9.26.2005

Chips, Cheetos, Chocolate Cookies

Or; Prodigious Porkers Prevent Pleasurable Pause
--- By Ron Dupuis

“Hi Mom” said little Suzie upon her return home from 3rd grade. “We have to go shopping” she added instantly.
“Well, how was your day and why is that” Mom asked?
“The teacher said I was too fat “was the reply of the tiny eight year old.
“Suzie, you weigh less than forty pounds.” “You are by no means fat.”
“Ya, but the teacher says that a lot of us are “a beast” and we have to start eating better.” “C’mon, we have to go shopping?”
“I think she might have said “obese” and sweetheart, you are by no means obese.” “What do we have to go shopping for?”
“Snack food” was the reply. “The teacher says that the snack food you give me will make me “a beast” and that you should do a better job of feeding me.” “C’mon Mom, let’s go” the child added hurriedly.
“What exactly did Ms. Craig say I should feed you” Mom asked?
The child responded ”Rice cakes.” “C’mon Mom, lets get going.”
“Hold on Suzie Q” Mom said. “Your teacher feels that I should do a better job of feeding you and that I should send rice cakes as a mid morning snack for an eight year old third grader?” “I’m going to write her a note.” “What is your teachers’ first name again?”
“Jenny” she replied. “C’mon Mom.” “Let’s go shopping.”

*************
Scenes like this are taking place all over the country. Educators, in order to comply with federal guidelines, are removing all food of minimal nutritional value or so called “junk food” from school menus and snack carts. The new guidelines call for healthier foods with less than 250 calories with no more than sixty grams of fat in order to combat childhood obesity. This, on the surface, can be a good thing. Many of our children are unable to make the proper choices. It is estimated that 15% of children between the ages of 6 and 19 are overweight.

The problem here is that some educators are telling parents that these guidelines will apply to children’s lunches and snacks sent from home. This, “In My Humble Opinion”, is a little over the line, and dangerous for a couple of reasons. First of all, children should have choices. Instead of removing ALL temptation why not encourage the overweight 15% (or Prodigious Porkers as I will be calling them in future articles) to make the proper decisions. It seems that by removing ALL snack foods of questionable “nutritional value” penalize the remaining 85% and indicates that our educators are throwing in the towel when it comes to teaching life skills.

More importantly, educators who feel that they have the authority to restrict parental rights to make decisions as to what they may or may not feed their children is just plain dangerous. In our household our daughter is fed what we feel is best for her and if my wife and I feel she deserves an Oreo or Chocolate chip cookie from time to time, she’ll get it. Even in her school lunch bag.

Bill eyes illegals and helpers

--- by Rep. Dave Buhlman:

Please do be aware that there have been several bills being introduced by your state representatives that aim to be a big bother to illegal immigrants and those who support them.

Judge Runyon and AG Ayotte, who failed in their mission to support law enforcement and protect NH citizens, have the warm safety of not having to report directly to the people, like State Reps do. And the people are clearly with us on this, and with the brave police chiefs (Gendron of Hudson and Chamberlain of New Ipswich) who lead the way. We gave both of them Commendations from the NH House Republican Immigration Reform Caucus.

And Governor Lynch - AWOL on this issue.

These bills have been introduced by Renzullo, Ulery, and Buhlman, all from District 27 - Hudson, Pelham, Litchfield.

Viva America!!

How about Executive Councilor Ray Burton employing a convicted child molester for years? He's been getting off the hook, especially from the leaders we send to Washington City. Could it be because of his special orientation?

9.19.2005

Liberal Fundamentalists Preaching

--- by Micheal Shackelford:

What stood out as noteworthy in the otherwise over-scripted confirmation hearings for Judge John Roberts, was how often the word "fundamental" was being uttered by Democratic Senators.

Senator Biden (D-DE) repeatedly agonized about a citizen's "fundamental right to die." Senator Leahy (D-VT) spoke proudly of being "protective of our fundamental rights and liberties," as well as fundamental rights of all Americans. Senator Durbin (D-IL) also spoke of an unalterable "fundamental right of privacy".

Nowadays, "fundamentalism" is touted as a bad thing (from the left's point of view). Fundamentalists are cultists, extremists and bombers. Yet why were so many Democratic Senators preaching to Judge Roberts about the need for standing firm on fundamentals?

The term "fundamentalism" began in the early 20th century as a reaction against liberal modernism in churches, which allowed just about any teaching as true. For instance, that Jesus might not have really existed, but was just a spiritual mythic character, that the Bible was just moral stories, that the real center of the universe was to be found "within", etc. A segment of Christendom rebelled against the modernist slide into relativism and drew a line in the sand. They stated that some things could not be watered down and redefined to suit a whim de jour. Things like: Jesus did live, was born of a virgin, performed real miracles, died and rose again, were not negotiable. They were "fundamental" beliefs. Hence, a fundamental Christian was not a cultist, or an extremist, but one who held to those fundamental beliefs.

