This isn't even a little bit funny.

It's past the middle of April, and we're into Music Festival week, where I have to drive literally hundreds of km (29 km one way; round that off to 30, then multiply by 15) back and forth to a nearby town for our daughters to compete in piano, vocal and musical theatre. And I don't like winter driving. And what is going on outside at this very moment is winter. I know this is Canada, but even here, we're supposed to have something resembling Spring right now.

In the olden days when people were ignorant and superstitious, they would blame this on the weather gods. But now we have Al Gore.  I'm long past even hoping for a little bit of Global Warming. At this point, I'm praying that our government will let us keep our carbon tax so that we can use it to heat our homes in June. Cuz the planet isn't overheating. Not here. Not even a little bit.

The view out my North patio doors, blocked by the driven snow.

An artistic (blurry) rendering of my patio chairs, buried in snow.
The melting drops on the window in the foreground represent my tears of frustration at Al Gore, and all Global Warmists and politicians who think taxing us will change the weather. 

My "garden."  I use the term loosely. 

Should I apply for a government arts grant?

I think I should. Call me strange, but one of the things I enjoy about gardening is seeing the extremely weird things that vegetables can do. Here, two little twin baby onions decided to sprout from another dried up old onion. I liked the different textures and interesting layers, and I photographed it from different angles, partly so that I could use it as a model for drawing class exercises with my 13-year old. (We're using Betty Edwards' text/method this year.)

But maybe I should also try to launch an Art career. I could photoshop the background a bit (make it more blurry, and maybe pinkish), print the images up on large canvasses, and write up an abstract about how these sprouts...

You can't make this up

The same people who told us to "Let it all hang out" and "Everybody's doing it" in the 60s and 70s are now issuing "Hugging Guidelines" and forcing employees to spy and report on each other for "inappropriate" relationships, whatever that means. No more eye contact at the water cooler? Hester Prynne, call your office pillory.

(HT Dr JB Peterson on FB)
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Madness, yes; Merry, not so much

It is Advent. Advent, people! And yet our retailers are now done with Christmas, and have moved on to Boxing Day (which has become Boxing Week, which--hello!--is still Christmas, as in the Octave thereof, but don't try arguing that with most folk). Christmas is still ten days away, but we are exhorted by Canadian Tire to take part in "Pre-Boxing Week" sales! Oy vay. God rest ye merry, gentlemen. And do try to get some rest in the next ten days.

Why Johnny can’t read.

And why he can’t write a complete sentence.

And why he doesn’t know who Jane Austen is. Or Chaucer. Or Tolstoy.

Remember high school English, anyone over 50? You did two things, basically: they were known as “Lit and Comp” As in studying “Literature” (good books, plays, poems and stuff) and then writing things. That was Composition. (That included grammar, style, sentence structure, literary devices, rhetoric, all that jazz.)

No more. Now they study Equity, Ethics, Diversity, Inclusivity and a host of other diseases.

Yes, I homeschool, but when my kids reach the high school years, they usually opt to do (credited) online courses. This is so that they can get transcripts to get into post-secondary and so forth. Yes, I know there are other ways to do high school at home; that's a discussion for another day. 

The online classes vary widely: they come from a variety of different sources (individual school boards all over the province provide courses; there is no longer any such thing as the one-size-fits-all “Government Correspondence School”). There have been some good courses and many excellent teachers. Other times, not so much. 

Oh, the funny stories I could tell. Like the teacher who revealed (via a Power Point lecture) that he couldn’t read/pronounce “tuberculosis,” (but his version, “Turb-you-locus” kept us in stitches for months).

I can relate the anecdote below now that the child in question has finished high school and left home. In fact, I can’t even remember which school board in the province developed this English course. I just recall that it made my head explode on a fairly regular basis.

