Pulling back the facade on Sarah Palin and her Wasillabilly family.

Before you start reading this post remember that this is only the information that I can share that does not out my source completely. There is much that is being left for future posts when she decides that she is in a position to reveal her identity.

When that happens all of this will have a far bigger impact. As will what is soon to follow.

As I have shared before the impetus for this source seeking me out was the drunken brawl in Anchorage. When all of that was in its early stages this person was afraid that Palin was about to skate free and decided she simply could not watch that happen yet again.

So as it turned out this person also had an acquaintance that was at the party in Anchorage the night of Throwdown at the Hoedown and I shared that information back in early October.

However after the police audio came out, all of the dust settled, and it became clear that the Palins would NOT face any prosecution, I reached out to my source to tell them that apparently it was up to the two of us to make sure the family did not get away scott free.

That, of course, elicited the response "I'm in."

And after some miscommunication which had me doubting that, it turns out that indeed she is in.

During some of our initial conversations my source made it clear that the behavior captured on audio that night was in NO way new for the family. And in fact heavy drinking and drug use is as common to the Palins as swimming is for fish. (Well except the ones in the lake of theirs. Those just float.)

According to my source the drinking is a learned behavior that the Palin men inherited from their father Jim Palin who, once again according to this very well placed source, was a prestigious drinker with a bad temper. (He also apparently had some problems with the ladies, as he seems to have lost his job with MEA back in the 90's for "sexual harassment." Now why is THAT not surprising?) 

Anyhow Todd and other members of his family seem to have followed in their father's footsteps and developed drinking problems of their own. Apparently a favorite place to indulge is the Petersburg cabin. But when they cannot get there, Todd's garage will do, where, according to my source, the favorite topic of conversation is what a c**t Sarah is.

But of course it is not all just drinking. Also according to the source Todd has a back problem that he treats with liberal doses of Hydrocodone. (In case you're wondering, yes the directions suggest that you avoid drinking alcohol when taking this medication.)

However as we already know drugs are even more of a problem for other members of the Palin family. Like Dianne Palin for instance, who apparently started her breaking and entering career by stealing from various family members first, including Sarah and Todd, though nobody thought to get her any help because, well it wouldn't look good now would it?

And then there is Track, who my source tells me has a crippling problem with substance abuse which seems to only be getting worse. (What you heard on that audio is apparently what Track is like much of the time.)

As for the fighting, well the fighting is also a component of the family dynamic.

There have been multiple knock down drag outs between Sarah and Todd of course. But the one that was new to me was a rather ugly fight that happened between Todd and Bristol back when she was still dating Levi.

Once again according to this source Todd flat out hated Levi's guts, and wanted Bristol to stay away from him. Apparently the argument devolved into a physical altercation which found the two getting all MMA with each other. At one point Todd had Bristol by the hair and was dragging her around with Bristol responding by grabbing him by the crotch. (And here I thought MY family had anger issues.)

Of course as we know Bristol did NOT stop seeing Levi and even conned the poor guy into impregnating her loser ass, so that she could then accuse him of getting her drunk and raping her.

As for Sarah herself my source claims that her decision to quit as Governor of Alaska was nothing new as she had tried to quit just about everything at one time of another.

When she was Mayor of Wasilla she tried to quit in her first term and had to be talked out of it by Jim Palin who told her that she owed a lot of people who had helped get her elected.

She also resigned her position on the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission, but of course was able to rework that as an ethical choice in response to all of the corruption that she witnessed.

The most famous one was when she quit as Governor. But perhaps the most egregious resignation was from her responsibilities as a parent, leaving Todd and other members of the family to take up the slack.

As it turned out Sarah uses children as part of a barter system with Todd, according to this source.

As I understand it, when Sarah wants to do something, and needs Todd to sign off on it, she births him another baby. According to my source Todd loves kids and by doing that Sarah has managed to get her way a number of times.

Let's break it down shall we?

• Palin was already pregnant with Track so that got Todd to marry her. 
• Bristol was born in 1990, so Sarah was able to run for city council in 1992. 
• Willow was born in 1994 allowing Sarah to run for Mayor in 1995.
• Piper was born in 2001, and Sarah ran for Lt. Governor in 2002.

Yep kind of all works out.

Oddly enough there were no babies before Sarah ran for Governor, but we all sure know what happened right before she was tapped as John McCain's running mate.  Don't we?

I asked my source if there was one thing that she wanted people to know about Sarah Palin, and her answer was that:

"The family is a facade."

As she states it there is no love lost between Todd and Sarah. As for the kids they are deeply troubled and essentially only respond to financial incentives provided to them when Sarah needs them to play their parts.