From their recent heavy use of the word, the many Democratic Senators do clearly understand the original meaning of the word fundamental. They are worrying out loud about the possible erosion of liberalism's fundamental doctrinal points -- espeically the sovereignty of Self. They were demanding liberal fundamentalism of Judge Roberts.

Apparently it's not so bad to be a fundamentalist, as long as you're the kind they like.

9.16.2005

Democrats House Divided

--- by Micheal Shackelford:

The recent split in the AFL-CIO had Democratic pundits agonizing about how such a labor split hurts the traditional Democratic (labor) base. How can they hope to win the White House when their own house is divided? What the noisier Dems fail to see, is that they've been a house divided for a long long time.

AFL-CIO President John Sweeny said, "...at a time when our corporate and conservative adversaries have created the most powerful anti-worker political machine in the history of our country, a divided movement hurts the hopes of working families for a better life." Sweeny speaks in predictable terms of working families vs. corporate adversaries, but his insertion of the word "conservative" is telling. Can't a working family be conservative?

Back in the heat of the 2004 Presidential campaigns, liberal author Thomas Frank wrote a book entitled "What's wrong with Kansas?" In it, Frank is befuddled over why Kansas, a state with much farm and labor interest, would repeatedly vote Republican. "Why would voters not support the party (Democrats) who are trying to help them?" Frank's own puzzlement stems from the fact that the Democratic Party has suffered from a multiple personality disorder since the 60s and 70s.

When the Democratic Party decided to make itself the champion of liberal modernism issues, they gave themselves multiple agenda, which do not necessarily mesh. The high-profile Democrats have been most vocal over advocating Gay Rights, Affirmative Action and Abortion. This is what they most often want to be seen as. The Democratic Party likes to tout themselves as the environmental watchdogs and advocates for global peace (even if Chamberlainesque), not to mention the zeal for removing all religion from the state.

Their trouble was (is) that they assumed that farmers and working families HAD to share those new liberal agendas. The past two Presidential elections have suggested otherwise. A working man might feel that gay marriage undercuts traditional marriage. He might be a devout church goer. A working woman could well be pro-life. A working family might feel that "tree-huggers" are making more trouble than they're helping. Working families, especially those with soldier sons and daughters in Iraq, just might feel the war needs to be fought.

But, the Democrat leadership continues to beat their liberal agenda drums very loudly. The whole tempest over Supreme Court nominee Roberts is centered around whether he'll be pro-Abortion or not. The drum for workers' rights is conspicuously silent.

Maybe there isn't anything "wrong" with Kansas. Perhaps the 'something wrong' is that the Democratic Party has (for too long) presumed that laboring folks must be social liberals too. 2004 strongly suggested that they might not.

9.13.2005

The Purple Myth

--- by Micheal Shackelford:
The 2004 Presidential election revealed that the 50-50 divide of the nation into Red America and Blue America was still there. Zero "healing" had taken place since 2000. Some, eager to try and show that the split was not real, but some media myth, substituted the now-familiar red-blue map with one composed of shades of purple. (such as this one: http://www-personal.umich.edu/~mejn/election/countymaplinearlarge.png)

The attempt to show America as one "purple" nation was a nice try, but only a hopeful myth. America does not have a continuum of political parties from Far Right, through Medium Right, Partially Left to Hard Left. We have only two real political parties. Only one person wins the presidency. The parties themselves do not seek accommodation or reconcilliation, but only hegonomy.

The split is not confined to party hacks. Angry Blue citizens threatened to move to Canada or France rather than live in "Bush's" America -- as if it were a distinct and separate country from their vision of a Blue America. Angry Blues growl about "Emperor Bush" and bombast about "Criminal Bush" needing to be thrown in jail, for just about any policy they dislike.

It doesn't appear that the Blue half has been too interested in healing. With the Supreme Court nomination hearings for Judge Roberts, we see the same Red/Blue split being acted out in carefully written speeches. Zero healing is evident. Both the Red and Blue continue to push for all-or-nothing total control. Blue champions like Senators Kennedy and Feinstein worry aloud that Roberts might damage their (blue) America. Perhaps they are quietly admitting that judicial activism is about the only tool left to the Democrats, since they've lost the congress and whitehouse. Their dramatic angst over judicial precedent reads as little but angst over the precedents that support Blue America.

There is little sign of true purple. Red and Blue are as pure and strong and divided as ever. The rhetoric for 2008 is already cranking up. The nation is headed for a repeat of the divisive battles of 2000 and 2004. Since no one is offering a middle ground -- a purple -- we're stuck with red, blue, anger and division.

