mom is right

Via The Corner

Hello!

Happy Halloween to everyone there! I was reflecting today that this is the first time in 5 years that I haven't dressed up for Halloween. And, no, uniforms don't count!!

I wanted to get an update off to all of you and let you know we're all doing fine over here! As of course most of you know by following the many media accounts, we continue to face serious challenges in Baghdad. We are, however, inching ahead in securing the most violent districts. I stand in awe of the young soldiers and marines who shoulder the heaviest load in this fight - literally going door to door through some of the toughest neighborhoods in the city and engaging the enemy in vicious, close combat. These guys are without a doubt among the toughest, most battle-tested warriors the world has ever known! We regularly hear about soldiers serving their 3rd and even 4th tours over here. One cannot help but marvel at their courage and devotion to duty. We all take pride in their service to our great nation.

Despite what you may hear at that end, I have yet to encounter anyone over here who does not believe 100% in what we are doing in Iraq. I know it's on everyone's mind. Sure, we have good days and bad days. Life is precious and every life lost is a grim reminder of the wretched cost of war. At times, I think we all wonder whether we will ever untangle this knotted mess and whether it's really worth the cost. But then, in the very next instant we will hear a report of another incident in which Al Qaeda terrorists or Sunni insurgents massacred an innocent family in their own home. or of a suicide bomber detonating his vest outside a crowded market during Eid al Fitr while shoppers are busy buying last-minute toys and sweets to give as gifts to their children. We are again reminded of what is at stake not only in this part of the world but wherever peace-loving people choose to live their lives. It is, in my opinion, utter nonsense to think we will be safe by withdrawing and seeking refuge within our own borders and rolling up the ol' welcome mat. As we all know, many people in Bali, Madrid and London had that very same thought. We are left with one alternative and that is to take the fight to this enemy. to give them no quarter. anywhere.

On a happier note, we continue to work closely with NATO officers to "stand up" the Iraqi Army senior leadership. It is just amazing how many diverse and even former Eastern Bloc countries comprise NATO today. I can remember a time not long ago when we stared many of these same countries down across the so-called Iron Curtain. Who would have ever thought 20 years ago that a country such as Ukraine (a former Soviet republic) would become a member of NATO? In the Joint Operations Center here in the Iraqi Ministry of Defense, I work closely with a Ukrainian officer representing NATO. He is a Lieutenant Colonel like me and served in the old Soviet Army back in the 80s while I was serving as an American Army officer in (then) West Germany. LTC Vasily is an intelligent, highly qualified and capable officer and we work very well together, trade notes, and share many a laugh.

I find it ironic that many Americans through the years thought the Cold War was unwinnable and never anticipated that we would one day be working side by side with our former adversaries securing peace in a war-ravaged land many thousands of miles from the plains of Western Europe. The Cold War lasted for some 40 years, exacted a huge toll on our national psyche, and tested our collective will. Yet, somehow we prevailed...

Sure there are differences between that conflict and this one and of course there are people who would love to tell me just how dissimilar the two conflicts really are, how you cannot really compare the two, etc., etc. But, I have seen firsthand the depths of evil to which the Muslim extremists can go and I can assure you that as a threat they are every bit as dangerous as the Communists were. or any enemy we have ever faced, for that matter. More important, as the president has said, they are patient and they are determined. They will not relent until they achieve their aims. I'm afraid we are in for another long, protracted ideological struggle. I really believe we will win this one, too, as long as we stay united. We have to. Our children and our grandchildren are depending on us.

Good-bye for now.

Funny stuff!

http://youtube.com/watch?v=7cR3VHwGDKM

Thanks, commentor "Lars" at the

I don't hate them. Well, I hate the content of some of them because they are lies untrue, but I don't out of hand dislike all of them.

Truthfully, I like advertising in general.

Missouri (Go Cards!) has a hotly contested race between Jim Talent and Claire McCaskill.


Her ads lie are untrue. Therefore, I hate dislike them. But, oooooh, are they ever fun to poke holes in!

There are so much dishonesty "untruthiness" in her ads that it would consume way too much of my time to debunk them all. So, let's just focus on one lie untruth:

Jim Talent looking like a nerd (okay, that part is true). Superimposed to the side of his face, in a very interesting "hip" type of random sizes, is printed that he voted EIGHT times against raising the minimum wage. EIGHT TIMES! Jim Talent also kills puppies* for fun.

While HE makes $165,000 a year!

ONE HUNDRED SIXTY-FIVE THOUSAND DOLLARS!

Jim Talent is a speeder*, too!

If Claire McCaskill is elected, she won't take a pay raise until the minimum wage is raised.