The first section “Equity and Ethics” of my daughter’s grade 10 English course dealt with "learning styles" (fair enough, since it helps students identify theirs) but then followed the questions below (keep in mind: this is the VERY FIRST ASSIGNMENT of the year, in a course meant for 15-year-olds.)

(I have taken the liberty of providing my own answers, in red. They are not the answers my daughter gave to the questions when she did the assignments.)

1. A student is blind, but wants to take visual art as a course in Grade 10. The student cannot see, yet a major portion of the Grade 10 course is all about the colour wheel and it is mandatory that every student in the class does a project involving the visual effects of colour on design trends. Ethically, how should that student be assessed on their [sic] learning for this part of the course?

1) Response:

Whiskey Tango Foxtrot?

Yes, should they so opt, blind students have the right to study visual art, just as a quadriplegic likely has the right to be on the track team. If they can’t “see” colour (what is “seeing” anyway?), there are ways to “feel” and “intuit” colour. You just need a teacher who is sufficiently imaginative, artsy or new-agey to assist with that.

A blind artist could not possibly produce anything worse than some of the modern art that is already out there. To demonstrate “yellow” for instance, one could submerge a photo of Jackson Pollock in a jar of pee.

Oh, and the [sic] in the last sentence? “Their” is a plural pronoun, and the antecedent (“the student”) is singular. But then it’s not as though we’re studying Grammar and Usage or anything. This is just high school English.

2. A deaf student is registered in the Distance Learning B10 course, in which there are a number of listening and speaking activities. It is required that all students demonstrate their skills with listening and speaking, but it is decided that this student does not have to do these portions of the course. Another student who is extremely shy to speak aloud is failing the course because she did not do any of those activities. What is the ethical thing the teacher should do here?

Response:

The teacher should take a leave of absence, possibly to university, and take courses such as Ethics and Equity, Psychology, and Curriculum Implementation: Brainstorming Solutions in an Inclusive World, instead of asking her 15-year old students to solve her classroom problems for her.

3. Johnny is a student who has extreme difficulty with keeping his hands still while in English class. Often, during reading time, he is disruptive and interrupts the quiet atmosphere the teacher has created in the classroom so all can concentrate. The teacher spends a lot of time trying to keep Johnny quiet, and his parents have refused the request to send Johnny to another room with a teaching assistant during reading time. Ethically, what should be done to provide an opportunity for Johnny to learn, as well as time for the rest of the class to read?

Response:

1) It had to be “Johnny”, didn’t it?

2) Johnny should be held down forcibly and given his dose of Ritalin.

3) Johnny’s parents are evil and stupid. It’s not a solution, but we do want to reinforce this point in the child’s mind.

4) Sentence two is self-contradictory: if Johnny is being constantly disruptive, then is it accurate to claim that the teacher has created a “quiet atmosphere” in the classroom? But then, they don’t teach Logic in Teachers’ College anymore.

5) Johnny’s parents (who are probably being maligned, since no parents in such a situation would refuse the one-on-one services of a TA, knowing that their child was a disruption) should withdraw him from school and home-educate him.

Wow. Is it just me, or is it absolutely INSANE to expect 15-year-old kids to be able to solve these kinds of dilemmas? What are we paying teachers and school counsellors and psychologists for (to say nothing of the gargantuan bureaucracies that develop curricula and administer programs)?

But as Gary Larson’s cartoon caveman would say, “It get better.”

The next section in my daughter’s "English" course was called:

We Want to Know How Superstitious, Anti-Choice, Reactionary, Conservative, Anti-LabourUnion and Bigoted Your Parents Are

Factors that Influence our Learning

Students are asked to answer the following:

1. What are your views on work?

2. What do you believe about death and an afterlife?

3. Summarize what you believe about criminals and the justice system.

4. Do you think terminally ill people should be allowed to end their own lives, or not? Please explain your answer.

5. Should Canada allow illegal immigrants into the country, and assist them financially once they “in”? Support your views with at least one solid reason.