9.09.2005

Learning to speak the language of success

--- by Ron Dupuis:
If you were from out of state and you visited my high school, you would have felt that you had been dropped into some sort of linguistic twilight zone. It was the late fifties and despite every effort imaginable put forth by the nuns in charge, most of us could not speak in a legitimate dialect that was understandable to anyone but ourselves. “Yes Sister” or “No Sister” became “Yes Sta” and “No Sta”, “Did you” was cut to simply “Chew” and “do you want to” became “Dwanna.” Matters were complicated when a group of us, in order to feel intellectually superior, started speaking “Pig Latin.” It drove the good Sisters absolutely insane.
Last month the San Bernardino Board of Education approved a pilot program that would teach “Ebonics” in two of its schools. The program is called Students Accumulating New Knowledge Optimizing Future Accomplishment Initiative. Proponents feel that Ebonics is a dialect of American English spoken by many blacks throughout the country and has been recognized as a second language by other school districts such as Oakland California in 1996. They also feel that black students should be taught like any other students who speak a foreign language.

IVEGAY EMAY A REAKBAY!!! (For those of you that are linguistically challenged when it comes to pig Latin, that’s “GIVE ME A BREAK.”

I’ve spent hours on the internet searching for a country that has Ebonics as their official language. I failed to find any. I spent hours searching for a country that uses Ebonics as a secondary language. None. I searched all the African countries to see if Ebonics was used as some sort of tribal or village dialect. Not one. Swahili in some areas, and special dialects in others, however nothing, and I mean nothing even remotely resembling Ebonics.

As far as I can determine the only place in the world where Ebonics is spoken is here in this countries urban ghettos where struggling young African Americans are experiencing a high school drop out rate sometimes as high as 70%.

Now, because some pin head educrats feel children learn better when they are taught in a language they understand, Ebonics will be taught. Children do learn better when taught in a language they understand. That’s not the problem. The problem is that Ebonics is not a language. It is an urban street slang used by uneducated young African Americans. It’s an urban street slang that will keep young African Americans in the ghetto unless they learn to communicate properly.

It is a simple plain fact that the minorities who have made it in this country are the ones who learn to speak English. Vietnamese and Chinese speaking students, hoping to become doctors and nurses don’t get into Harvard or Yale by conversing with admission deans in their native tongue. They speak English. Latinos hoping to become Lawyers and businessmen will not enter Wharton Business School or Boston College Law by speaking Spanish. They will speak English. Young engineering hopefuls from India will not enter MIT or Georgia Tech by speaking whatever they speak in India. They will speak English.
Conversely, young African Americans who wish to break the shackles of bondage and advance to a better life will not enter any collage in the country by speaking Ebonics. They must speak English. Otherwise they will be destined to use such phrases as “You be having fries with that” for their entire lives.

Pig Latin did not help me. It was fun and amusing for a brief period in my youth; however, it never assisted me in graduating from high school or getting accepted to college. It never assisted me in getting a good job or achieving the American dream of purchasing my own home and raising a family.

Teaching Ebonics in school will do nothing for our Americas black youth, except keep them tied to a life of ghetto slang and ignorance.

Ron Dupuis is a long time New Hampshire resident, a freelance writer, and former State Representative. He can be reached by e-mail at (drcdupuis@comcast.net)

Rediscovering America's Poor

Hurricane Katrina lifted the rug in America's house of prosperity. Under it, were tens of thousands of poor people which had heretofore been invisible. We have heard of mud slides or earthquakes or tsunamis killing tens of thousands of people before, but they were the poor of far away nations, crammed together in sprawling neighborhoods of ramshackle housing. The mud, or quake or waves would mow them down in droves.

Middle class TV viewers could gasp and shake their head at the plight of the poor, yet feel somewhat insulated. They, after all, lived in tidy detached single family houses, not cheek-by-jowl shanty towns. That's how the poor foreigners live.

Katrina exposed that America has its share of sprawling hovels and poor. New Orleans crafts its image as the upbeat party town. Jazz, food and old French colonial buildings. It's thousands of very poor people lived in invisibility until the storm brought in hundreds of reporters and cameras.

"The poor ye have with you always," Jesus said. He was (and is) right, of course, but our own image of America is as narrow as New Orleans' image of itself. America's favorite image of itself is as the land of prosperity, materialism and wealth. Yet, we have our thousands of poor living out subsistence lives in lesser housing than most middle class homes' garden sheds.

Rediscovering these poor, has re-energized the age old debate over what to do about them. Democrat banner-wavers crank up their volume on calls that the federal government should be fixing everything -- making the poor no longer poor. Yet, those poor had always been there.

America can pull together to repair damage, rebuild neighborhoods and improve levees. But mixed in, are the old socialist recipes to try and remove poverty. This sort of thinking is just as insulted and smug as the middle class TV viewers -- that if the people of New Orleans hadn't been poor, none of this would have happened to them.

Humbug. Plans to improve how America responds to disasters are well worth the effort. Disasters will continue to happen. Let's not get distracted into social programs. Improving a family's living standard won't help them evacuate faster, nor will it feed and house them after evacuation.
 

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