Real Thought

This is a “teen costume”, There was actually a 13 year old wearing a similar costume at the middle school where I teach today.

And people wonder why I don’t like Halloween.

I am supposed to be teaching a “violence reduction” curriculum one day a week to my first period history class. The main thrust of this curriculum is the reason why violence is on the rise in schools is the “prevalence of guns” in American society. Yep, that is the main thrust. Guns are bad. How about parents who just got out of jail and don’t make it home to see their children because they had to stop at the bar? How about a subculture that glorifies the”thug life”? How about music in which young women are called “bitches and ho’s”? What about a society which sexualizes 11, 12 and 13 year old girls but calls anything a 11, 12,or 13 year old boy might do “violent”, “aggressive” or “sexually inappropriate”? How about a society which teaches parents that they should be permissive and that no one, police officers and teachers included, has any right to discipline their “babies”? How about a school district administration who refuses to expel dangerous and unruly students because that “is just their culture”? What about parents who don’t worry while their children fail every single class but threaten to sue if you send the child home for dressing inappropriately at school? I suppose that none of those things contribute to the rise in violence and increased chaos in our public schools. Yep, guns are bad. Right.

Christian Slater as Moses. Yep, you got it, Christian Slater taking up the mantle of Chuck Heston himself with Elliot Gould as the voice of the Almighty. Somehow, I never really pictured the Creator of the Universe as Trapper John.

For Fleet Week, my scouts and I took the Chaser out and watched the Blue angels fly.

Then we went to our annual Safety at Sea weekend on Yerba Buena Island where I got this lovely tee shirt.

Finally, Dixie came home from being spayed today and she is a bit out of it.

Would you please stop running the following advertisements?

First, the “Flex Your Power” commercials. I really don’t need my power company telling me to turn off my lights and air conditioning when power usage is at its peak. I have a better idea, take the money spent on those commercials and build more electrical generating capacity.

Second, “global warming” commercials featuring a man of the World War II generation apologizing for having not done enough to save the world for future generations. As a “baby boomer” I find these ads highly insulting. Why? Because the men and women of my father’s generation did more to save the world than any other before or since. Let me give you a few examples of what they accomplished:

Defeated Nazism and Communism,

Defeated Imperial Japan,

Virtually eradicated polio and smallpox,

Extended civil rights to women and various minority groups,

Created the longest peacetime expansion of wealth in history,

Harnessed nuclear power for peaceful purposes,

Created manned spaceflight and placed a man on the moon,

Made commercial aviation commonplace,

Created the transistor and the microchip,

Created new medical techniques like open heart surgery and finally,

Began the modern environmental movement.

To suggest they “haven’t done enough” makes Pacific Gas and Electric sound like a self-centered, smug corporation and the executives who approved that ad campaign look like a bunch of jackasses.

Sincerely,

Doug

Governor Schwarzenegger just vetoed California’s version of the DREAM act, a law which would provide financial aid to “undocumented immigrants” who attend California state universities.  Most “immigrant rights” activists are calling his veto a “denial of immigrant’s rights to an education.”  Here is the rub, in California “undocumented immigrants” can attend California state universities and pay in state tuition, while those who are “documented” have to pay out of state fees.  Furthermore “documented immigrants” are ineligible for financial aid because they are foreign nationals.

I attended San Francisco State in the 80’s and I did not receive financial aid because my parent’s income was  above the “threshold for eligibility.” No one denied me an education nor a degree because I was denied financial aid.  My parents scrimped and saved to pay my tuition and gave me a very small allowance to live on while I was in school.  I managed to graduate without direct taxpayer subsidy in the form of financial aid.

I believe that California’s current policy and the wishes of the “immigrant rights” activists is all wrong.  In a sane world all “undocumented immigrants” would be considered foreign nationals which, in fact and de jure, they are.  They should be able to attend university but they should have to pay out of state fees and do without financial aid just like their “documented” counterparts.  Sorry, but if you are an “undocumented” immigrant, you are a foreign national living in the United States without their express but possibly with their tacit consent.  When one is living in a country illegally, one should not press for rights which don’t even exist for those who are citizens or legal residents because one may find that the tacit  consent which allows you to stay may just be withdrawn.

Here are some pictures from the 16 day Sea Scout cruise we took from Napa to Catalina.

Here is Smuggler’s Cove on Santa Cruz Island:

Here is my stateroom, where I lived for 16 days:

Here is the Casino building at Avalon:

Finally, here is the ship’s logo on her stack: