Monday, February 26, 2007

The Education Pill

One of the most provocative bloggers out in the webosphere is La Shawn Barber. I admire her common sense approach to everyday problems. And while many of her posts are directed at improving the black community in America, nearly all of her solutions would be beneficial to all races.

Things like, “Get married and build a nest before you have children to give them the best start in life, take responsibility for your own lives and accept the consequences of your actions, and take responsibility for your children’s education…”

The last one really hits home to me, since I still have a child in school.

Haven’t we become a culture of dependence? I mean, don’t we look for someone else to solve our problems because we are too lazy? No?

How about health? How many Americans would rather take medication for diabetes, high blood pressure, and obesity than to alter their diet and exercise habits? Why inconvenience yourself when you can take a little pill or get an operation? The good Lord certainly doesn’t want me to do without anything that gives me pleasure.

And, if the pill for your blood pressure or diabetes makes you impotent? There’s a pill for that too!

Yep, we’d rather not teach our children to take responsibility for their sexuality. You wouldn’t want to make anyone feel bad or foolish for getting pregnant in the ninth grade. No, it’s better to have the schools pass out condoms to our children than to expect them to deprive themselves of that pleasure. Especially since we don’t want to deprive ourselves of the pleasures of extra-marital sex. Right?

Which brings me to the most important one of all. The one that most affects our future and that of our children and grandchildren. The schools.

Bane says you shouldn’t send you kids to any school. Public or private. And I’m sure he has a valid point these days. But it shouldn’t be that way, and I think he would agree with me on that.

We’ve proven through forty years of trial and error that throwing money at the problem won’t fix it. Though the unionized teachers are scheming screaming that it will. “Just pay us more to care about your children…”

Isn’t money the little pill for our children’s education?

If we throw more money at the problem, it will get fixed and our children will receive a great education without inconveniencing ourselves. Lord knows, we don’t have time to make sure our kids learn. That’s what we pay the teachers for. Right?

Or not.

Sunday, February 11, 2007

And so the tradition continues...

Son1 worked his first show yesterday. Bob Seeger. And, I'm not sure who was more excited - me, or him. Probably me.

See, ever since he was born, it has been my hope that he would someday want to do this, just as I did, and my father and his father before him. Grandpa died when I was 13, so I never worked with him, but there were still lots of guys on the crew when I started with plenty of tales to tell about him. I never worked with dad either, he having decided to hang it up after falling from a ramp one night. And since I haven't worked a show since the nineties, I guess it's possible that son1 and I will never work together. I hope that's not the case.

I still keep my hand in, for if I ever want to. When I talked to the steward in January to get my boy on the call list, I checked my seniority. I'm now number five on the list with only four of the old boys still ahead of me.

Since he's the newbie, son1 got cut at 1:00 and back in for the out at eleven. He was pretty pumped when he came home at lunch, telling me about getting the grand piano out of its road case and other assorted trivia. I'm really glad he thinks it's fun, because it is. Hard work, but fun.

He showed me his black finger this afternoon, where a careless drop on the other end of a riser smashed it. Those things happen and you have to watch yourself. But he's looking forward to his next call and hoping it will be someone he likes better than Bob Seeger. Guess I need to start coaching him a bit on stage directions...

Friday, February 02, 2007

destination unknown

I've seen those television shows on the learning channel about the most dangerous jobs, and fishing for crabs is one of the top ones. And I'm grateful to those guys. Because I like crab legs. I've got a friend that tried it one year. They went out for a month, and endured cold and wet with very little sleep for the promise of a portion of the catch. Tales of coming home with thirty, forty, even fifty thousand dollars from a month's work were tossed back like so many beers.

But, alas, they had a terrible catch that month and he wound up with something like eighty dollars for his trouble, and had to have his dad wire him money to get back home. Swore he'd never do that again.

Which makes me even more grateful.

Kroger had a special on snow crab legs and I bought four pounds of them. The little bride and I, finding ourselves in one of those rare evenings without children, steamed them up and ate them with drawn butter. Okay, I didn't really draw it, but I melted it in the microwave and it was good enough. And these particular crab legs are already slit down the sides and cut around the claws and they are ever so easy to get the great, long, slabs of crab flesh out and run them through the butter dipping to the second knuckle. I nearly chewed off two of my fingers in the process.

I topped this off with some good dutch beer (I'm a sucker if it's in a green bottle) and a couple of Bordeaux cookies for dessert. Well, maybe more than a couple. Maybe one whole section of the bag. As far as I'm concerned, Pepperidge Farms has a license to print money with those things.

Now, I've got to go and hide the evidence... I don't like having to explain why I didn't tell the boys that we were having crab legs for dinner before they made plans to go off and do other things. Ha ha.

It's The Economy, Stupid!

Yes, President Bush's tax cuts were aimed at the rich.

Thursday, February 01, 2007

Yee Haw, I mean, Ahoy!

So, they're building a freeway down the road from me, and I drive past the construction every day. That's why it seemed odd to see a boat parked on an unfinished section. Was it raining a lot the day this guy drove his boat to work? And then he was left stranded at quitting time? (clicky the picky and it gets bigger...)