None of that should be considered all that surprising of course.

We have already seen the daughter whose name was copyrighted so that mom could hire a ghostwriter to play her part for public consumption.

The son whose military "career" was arranged for his mother's political benefit, and whose troubles are covered up with mounds of cash.

The wild child who is kept under lock and key.

The youngest girl who is being groomed as Sarah's little doppelganger.

And of course Trig, the political prop who has almost outlived his usefulness. (Who my source says most certainly did NOT issue forth from Sarah's loins. Though she is not sure where he did come from.)

I cannot say that I found too many of these revelations shocking, however I was surprised that this person was willing to say them publicly.

As for my source well I have already told you that she is going to go public in the near future. What I have NOT told you is that she actually has others from Palin's past that also want to get a few things off their chest, and who may be willing to do so either publicly like their friend, or as anonymous sources who will back up or flesh out the statements from others.

And for my final tidbit I thought I would share with you the fact that my source was made aware of a certain book entitled "Boys Will Be Boys." And though she remains blissfully unaware of Todd's possible side business, she has learned that some of the names mentioned in the book are people who are very familiar to her.

I know right?

So hopefully this post satisfied those of you who waited so patiently these last several months.

Like I said this is only the beginning, and once certain things are straightened out there will be much, much more.

Stay tuned.

Cleveland police who shot 12 year old boy provided him no first aid. That was administered almost 4 minutes later by an FBI agent.

Courtesy of WEWS-TV:  

Cleveland officials said Thursday officers waited close to four minutes to administer first aid after Tamir Rice, 12, was shot. 

Deputy Chief Ed Tomba said a detective and FBI agent who were in the area responded to the call for help and began giving medical help to Rice three minutes and 49 seconds after he was shot by rookie Cleveland patrol officer Timothy Loehmann. 

NewsChannel 5 Investigators asked Cleveland officials why the two officers involved in the shooting did not immediately administer first aid. Dan Williams, a spokesman for Mayor Frank Jackson, said all of the officers' actions are under investigation. 

We also asked why officials did not show reporters the video of how the officers reacted after the shooting. Williams said the officers only released the video because the family requested the footage be made public. 

I actually did not know this detail yesterday when I first posted this story.

The debate yesterday was fairly lively, with some people taking the officer's side and others feeling that the speed with which the police shot this young man left them no chance to evaluate whether he actually presented a danger or not.

Whatever your position I have to wonder if realizing that the officers did nothing to save this young man for four minutes has any effect on your point of view?

An Atheist camp? I am so jealous of these kids.

I cannot believe that the reporter suggested to the counselor that he might be "brainwashing" these kids. Has she never attended a church. or Christian sponsored summer camp?

When I was a kid I went to Victory Bible Camp. Which was great fun for me right up until Sunday morning when I had to be escorted to the prayer meeting against my will and forced to participate or risk losing my turn to go horseback riding.

I must confess that when I closed my eyes and lowered my head I didn't actually do any praying.

Which reminds me of the old adage, "You can lead and Atheist to a house of worship, but you can't make him buy into your bullshit."

That might not be an old adage, but it should be.

God is my codefendant. There are 32 states where parents can use a religious defense in court for abusing or neglecting their children. In Idaho that protection extends to manslaughter.

Courtesy of Vocativ:  

Currently, 32 states, including Idaho, provide a religious defense to felony or misdemeanor crimes specifically against children, including neglect, endangerment and abuse, according to state statutes compiled by Children’s Healthcare Is a Legal Duty (CHILD), a national advocacy group. There are 38 states that provide religious exemptions in their civil codes on child abuse and neglect, which can prevent Child Protective Services from investigating and monitoring cases of religion-based medical neglect and discourage reporting. 

Of the states that still provide a religious defense to felonies against children, Idaho remains in a league of its own. It is one of only six states that provide a religious exemption to manslaughter, negligent homicide or capital murder (the others being Arkansas, Iowa, Louisiana, Ohio and West Virginia). But of those six, it is the only state where children are known to have died at the hands of faith-healing parents in the last 20 years. Rita Swan, CHILD’s co-founder, describes Idaho as “the worst in the country,” and she attributes the state’s high number of deaths to its overreaching religious exemption laws, which were enacted in 1972.

Swan and other child advocates argue that Idaho’s laws, and those like them, are in direct contradiction with the Supreme Court’s 1944 decision in Prince v. Massachusetts, which ruled that parental authority cannot jeopardize a child’s welfare, even in cases of religious expression. “The right to practice religion freely,” the court concluded, “does not include liberty to expose…[a] child…to ill health or death.” 