Jim Talent rich, nerdy, puppy killing, speeder, who doesn't want the little guy to make it.

Oh and by the way, Claire McCaskill approves this ad.

AND cut! Ad over.

Of course, the scary announcer doesn't point out...

1. ...that Claire is already a millionaire.

2. ...that Claire will still be making the same $165,000 that Jim Talent was making!!!

Ah, truthiness.

(p.s. I made up the puppy killing and speeding stuff. He still is a nerd, though.)

Don't even get me started on the Michael J. Fox nonsense....

I think my military spouse friends will really like this group blog. It's called SpouseBuzz.

Here's a post about stupid civilian comments towards military spouses. Read the comments, I'm sure you'll relate!

I have this pet peeve that's been eating at me for months now.

All over the internet, I keep reading things like this:

"So....I walk into the bank and I see this guy. I say, "Blah, blah, blah.."

NO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

You WALKED into the bank and SAW this guy. You SAID, "Blah, blah, blah..."

It's called the past tense. Learn it. Live it. Love it.

Do you know how your state officials feel about homeschooling?

Are your homeschool freedoms "safe?"

DO YOU KNOW?

Here's a great post about a few Illinois candidates and the national movement to bring in "reinforcements" to shore up the homeschooling movement. I don't really anything about Generation Joshua and the plusses or minuses of having them in our local politics. I do know I distrust HSLDA.

Read the comments to Fran's post. Susan Ryan, of the blog Corn and Oil, is, as always, thought-provoking, particularly if you are an Illinois homeschooler.

I can't believe I missed one of the most obvious reasons there is homeschool backlash! I even alluded to it in my previous post...

People feel guilty.

How often have you told someone you homeschool only to hear:

"I could never do that."
Or "I wouldn't be able to be teach MY child all day. We'd kill each other."
Or, the ever popular, "YOU ARE A SAINT."

(Which must mean that they have a very low regard for Saints, because it is always said in a way that implies you are actually a LOON.)

All I do is get up (sooner or later), get dressed (most days) and homeschool my kids (or facilitate their learning, as it were). I don't really care where your children go to school. Or that you don't want to spend time homeschooling them. Or what opinion you have of Saints.

That's none of my business.

But there seems to be this attitude that because I homeschool my children, I am judging YOU. As I stated, I don't give a flying fig about YOU.

Homeschooling (as breastfeeding before) is a choice a family makes not because we are trying to prove our supreme, Saintly motherhood over others. We homeschool because of our children, not because YOU.

Self-centered, Saintly people...

Note: I just posted the following on a homeschool list. The focus of the thread was media bias. The thread subject was "fox news" (sic). Because no other media source is biased, apparently. ANYway....I decided the subject needed to change and was only going to change the subject to "MEDIA bias" and write a few words. I wrote more than a few :-)

The media is often biased about a lot of subjects. Homeschooling is one of the latest victims.

It reminds me of the early nineties when breastfeeding advocates started to make real progress in educating and informing the public about the benefits of breastfeeding. And there *was* progress--American Academy of Pediatric statements, etc.--and then there was backlash.

TV shows showed women *starving* their babies because they were unreasonably continuing to breastfeeding when the baby was suffering (usually because of some rare oddity or breastfeeding mismanagement). There were supposed "mommy wars" scenarios built up and breastfeeding moms were discouraged from making bottle feeding moms "feel" bad. I'm sure there were news stories that probably implicated breastfeeding as some sort of depravaty or danger....I just can't come up with one right now.

I think the same thing is happening now with homeschooling. A few years ago, homeschooling was "in." Our children are brilliant, SAT achieving, ivy-league attending, spelling/geography/whatever bee winning, Latin reciting students. Many people pulled their kids from school to join the "movement" (with mixed results...some are actually "what's in it for me" or "in and out" schoolers. IMO, of course...LOL)

Now...backlash. The more visible a "movement," the more detractors. TV dramas and talk shows, news outlets (from EVERY channel and newspaper)...I even see it in personal relationships. Mix in the issues of money (tax dollars) and power (teacher's unions) for good measure.

I think everyone believes they are entitled to an opinion about homeschooling because there are more homeschoolers now and everyone seems to know some (or at least knows of some). And if you don't know a homeschooler, chances are mightly good you know a public school teacher. Most of the mainstream doesn't "get" homeschooling. Homeschooling goes against personal experience, which for most Americans, includes attendance in a public educational institution. We're an oddity, a aberation, even.

So...we're news.

I think the thing that freaks me out about disagreeing with people on the internet is the opportunity for them to retaliate with false charges of some sort towards our family. There, I've said it.

