. You can take the bowl out of the bedside toilet and place the frame over the authentic toilet to give you a higher elevation when you go to the toilet and the pain of bending your knee is diminished. Also the rails on the sides help with getting up and down.  Just don’t use the bidet then as the water will squirt all over if you do. 

6.     ELEVATED TOILET An elevated toilet with rails beside it and rails in the shower are near necessities for those of us with hip and knee issues. 

7.      BED RAIL A friend recommended getting one that projects pretty far under the mattress so you have something to pull on to help you turn over and get in and out of bed. 

8.     HIP AND KNEE REPLACEMENT KIT. When I had my hip replacement at the Hughston Clinic in Columbus/Phoenix City, I was given what I call THE SURVIVAL PACK-- 6 Piece Hip And Knee Replacement Kit - Surgery Recovery Set - Handicap Aid, Leg Loop Lifter, Reacher Grabber, Long Handle Shoe Horn, Shower Loofah Scrubber, Sock Assist, Dressing Stick (6 Pieces). Apparently this isn’t standard equipment. I did not get that in Panama City at Bay Medical when I had my left hip replacement nor was it suggested when I got my knee replacement. I saw it in the gift shop in Mobile but it was not mentioned to my brother when he had his hip replacement. Fortunately, I was able to bring my equipment to share with him until I needed it again.  (You can order this from Amazon as well.) 

9.     PAIN MEDICATION Take it. Have someone with you to help you remember what and when you are to take it. Just don't take it longer than you need it. 

10.   STOOL SOFTENERS There is no sick like the constipation you will have after taking the opioids necessary after these extremely painful surgeries. Keep an extra garbage can beside your toilet because it may be necessary should you also get nauseated.

11.  INFINITE POSITION LIFT RECLINER CHAIR WITH MASSAGE AND HEATING I finally bit the bullet and ordered mine from ASJMREYE online and it arrived right before my surgery. It has been wonderful. 

12. ALEXA My daughter set up multiple ALEXAs throughout the house so that if I needed her all I had to do was say "Alexa Announce" and then give the command and the word reached my daughter upstairs. 

 

Throughout this experience I have been reminded that “no man is an island.” One week after my knee replacement, the pain was so bad I thought I should have just let them shoot me instead. I went to my text messages where a group of my friends had become my encouragers. It is amazing what a friend can do in lifting pain. I decided I would live and hopefully be a better person. Friends called. Friends prayed for me. Friends brought food and sent flowers. They set for me a wonderful example. I am blessed. 

 

Hopefully some of these suggestions will be helpful. God bless you my friend. 

 

 

 Genomic Research for High School Students: Breeding Ground for Dr. Moreau?

Sharman Burson Ramsey, BSE, MSE

Cecily Cathryn Ramsey, BSEE/Computer Engineering

The program Monday night at the Houston County Republican Party was delivered by Doug Mitchell, the former executive director of the Dothan Area Chamber of Commerce where he was responsible for the overall operations of the chamber and supported projects related to economic, community and workforce development. The company involved in the “Genomics” research is called “Hudson Alpha.”  They are a 15 year old, non-profit business based in Huntsville, Alabama. 

The building in Dothan will be called the “Wiregrass Innovation Center.”  The new building will be downtown near the Art Museum and will be built by the City of Dothan. 

They will focus their initial efforts on peanut research. Their overall goal is to “recruit Agriculture Tech Companies to the Dothan area.”

The Power Point Presentation with high school students in lab coats using pipettes to engineer genetic alterations to DNA led the audience to appreciate the experience of hands on learning. But, what were we really watching? Are there concerns that should be considered before free-falling into a brave new world. 

1. Should our children now have access to DNA altering equipment? 

Children are precocious and innovative. They have not even begun to think through their own ethics. Who can assure that their limitation would be with a peanut and not human DNA? What can we expect of these children whose first inclination would be to prick a finger, look at the DNA in the equipment provided by Hudson Alpha and apply it wherever the whim might take them. 

There are not enough teachers to oversee these experiments. They are encouraged to use their imaginations and to "face their fears." While we understand the desire to get kids involved in Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM), giving them DNA equipment before they are given the basics is not wise. Just as a child would not be given a Lamborghini, a car that goes 200 miles an hour, you start them off in basic transportation and teach them limits. 

Doug Mitchell does well in public relations. But, I imagine he also supported Common Core and promoted it in our schools. And where has that gotten us? 

2. Do peanut farmers want GMO (Genetically Modified Organisms) peanuts? Organisms have DNA. DNA is not just in peanuts, it is in all organisms. That goes from bacteria, to seeds, to people. 