“Parents may be free to become martyrs themselves,” the decision continued. “But it does not follow they are free, in identical circumstances, to make martyrs of their children.”

Even though over the years numerous children in Idaho have died from medically treatable diseases or injuries, there is currently no plan to change this religious exemption.

Oregon also used to have a similar law in place, but then things changed: 

Outside of Oregon and Idaho, there have been 20 documented faith-healing fatalities of minors since 2008 in 10 different states, including Texas, Colorado and Pennsylvania, according to CHILD. But the death count among Followers of Christ puts Idaho well out in front as the deadliest state in the country. That distinction actually once belonged to Oregon, until a highly publicized child death in 1998 ultimately prompted prosecutors and lawmakers to act. 

Oregon, like Idaho, had a religious defense to manslaughter on the books when 11-year-old Bo Phillips died from untreated diabetes that year. His family, who were members of the Followers of Christ, prayed over him and anointed his body with oil instead of taking him to a doctor. It was the first time authorities felt they had a clear case of abuse in a faith-healing child death. But the district attorney for the county, Terry Gustafson, declined to prosecute the boy’s parents because of ambiguities in the state law. 

Gustafson’s decision triggered public outcry across the state. The Oregonian newspaper in Portland, the state’s largest paper, launched an investigative series on faith-healing deaths, which found that of the 78 children buried in one Followers cemetery in Oregon City since 1955, 21 had died from treatable illnesses. Shortly after, ABC’s 20/20 and Diane Sawyer brought national attention to the state’s faith-healing controversy with a prime-time segment on the Followers. By 1999, legislators had eliminated religious protections in cases of manslaughter and criminal mistreatment. 

Clearly what needs to happen in Idaho is the same kind of media scrutiny that took place in Oregon. However it would be incredibly sad if another child had to die in order to trigger that response.

Sometimes people ask me why I find religion so threatening. Honestly sometimes I just don't know where to begin.

Could it be that it is used as an excuse to hate those who supposedly the Bible deems worthy of hate?

Could it be how religion is used to oppress women?

Could it be how religion has negatively impacted our views of human sexuality?

Could it be that it is used to undermine our teaching of science?

Or perhaps it could simply be that it allows terrible people, to do terrible things, and defend their actions by using God as the scapegoat.

Just in time for Veteran's Day, a new coloring book is released calls "Ted Cruz Saves America!" No, I am NOT making this up!

Courtesy of PR Web:  

The Ted Cruz to the Future Coloring and Activity Book is back by popular demand. Really Big Coloring Books ® is releasing Ted Saves America as a supplement to the Ted Cruz book. The additional eight (8) page supplement is complimentary with the purchase of the Ted Cruz book, the #1 selling coloring book. Releasing the book and supplement on Veterans' Day corresponds with 2nd Amendment values. "The supplement and book are fact based, fair and objective, about a man who millions of American citizens consider a real life true to heart super hero for children to look up to," states Publisher Wayne Bell. "Ted Cruz is history in the making."

Wow, that made me throw in my mouth a little.  

As I am sure many of you have been unable to forget, this is actually the SECOND Ted Cruz coloring book released by this company. We wrote about the first way back in December of last year.

Now here is the problem that I am having when trying to write about the Republicans these days.

I quite literally do not know where the reality ends and the parody begins.

They have become walking talking SNL caricatures, to the point that I often read things like this and immediately think "Okay that's just bullshit, isn't it?" Only to find that it is all too real.

By the way if you ever learn that any of your friends actually purchased one of these books for their children or grandchildren, you need to immediately take them off your e-mail list.  Cause something be very wrong with them.

One New York teacher's resignation letter will break your heart and frighten you for the future of education in America.

Courtesy of Democratic Underground: 

Mr. Casey Barduhn, Superintendent 
Westhill Central School District 
400 Walberta Park Road 
Syracuse, New York 13219 

Dear Mr. Barduhn and Board of Education Members: 

It is with the deepest regret that I must retire at the close of this school year, ending my more than twenty-seven years of service at Westhill on June 30, under the provisions of the 2012-15 contract. I assume that I will be eligible for any local or state incentives that may be offered prior to my date of actual retirement and I trust that I may return to the high school at some point as a substitute teacher. 

As with Lincoln and Springfield, I have grown from a young to an old man here; my brother died while we were both employed here; my daughter was educated here, and I have been touched by and hope that I have touched hundreds of lives in my time here. I know that I have been fortunate to work with a small core of some of the finest students and educators on the planet. 