For the love of Learning, this is NOT the study of law, sociology, class warfare, or contentious social issues! Can anyone explain to me what any of this has to do with the study of English?? This is ENGLISH (Lit! Comp!) not Political Correctness 101.

Equity and Ethics indeed.

When do they get around to studying “Sentence Construction”? I’m not going to hold my breath. 

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Your morning cup of awesome.

Not your typical Thanksgiving post. I give thanks for so many things, the gift of humour among them. The totally epic Jerry Irby. Thanks to my nephew Daniel, who posted this link to horrid Christian album covers on Facebook.



I especially love the evil laugh--it totally seals the deal. Methinks DOH needs a new category: "Evangelization: I don't think that word means what you think it means."
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Every so often, you have to give thanks

...that the Sixties are over. I was watching Sponge Bob Squarepants with my 11-year-old and they used this song on the background track. I'd never heard it before, but of course I immediately recognized the voice, and googled accordingly.

One thing I found remarkable was how natural and incredibly at ease he was throughout the entire performance. Cringeworthy, and it makes you wonder how Simon Cowell would have reacted, had those "Whatzit's Got Talent" or similar shows existed back then. Enjoy. Or not.


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Are you ready for the new religion?

The French Revolution with their goofy re-invented Republican Calendar and attempted abolition of Catholicism had nothing on this. Who needs goddesses of Reason and Liberty when you can have a coy, 65-year-old airbrushed goddess-man wearing a push-up bra? The scary thing is how seriously the talking heads are taking this. (And I guess we MUST take it seriously, because it's the new theocracy.)

Following are comments from the Prophet Brendan O'Neill (he really is). I wonder how long it'll be before they stone him to death for not scraping to the new deity (aka a certain photoshopped Vanity Fair covergrrrrl, and all he/she/it stands for):

It’s iconic in the traditional sense, too, in that it’s being venerated as an actual icon, a devotional image of an apparently holy human. It’s an image we’re all expected to bow down to, whose essential truth we must imbibe; an image you question or ridicule at your peril, with those who refuse to genuflect before it facing excommunication from polite society. Yesterday’s Jennermania confirms how weirdly authoritarian, even idolatrous, trans politics has become.

Thomas L. McDonald at patheos goes one further:

I have a more serious reason for resisting it. Normalization of transsexualism is not just the trailing edge of the gay rights movement: it’s the leading edge of the transhumanism movement. It’s a deeply gnostic sense of the body that is at cross-purposes with a healthy understanding of the individual. It’s also driven by the idea that we can redefine fundamental issues of humanity by mere acts of will. It is the Nietzschean will to power applied, forcefully, to the body and sexuality itself.It’s bad enough when this will to power warps instruments of civilization such as the family and marriage, but in transhumanism it seeks to bend the meaning of our embodied being. Nothing good can come of this.

He points out that science is no longer based on truth (biology, emperical evidence, and so forth) but is "merely a matter of assuaging hurt feelings." It stands to reason that politics, religion, education, economics, and the rule of law must therefore follow.
Well, if you can't beat em, join em. To hell with 2015! Let this be Year 1, BC, of our Brave New World (the BC, of course, stands for "Bruce-Caitlyn".) And let's rename North America too, while we're at it. Maybe we can call it Trans-ill-vain-ia or something.

Oh, and in future, being cast out of polite society will surely be the least of our worries. Reign of terror? You ain't seen nothin yet. There are guys roaming the planet who don't give a tinker's dam about hurt feelings (except their own). There won't be any Bruce-Caitlyn debate with these monsters.

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Mrs. Beazly, it looks like you'll have to return that extra-large bathtub you ordered.