3. Do Dothan residents want more GMOs in the food supply? Why are more people purchasing Organic foods? 

4. God made things the way they are because of how we are created. Look at the increased number of children with special dietary needs. Part of the diet for these children is non GMO. Organic produce inherently means Non GMO. That means NOT Genetically Modified. And yet the pollen from the altered crops will encroach upon neighboring farms that strive to be organic and by no fault of their own, the genetically modified seeds come over their property lines. Hence the lawsuits. 

And yet, the public relations folks have yet again sold us a bill of goods. And Dothan residents through their taxes will be funding this aberration. 

Are you prepared to make Dothan the new Island of Dr. Moreau? 

Requiem for a School System/Society

Jesus will come soon. (Matthew 24: 1-3 (David Jeremiah https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q710SSEyQy8) Look around you. What do you see and hear every night on the nightly news?

Recently the Representative who sponsored the 123 Bill in the House of Representatives was elected leader of the majority party (Republican)  of that august House. And so the consequences of putting school psychologists in every school, the purpose of that bill, begins. Just what do these psychologists believe and even if they don't what MUST they support?

Baldwin County Schools requiring school counselors to affirm students' preferred pronouns, gender identity

All of this will be a part of the Comprehensive sex education agenda to pollute the minds of our children beginning in Kindergarten. You have lost the moral authority as parents. Both the Counselor’s Handbook and the BCPS mental health guidebook, “Mental Health Matters: Everyone has a Story,” suggest the Trevor Project and other LGBTQ+ organizations as a resource.

In another document provided by BCPS, titled “2022-2023 School Counselors’ Handbook,” confidentiality between student and counselor is thoroughly stressed.

Just imagine the images that your innocent child will be influenced by through their efforts. "Further, the training manual states the counselor’s “duty to self” is to “develop knowledge and understanding of historic and systemic oppression, social justice and cultural models (e.g., multicultural counseling, anti-racism, culturally sustaining practices) to further develop skills for systemic change and equitable outcomes for all students.” (Equity is NOT equality! Equity means equality of Outcome not opportunity.) 

As for depending on your representatives to carry on your values? How do you think we got here? The NEA/AEA has a lot more money than you or I do. They will elect those who kowtow to their standards and beliefs and they have been taken over by the radical Left. 

Whether this will be published on my own blog is questionable. I am not sure what post this notice refers to. 

I obviously no longer know what community standards are. 

I am seriously considering ending my education activism. When I first began battling Whole Language in the early 90s, after seeing how many illiterate middle schoolers I had in my classrooms, I really thought the teachers in Dothan would join with me to battle this foolishness.  Recently Judith Hanford, an investigative journalist produced a podcast that is an expose of this ridiculous "method" of reading instruction that actually teaches children "how not to read." (http://www.soldastory.org)

What happened in Dothan was a Whole Language hootenanny at the Dothan City School Board led by Dr. Patty Fritchie, the reading instructor at Troy State University. I do wish Judith Hanford could have been there to hear and see teachers supporting this method that had principals demanding that good/successful teachers leave their phonics books outside the door to be destroyed. The Hootenanny occurred when a group of parents (my husband and me included) flew an expert from a successful school that was 90% Black, served 3 housing projects, and had 40 identified dyslexics each year. The principal was given a mandate to improve that schools scores and he took a group of grudging teachers to participate in a seminar in learning the Systematic, Intensive, Direct and Early Method,  The Writing Road to Reading, developed by Romalda Spalding a colleague of Dr. Samuel Orton founder of the Orton Dyslexia Society. Dr. Orton calls most dyslexia "school induced." After one year the scores in that school rose from the 25th percentile to the 80th, the number of identified dyslexics dropped from 40 to less than 5, and discipline problems declined.  

My detractors will say everything I write is sour grapes because I was defeated in my run for Chairman of the Dothan City School Board where I refused donations because I did not want to be obligated to anyone. Twice. The campaign for the opposition was run out of the central office I was told by someone who was there. In the meantime, a local obstetrician who "had a heart for the children" and the president of Troy University became chairman of the Dothan City School Board and so everything the Director of Instruction and fellow "progressives" wanted got rubber stamped -- and still does. It is a circle the wagon mentality in education today. Don't rock the boat. Or as one principal of a very unsuccessful school put it, "Let's not get anybody hurt here." Losing one's retirement by going against the crowd isn't a wise move. 