I came to teaching forty years ago this month and have been lucky enough to work at a small liberal arts college, a major university and this superior secondary school. To me, history has been so very much more than a mere job, it has truly been my life, always driving my travel, guiding all of my reading and even dictating my television and movie viewing. Rarely have I engaged in any of these activities without an eye to my classroom and what I might employ in a lesson, a lecture or a presentation. With regard to my profession, I have truly attempted to live John Dewey’s famous quotation (now likely cliché with me, I’ve used it so very often) that “Education is not preparation for life, education is life itself.” This type of total immersion is what I have always referred to as teaching “heavy,” working hard, spending time, researching, attending to details and never feeling satisfied that I knew enough on any topic. I now find that this approach to my profession is not only devalued, but denigrated and perhaps, in some quarters despised. STEM rules the day and “data driven” education seeks only conformity, standardization, testing and a zombie-like adherence to the shallow and generic Common Core, along with a lockstep of oversimplified so-called Essential Learnings. Creativity, academic freedom, teacher autonomy, experimentation and innovation are being stifled in a misguided effort to fix what is not broken in our system of public education and particularly not at Westhill. 

A long train of failures has brought us to this unfortunate pass. In their pursuit of Federal tax dollars, our legislators have failed us by selling children out to private industries such as Pearson Education. The New York State United Teachers union has let down its membership by failing to mount a much more effective and vigorous campaign against this same costly and dangerous debacle. Finally, it is with sad reluctance that I say our own administration has been both uncommunicative and unresponsive to the concerns and needs of our staff and students by establishing testing and evaluation systems that are Byzantine at best and at worst, draconian. This situation has been exacerbated by other actions of the administration, in either refusing to call open forum meetings to discuss these pressing issues, or by so constraining the time limits of such meetings that little more than a conveying of information could take place. This lack of leadership at every level has only served to produce confusion, a loss of confidence and a dramatic and rapid decaying of morale. The repercussions of these ill-conceived policies will be telling and shall resound to the detriment of education for years to come. The analogy that this process is like building the airplane while we are flying would strike terror in the heart of anyone should it be applied to an actual airplane flight, a medical procedure, or even a home repair. Why should it be acceptable in our careers and in the education of our children? 

My profession is being demeaned by a pervasive atmosphere of distrust, dictating that teachers cannot be permitted to develop and administer their own quizzes and tests (now titled as generic “assessments”) or grade their own students’ examinations. The development of plans, choice of lessons and the materials to be employed are increasingly expected to be common to all teachers in a given subject. This approach not only strangles creativity, it smothers the development of critical thinking in our students and assumes a one-size-fits-all mentality more appropriate to the assembly line than to the classroom. Teacher planning time has also now been so greatly eroded by a constant need to “prove up” our worth to the tyranny of APPR (through the submission of plans, materials and “artifacts” from our teaching) that there is little time for us to carefully critique student work, engage in informal intellectual discussions with our students and colleagues, or conduct research and seek personal improvement through independent study. We have become increasingly evaluation and not knowledge driven. Process has become our most important product, to twist a phrase from corporate America, which seems doubly appropriate to this case. 

After writing all of this I realize that I am not leaving my profession, in truth, it has left me. It no longer exists. I feel as though I have played some game halfway through its fourth quarter, a timeout has been called, my teammates’ hands have all been tied, the goal posts moved, all previously scored points and honors expunged and all of the rules altered. 

For the last decade or so, I have had two signs hanging above the blackboard at the front of my classroom, they read, “Words Matter” and “Ideas Matter”. While I still believe these simple statements to be true, I don’t feel that those currently driving public education have any inkling of what they mean. 

Sincerely and with regret, 
Gerald J. Conti 
Social Studies Department Leader 

The conservatives have wanted for years to destroy public education in this country, but I never thought they could pull it off as long as we remained vigilant.

I am sad to see that they are winning. 

President Obama makes perfectly reasonable statement about the problems working parents have in finding quality childcare, which gets cherry picked by conservatives as being an attack on stay-at-home moms. Well you know who HAS to weigh in on this!

"Too often parents have no choice but to put their kids in cheaper daycare, that maybe doesn't have the kinds of programming that makes a big difference in a child's development. And sometime there may just not be any slots, or the best programs may be too far away. And sometimes someone, usually mom, leaves the workplace to stay home with the kids, which then leaves her earning a lower wage for the rest of her life as a result. And that's not a choice want Americans to make."

Clearly the President was talking about the problems facing two income families who are faced with problems finding quality childcare. It was NOT directed at families where the male earns an income which allows his wife to be a stay-at-home mother. 