Cuz your provincial government just outlawed the hobby you were hoping would make you some spare cash. Jeez. They needed a province-wide law for this? What would we DO without gubmint to protect us?!
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I put this to the young gentlemen of my acquaintance who may be considering priesthood

Recently hired Diocesan Minister

 for Coordination and Facilitation

  

For example, would a sight of two priests twirling a-tippytoe like big-bellied ballerinas at an Easter Vigil service, along with a troop of girls waving scarves and sashes, for six minutes and more,to Aaron Copland’s arrangement of The Lord of the Dance, have any natural appeal whatsoever to the overwhelming majority of boys and young men who know to what sex they belong?

Bwahaha! Anthony Esolen again. 

At one point, he muses: "I sometimes wonder whether we Catholics actually want vocations to the priesthood." 

Oh Buddy, I don't "wonder"--I've heard it from the horse's mouth. In this case a priest (now deceased, God rest his soul) who said, "The Vocations Crisis is GOD'S WILL, so that the laity gets more involved in the Church." 

Do Catholics want priests? First you have to assume "Catholics" denotes a homogeneous group, which it does not. Some of us want priests, and some of us want the Church to be a Big Comfy Couch...with Communion. 

Clown Minister, dialoguing/collaborating with 

Puppet of St. Therese, to whom the women at the Healing Workshop are encouraged to "speak their pain."

Oh yes, there is pain.

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George Orwell, call the head office of your Hymnody Division

Yo, God, I did you a favour and came to church; 

you're welcome.

Anthony Esolen. Oy, but this guy is brilliant. And funny (to wit: "Muddlesome broke out in hives at leadeth and feedeth.") He had me laughing out loud at, "Fetch the smelling salts, Nellie..."

"Rescuing Hymnody from Stupidity":

To Muddlesome, “the vernacular” meant the colloquial: an office memo ending with an amen. That’s all. He’s no linguist; just as the people who vandalized our churches were not painters or sculptors. He can’t imagine that a mother tongue might “contain multitudes,” including the register of the sacred. He’s a subtractor. If peasants want to be courtly in their oral poetry and folk hymns, too bad for them. Drag them into Future Church for their own good.

 So he had to eliminate those pronouns...

Thus openeth the first Can of Worms.

And my, how far those worms can travel. I actually heard an ordained personage (who has been through like, a hundred years of university and everything) say (out loud) from the ambo: "God calls us to Godself." (Not "himself". Godself.) So allergic was he to masculine pronouns, even referring to GOD THE FATHER (is Jesus' testimony in that regard not enough? Gee, I don't think the chain of authority for Christianity goes any higher than that, but whatever), that instead of uttering a grammatically correct statement, he was willing to sound as though he was having a stroke. But I digress. That was a homily, not a hymn. But church "music" has fared no differently. Read Mr Esolen's article if you share my frustration that we began the century* with hymns like this:

 To Jesus Christ, our Sov'reign King,
Who is the world's salvation,
All praise and homage do we bring,
And thanks and adoration.

Refrain:
Christ Jesus Victor, Christ Jesus Ruler!
Christ Jesus, Lord and Redeemer!

2. Thy reign extend, O King benign,
To ev'ry land and nation,
For in Thy kingdom, Lord divine,
Alone we find salvation.
(Refrain)

3. To Thee and to Thy Church, great King,
We pledge our hearts' oblation,
Until before Thy throne we sing,
In endless jubilation.

--by Msgr Martin Hellreigel

ex-pat German priest, *1941, so... a comment on Fascism

And ended the century with campfire songs like this:

Thank you, God, for giving us us.
Thank you, God, for giving us us.
Thank you, God, for giving us us.
Riiiiiiiiiiiiii-ght where we are!
--ex-Rev. Carey Landry

Peace out.


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Code Blue

I feel another business opportunity coming on: manufacturing T-shirts in blue (or really, any colour) that read: I WILL NOT BE BULLIED INTO WEARING PINK.