And though the reading scores reveal the failure, more money gets spent on programs like Reading Recovery as discussed by Judith Hanford. Each child who cannot read thinks they are defective. Their remediation in the school is more intensive more of the same. Parents who can afford it get private tutoring. Those who can't have children who follow year after year of depression and failure and probably drop out early. 

Unfortunately, the legislators cannot legislate success in Math when the math instructors in the colleges of education pretty much do what the reading instructors do--teach how not to do math (successfully that is). Social Justice Math is more important than real Math instruction. 

Social Emotional Learning (SEL) is integrated into every subject in the Curriculum. 

Oh, and during that time, with the debate over Goals 2000 and OBE/Mastery Learning/Outcomes Based Education (now called Equity) David Hornbeck (who wrote the Alabama First document promoted by A Plus, a clone of the Kentucky document) rewrote the Bylaws of Dothan City Schools replacing sequential learning with thematic learning. The Goals 2000 document also forbade drill and repetition (which Bear Bryant thankfully ignored). Phonics was kicked out and contemptuously labeled "drill and kill."  Memorizing  Addition/Subtraction/Multiplication/Division tables was now considered old fashioned so our children suffered through New Math and its later renamed clones. History Classes were shifted to Social Studies and the thematic lessons foreshadowed Critical Race Theory. 

Social Emotional Learning now includes Eastern Meditation and the access to books the gatekeepers of the past would never have allowed in our libraries. And now, since I made them public, I no longer have access to them. But, Dothan City School students do. Oh yes, welcome to Comprehensive Sex Education beginning in Kindergarten. Words, activities, and pictures most of us have never seen or heard (and wish we would never see or hear) are now a part of the comprehensive education of students in Alabama schools. 

But I did take screen shots before I was blocked. 

And then we have Common Core ironically created and promoted by the Chicago purveyors of Progressive Politics making schools bee hives of community activism: Bill Ayers, Saul Alinsky, Barach Obama (who attended Saul Alinsky's schools on community activism paid for by a Chicago pedophile priest Cardinal Bernardin), Arne Duncan (US Superintendent of Education) and David Coleman who worked with Ayers and Obama on the Chicago Annenberg Project, and destroyed education in Chicago. 

Coleman claims to have produced Common Core. His philosophy? "These standards are the most serious attempt this country has yet made to come to grips with those early sources of inequality." So now with a salary of over a million a year he heads the College Boards. 

Anyone who really researches education or asks questions knows that Common Core is not dead. They spent too much on it! They just renamed it and the public bought it. Because I really don't think most people really care. 

The same passion that brought Patty Fritche's Whole Language Stepford Teachers to the Dothan City School Board to yell down the words of the Principal from the successful school teaching phonics ought to bring the same passion for getting rid of it! And reclaim our schools for the sake of our children!  

But that won't happen and I am tired of banging my head against the wall of apathy.

Pray for Rick Rehm. He seems to be the only elected politician who actually understands what is happening here. All of us have family/friends employed by the school system. If they realize what is happening they dare not rock the boat if they want the retirement benefits for which they have worked so hard. If they don't it is because all of this comes from the colleges of education and the Department of Education that has been taken over by they purveyors of "Progressivism".

New World Order? One world religion? Guess what is happening every day in our schools. Do you ever wonder how Germany, a Christian nation, could succumb to the commands of the Nazi party, the Third Reich and produce the holocaust? It begins in the schools. 

See also: 

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-57008360

The word Requiem came to me first thing this Sunday morning as I said good morning to my Lord and prepared for Church. I am sure there is a reason God wanted me to use that word as a title for this post. I also think there is a warning there. 

The Lord gave me a verse after I wrote this: "Be ye doers of the Word and not hearers only deceiving your own selves..." What are we doing producing a situation where our children DO NOT HEAR ..."whatever things are true, whatever things are honorable, whatever things are just, whatever things are pure, whatever things are lovely, ..." but just the opposite.

The bigotry of low expectations has replaced excellence in education. Social justice is not the cure. You will be told that parents who care have snatched their children out of public schools and put them in private schools and the public schools are left to deal with those with special needs. 

 

The schools are creating the special needs with its educational malpractice and social justice malfeasance. Of course, there is a very small percentage of children with true dyslexia (according to Dr. Samuel Orton, founder of the Orton Dyslexia Society) and physical handicaps, but the immense amount of school induced dyslexia and consequential violence comes from the miseducation (see Pete Hegseth's book and series on Fox) that has come from the radical Left now running the NEA/AEA, Department of Education, and the colleges of education.