However THAT is exactly how it is being purposefully misinterpreted by the Right Wing professional outrage machine. And right now the conservatives smell blood in the water and the sharks are beginning to circle.

And if there is any hint of weakness on the President's part, you know who will soon come sniffing around for a taste.

And gee the headline of her Facebook post starts off so reasonably:

Obama Declares Stay-at-Home Moms Aren't Worth a Hill of Beans; Says It's a Choice 'We Don't Want Americans to Make’

I will spare you the entire thing as I think you can already imagine how ugly and fact free it will be. 

However here are a few moosenuggets for your perusal: 

On behalf of former and current stay-at-homers, including my girlfriends who still get together to bake cookies for the bake sale (see photos in my kitchen above), and volunteer to coach kids ball teams, and man the church's food bank, and entertain latchkey kids, and all that other obnoxiously "housewifey" stuff, the President needs to be spanked. 

Number one I think most of her "girlfriends" are on the SarahPAC payroll, and number two waht kind of person suggests that the President of the United States should be "spanked?"

It seems you'd shackle us by your snobbish shunning of one traditional lifestyle choice while taking advantage of power to manifest your liberal view by manipulating public opinion and resources to diminish moms who put career on hold to raise a family. You are really messed up. And you're so 1960's. 

Now she is talking about "shackles?"
 
You really are stuck in a contorted kind of '60s feminism where you obviously don't trust women to make their own decisions, so you're frustrated. 

And now she is suggesting that the President is "frustrated?" Anybody else picking up on a theme here?

Now, I'm sure your star struck female minions in the media will writhe and wiggle in defense of you on this, they always do, even though you just marginalized a most valuable sector of American society while having the gall to admit that, for you, it's only all about the money. 

"Female minions" will "writhe and wiggle?" Well so much more subtlety.

And then Palin goes for the jugular.

Perhaps you never witnessed the benefits a "full-time mom" provides a family, a community, our schools, our nation, but you're a big boy now so figure it out yourself without me lecturing you on the beauty of a homemaker. Suffice it to say "stay-at-home moms" make the world go 'round. 

- Sarah Palin

Okay now that was just uncalled for. Suggesting that the President does not appreciate stay-at-home mothers because his worked out of the home is a low blow even for Palin.

I understand that it undermines Sarah Palin, and the conservatives, sense of outrage to recognize that the President was NOT suggesting that he did not want mothers to stay at home with their children, but the fact is that what he was saying is that he did not want either parent to be forced out of work due to poor childcare choices.

The President was making his speech  at the Rhode Island College in Providence, and the topic was "Women and the Economy."  I think THAT audience had little difficulty understanding that the President was discussing ways in which the government could assist parents and help them to compete financially with their counterparts at work who do not have to worry about also meeting the needs of their children.

Sadly that is a sophisticated message which rings hollow in the ears of the ignorant.

Twenty six year old man arrested for shooting and killing three year old while playing "gun tag."

Courtesy of NBC Montana:  

Galen Hawk, 26, appeared in a Polson courtroom Friday afternoon on a negligent homicide charge. 

Court documents say Hawk shot and killed 3-year-old Lonato Moran-Allen in a Ninepipes-area home Wednesday night. 

Investigators say Hawk and two others took the boy to a Ronan hospital, where he died. 

Court documents say Hawk and Moran-Allen were playing "gun tag." Moran-Allen had a toy gun and Hawk had a real one. 

Prosecutors say Hawk told detectives he'd been drinking whiskey and alcoholic lemonade the night of the shooting.

Just another good guy with a gun keeping America safe, right NRA?

More guns, equal more deaths, period.

This is essentially how I see Fundamentalism.

You know if I was suddenly king of the world, I would make it illegal to introduce children to religion until they were past their sixteenth birthday.

If you can still convince boys and girls at sixteen to believe in your God, and follow your doctrines, then you deserve to be taken seriously.

But I am pretty confident in saying that religion would essentially die out in a generation.

Benefits of Yoga For Children's Creativity

Yoga For Kids

Benefits of yoga for children's creativity was able to hone a child's brain stimulated activity over more alive than usual. Yoga is an art of body movement and breathing which is known from India. 

Yoga movement is a movement to train the muscles of the body with breath though. Through gestures that accompanied techniques of breath regulation and centralization of concentration, physically healthier, fitter, and stronger, even more balanced emotions. 

Yoga for kids should be taught slowly and gradually because it is not as easy as that also children can receive, understand, and follow the movements of yoga. Yoga for kids is very different than yoga for adults.