The Prophet Steyn (pbuh):

"Awareness-raising"? I think we need to raise awareness that, unless you've got the T-shirt concession, all these Pink Days are worthless crap that do nothing for the problem they claim to be addressing. If you've chanced to see me in person, you'll know I often wear a pink shirt. Like the country song says, "I Was Pink Shirt When Pink Shirt Wasn't Cool — Er, Mandatory." But, on Pink Shirt Day, I would wear mauve or turquoise or chartreuse or anything but pink, because, when the state is committed to coercing a ruthless conformity, that's the time to show that a flickering flame of the contrarian, iconoclastic spirit still flickers in the Canadian schoolhouse. You may get bullied for not wearing pink on the Day of Pink, but you'll feel better for it.

You are not supposed to be weary of the world, only 4 days into the Easter Season, but I'm getting there. Time to stop reading current events and Pray.
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I agree with Simcha: Ditch the Prom

Classic Simcha. This is a great article, and you should pop over and read it for yourself, especially if you have kids in high school. (h/t Daria on FB)

The prom has long since ceased to be formal and dignified. It's a circus at best or (no apologies) a Slutstravaganza at worst. It's hard to believe that in some parts of the world, girls want to go to prom mostly naked and (so to speak) drop acid, and in other parts of the world, girls have to wear body bags in public, and sometimes get acid thrown in their faces, just for wanting to go to school.

Never give up on a dream

Follow your Dreams

Believe in Your Dreams

Don't Stop Believing...in Your Dreams

Dream for Tomorrow...Today

Today is the Tomorrow you Worried About Yesterday

Trust in Tomorrow 

Today is the First Day of the Rest of Your Life

...as a Quadriplegic if You're Foolish Enough to Drink and Drive

Word: homeschooling. My first three high school "seniors" (graduates) never wanted so much as a dinner or even a small family party to mark the occasion (which is a bit sad, but there you have it). #4 is having a grad party: along with the families of 3 other cousins, we rented a church hall and are having a by-invitation potluck dinner and an old-fashioned dance, with real music and real dancing. But you don't need to homeschool: any student and his family could do the same. And yes, I do realize that some schools are good, and have nice proms and graduation ceremonies on a relatively modest scale. 

I'm just not much for that sort of thing. When I graduated from high school, I was part of a rebel movement to have our theme be: "Another Brick in the Wall" (yes, we wanted the Pink Floyd ditty as our grad theme song). We had votes on our side, but the Principal vetoed it. He could not, however, stop me from wearing a Halloween costume to my graduation, which I did. (Relax, it was a gown, but I'd borrowed it from my sister, who had worn it as a Halloween costume, which I also did six months before I wore it to grad. It was a peach-coloured lacy pioneer-lady type gown. The material point is that I paid nothing for it, and was not the least bit freaked or ashamed that I had not kept it under wraps --like a wedding gown!-- as some folk apparently think is necessary.)

I guess I also have a thing about long, boring speeches. At my husband's convocation from Engineering, I slipped out as soon as I saw him receive his degree, and went shopping at a nearby mall. At my own convocation, as soon as I received my degree, I slipped out and went to play in a badminton tournament with Mrs. Beazly. Good times.
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I honestly don't know where to file this

Under which DOH category does this story belong? 

Killer Headlines?
Beyond Satire?
Too Sad?
Dear Lord Jesus Come and End the World Because We're Mostly Nuts?

We don't (yet) have that last category, but I do actually pray it as a prayer sometimes when I am overcome by the evil and foolishness in the world, and this story has both. Ye gods, talk about First World problems.

US woman convicted of buttock-injection death (BBC News, hence "tyres")

These types of convictions are rare - the number of fatalities from backstreet buttocks injections is still low. But more people are opting for cheap, yet unregulated procedures in their quest for a bigger behind.

It can lead to horrific consequences. Some victims have been left maimed and disfigured after they put their trust in fake doctors who injected them with all kinds of substances including Krazy Glue, tyre sealant and silicone.

[...]
Many people are too embarrassed to come forward when things go wrong - there's still a huge stigma when it comes to admitting you've had enhancement on your behind.