There's one yahoo list, without approved membership, that focuses on homeschool freedoms. I don't fear the "regulars" who post there. But we don't know who else is lurking. What if someone could figure out who we are by my posts and cause us trouble? Paranoid...I know.

I'm feeling homeschool vunerable lately. I've had more negative feedback in the none months since moving to Illinois than I had for eight years in Hawaii. Illinois is the supposedly "most liberal homeschooling state in the country." And yet, in what I consider a movement to find "test cases" to change the Illinois homeschool statutues, there are counties where school and political officials are using truancy and daytime curfew laws to hunt down and prosecute families.

It was just so different in Hawaii...I didn't have much criticism at all when we were in Hawaii because the schools were reportedly bad. Even teachers used to tell me what a great thing we were doing.

Here, about every other person spits out how they "just don't agree with homeschooling." Church, Scouts, neighbors...most people look at me like we are insane for homeschooling.

In the state with supposedly the most liberal homeschooling laws.

But there is a great loss of income to the school districts when kids are kept home for school. I would say it's likely that school officials in most districts are concerned about all of the money kids kept at home, out of their hands influence power schools.

Part of the problem is homeschoolers themselves. Nationwide, there is a new breed of homeschoolers who I don't think "get it." They are simply recreating school at home...which isn't a problem in and of itself. But they are inviting the public schools into their home, via cyber schools and by enrolling their kids in public school classes.

They are joining homeschool support groups looking for "what's in it" for them. So-called homeschool co-ops are demanding high fees for participation in activities. Homeschoolers are changing curricula several times a year (or even in the first month of the new school year!) chasing some perfect schooling method. Nobody seems to understand that, like breastfeeding, learning is natural and families who approach learning together, even without expensive curricula, are healthy. I guess we are all products of our traditional school backgrounds and lack confidence.

Here in Illinois, there has recently been a push to register all private schooled special education children, which includes homeschooled children. The registration form requires you to list ALL homeschooling children in the home, not just the ones requiring special ed services. Many homeschoolers think this is great...free special ed services for homeschooled children! I see it differently.

A database of homeschool families makes me nervous.

The truancy and daytime curfew laws make me feel nervous to take my kids out during the day, which is a shame because the kind of lifelong, real world learning I want my children to experience doesn't take place stuck in the four walls of our home. I'm even nervous to take my kids to work at the church's food pantry, as someone will question why they aren't "doing school."

This has been long and meandering. I think what I'm saying is that between newer homeschoolers who think you have to recreate school at home, unfriendly community members and media reports about homeschool backlash, I feel...

vunerable.

Does anyone else ever worry about the internet and anonymity? I'm starting to get creeped out that people can figure out who I am and what's important to me.

This came up for me because of a post I sent to a homeschooling list responding to a heated, politically charged debate. What if the other person I was "talking" to is unbalanced and finds a way to harm our family in some way? Not necessarily a physical threat...there are many, many ways to "hurt" perceived enemies, right?

Feeling vunerable and paranoid somewhere in America (or am I???).....

...but I've picked this exact moment (at 12:57am on Friday, October 13) to begin blogging again. Not sure why!

I was typing up a recipe for ginabina's Tomato Soup on a homeschool message forum and was too lazy to figure out the exact measurements. Then I remembered...it's on my blog! Hmmmm...I have a blog?! Oh yeah, that thing that mamabugs and junosmom and Angi are always nagging reminding me about! LOL!

I've got plenty to say...most of it is complaining about somethin' or other. Hey, it's all been building up for four or five months now!

Ready? Set? Hold on for the ride!

I didn't mean it! I really didn't. I fully intended to continue blogging. My last post wasn't supposed to be real!

For about the past two weeks, I've had pain in my hands and feet and I've been exhausted. I don't know what it is, and, NO, I haven't been to the doctor. I know, I know....

I'll be back when I rally...hopefully any day now.

For now...I'm off to the tub!

grrrr...we did laundry today. I wonder how many people showered? I may not get a bath, after all. I can't wait until we move into our new house next month and have a decent-sized water heater!

I'm just going to refer you all to Chris' blog! She's so freaking hiLARious that I read and read until I have to take a break or I'll pee my pants.

My kids and I have decided that we should adopt these shirts as our homeschool uniforms. I'll let you sort out who would get which one.

Of course, if you decide to read The Big Yellowhouse blog (a.k.a. notes from the trenches of motherhood...held captive since 1994) and pretend you are reading momisright, you'll have to also pretend I have six boys and one girl, blonde hair and, naturally, a big yellow house. Oh and that I'm a hilariously great writer!

Minor quibbles...

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