If you want a swollen behind, there are probably a lot of people out there who would give you a good kick in the pants for free.
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Lenten retreats: plus ça change

The more things change, the more they stay the same. Wacky retreats and workshops are still going on in church circles, and probably always will.

(h/t for the link: Peter Rosengren on Facebook).

“He would tell parishioners to close their eyes, relax their muscles and imagine a blue light going through their whole body and even into their organs. I sat in my pew and thought it was very odd,” said Paul Annee, an 18-year-old Catholic high-school student

 Like, this blue light? Well, okay then.

It reminds me of the column below, which I published over a decade ago in Alberta Report. It prompted Ms Shaidle (on her now defunct Relapsed Catholic blog) to call me "a brunette, Saskatoonian [sic] Ann Coulter." Heh.

The piece is archived online, but if you read it here, you don't have to pay, or even register. You're welcome.

I wonder if John Lennon had any possessions

I imagine he did.

His widow (the second one) is reportedly worth $500 million. I see that I missed the anniversary of his death, Dec. 8. Oh well, it's never too late to pray for the repose of his soul.

It's not easy, but you have to try.

"despite the millions John was making, he kept Cynthia and Julian on a financially-tight leash — they got an allowance of £2,400 a year in maintenance until his death. 

Things got worse when John was murdered and Julian was just 17.

After John divorced Cynthia he kept her and Julian on a financially-tight leash

For Julian wasn’t named in John’s will and it took him 16 years — and the threat of a prolonged court case — to persuade Yoko to hand over any of the Beatles’s millions."

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-2057764/John-Lennons-son-Julian-fears-Yoko-Ono-Paul-McCartney-trying-obliterate-history.html#ixzz3MBOe1JnB
Follow us: @MailOnline on Twitter | DailyMail on Facebook

Sometimes a beard is just a way to keep your face warm.

Just ask Mr. P, who grows one every winter (autumn, actually), and shaves it off every spring. But if it's going to become a political statement (make that a politically-incorrect statement), I might try to persuade him to keep it on all year round. Beards are starting to grow on me (and I mean that in a metaphorical, not menopausal, sense).

The link adds to the enormous list of reasons why 90% of modern university programs should be flushed down the toilet. But what more can you expect from a guy who's a grad studynt in womyn's studyys?

 Give me real men any day of the week. And twice on Sundays.

Now that is some expensive toast

I wonder if Bev Oda has one. You know, to go with her orange juice.

Seriously.  I mean, how gourmet can toast possibly be? And don't even think about the 4-slice model!
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WWBBD?

What Would Bugs Bunny Do? Or say? That is, if his wise-cracking politically incorrect wascally wabbit tongue hadn't been silenced and censored long long ago?

He would probably say the same thing that Mark Steyn would say. We are truly in Wonderland when these words appear in America without any irony: "My USDA rabbit license requirement." 

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Jillian Michaels, look out

It's PRANCERCISE! (R) 

Since we are on the subject of fitness and exercise, check out this super-awesome video, which I never would have heard of, if not for PWPL's Andrea, who posted this on Facebook (thanks in advance for the nightmares which I'm sure to have after watching this). I laughed out loud several times, and yes, gol-darn it, I watched the whole five minutes, because I just had to know what she was going to do next, in terms up taking Prancercise (R) up another notch--or gallop, as the case may be. Even more disturbing, there are MORE VIDEOS online, but I think I'm going to pass. (Update: broke down and checked out the other two videos on YouTube; they are the same as this one--go figure.)

The bouffant hair and jewellry are also really strange. If she's going for a retro look, it was a fail. Vacuuming and cooking pot roast in pearls and heels--yes; aerobics in this outfit... just no. And the skin-tight white leggings that leave nothing to the imagination? A thousand times NO.

"Comments are disabled" --Gee, I wonder why.



Oh my. The fun goes on. I went to her website.