Living Conservative in a Liberal World (Part 1): Who I Am

NOTE: I typed this a while ago. I started this document on my iPad to test out the Pages word processor, and now I am finally posting it. I will add more sections I had typed on the iPad over the next few days and continue this beyond what I have already typed.

I am a conservative. There, I said it. Of course, that is only the first part of this conversation. I am a conservative, but to many of my liberal colleagues and friends, the question is: "why?"

I am a conservative because I know what it is to be poor. My parents divorced when I was a baby. I was raised for the first twelve years of my life in a public housing project called Berryland, on the ninth side of Milwaukee, Wisconsin. My mom was on welfare ... we were on welfare. Mom didn't drive, so we took the bus everywhere. Mom would shop at the grocery store and pay the bill with food stamps. As soon as I was in school, the welfare office required my mom to find work. We eventually left the projects and moved on to apartments, duplexes, but never a house. After all, a house is not a home, as the song says.

I was the last of five children, but I was the first to go to college. But, I get ahead of myself. I finished high school, and afterwards did a tour in the Navy. While in the Navy, I learned about duty, honor and service, three ideas that would come to shape my psyche.

I had gone to church and youth group during my teen years, and thought that the way that the church and youth leaders reached out to others was cool, and after My enlistment, I decided to go to a bible college to become one of those people, someone who reached out to others and helped them.

Sadly, events transpired at the church and bible college where I was studying that went against my personal code of honor that I had developed during my military service. This caused a crisis of faith as I wondered how the leaders of an institution that was supposed to be serving God could act in a way that seemed to me to be detrimental to their fellow man and disrespectful of the civil authority. These events led me to leave the bible college.

I spent several years wandering through life, wondering what my purpose was. A change in employment brought me into contact with several teachers. After a while, I finally understood. I was meant to teach. I reentered college, and this time set my mind on getting my education degree and teaching license. Five years later, I entered my first classroom.

I am a conservative. This is strange to many people, because I choose to teach in a public school. It was not a choice I made lightly. I had married, and become stepdad to two wonderful girls. I wanted to provide for them the best way in could, so public schools with their good pay and excellent benefits were a perfect fit. Plus, there was something more.

I understand the entrenched liberalism of the public education system. I understand that politically I am outnumbered by a margin of about nine to one. I know that I could have a less stressful life teaching "good" children who are not from broken and dysfunctional homes if I were to teach in a private or religious school. I know I would find more people whose ideologies are closer to my own, which might help to enhance my social life now that I am divorced. Sure I understand all of that. But I understand something even more important. These students who are in public schools need me. They need someone who is willing to stand for the principles of duty, honor and service, because the liberal public school teaches who understand these things are few and far between.

I am a conservative. I am a teacher. I am more important than anyone realizes.

Time Enough for This

So I don't blog regularly. I should. I could. I always say I don't have time, but a quick mental self-audit has revealed to me that I definitely have time for this.

We tell ourselves we don't have time for something to make us feel better about ourselves when we are too lazy to do something we really know we could and maybe should be doing. For instance, I have a friend. OK, big revelation, I know people. I mean honest to goodness, real life people. Anyways, this friend is a business owner. He is married, and his three kids have all grown and flown.

He will call me some nights and want to play video games online. Now, don't make that face. Video games are a perfectly acceptable leisure time activity for grown adults. Note the conditional factor: LEISURE time. Being married, his domestic duties are limited to helping his wife out from time to time. Being alone, my domestic duties are ... well ... all of them. Sometimes I think he doesn't take into account that I have to keep my place clean (or somewhere approaching that condition) all by my lonesome.

I sometimes feel guilty that I am playing games and not doing something productive. Oddly enough, I tend to get this feeling when I am playing games, and not when I am, say sitting on the couch watching a movie. I think it has to do with the ability to multitask when you are watching TV. Can't get up and do something while playing a game online ... your friends end up getting scragged by some virtual terrorist with a beef about freedom, short skirts and rock 'n roll.

I guess what I am saying is that in all of my pondering about my life as 2010 draws to a close and 2011 nears, I should make better use of my time ... and perfect my sniper shot.

I am NOT immune!

If you remember my post entitled "Congratulations Mr. Jobs, It's A Fad", I was initially very skeptical of the iPad, but if you noticed the signature line on my last post (and this one), I am now a part of the iPad toting legions.

I actually have three Mac guys in my school. One is definitely a toucher. I swear, when Steve Jobs is webcasting, he is looking for lotion. The other two aren't so bad, but with Mac people, I always worry that there is a kind of a heaven's gate thing brewing. It is more of a cult than a company. The slavish devotion of Apple's devotees is almost religious. But I digress ...

I was, and I guess still am a PC purist. Back in the days I was a DOS guy. I resisted buying windows, saying that if I had wanted a Mac, I would have bought a Mac. All the while, I had to (grudgingly) admit that Apple always created a great product that worked marvelously, but this is because they control every aspect of the hardware. The Apple OS works with only a limited hardware set, eliminating the need for drivers for every piece of random equipment built by every manufacturer of PC components. In computers as well as cooking, the old saying is true: "too many cooks spoil a pie"' and that is the Achilles heel of the Windows platform. Too many people making components for the operating system. When Windows Vista was introduced, it was plagued with crashes, almost all of them due to buggy drivers.

So now I am sitting here, typing a blog post on an iPad, proud owner of an iPhone and a Mac Mini (albeit an older one, the first generation mini), and I am seriously drooling over the newest generation of MacBook Airs.

I am still a PC guy at heart, but I now understand and appreciate the beauty and functionality of a Mac.

8^) Jim
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Location:W Green Tree Rd,Milwaukee,United States

Black Friday Shopping Adventures

I have a confession to make. I like Black Friday shopping ... mostly.

I don't like doing it at home, and I don't like doing it alone (two key features of my life right now), but the challenge, the thrill and the general hurly-burly of it all just gets my blood pumping.

I don't like doing it alone, because everyone needs a partner in crime for things such as this. Someone to watch your cart when you need to go to the bathroom, etc. One woman today left her cart and walked around the back of a rack to grab something, and in the two minutes she was away from her cart, the jackals had descended on her cart and taken half of her stuff.

I don't like doing it at home because I live in Wisconsin. Wisconsin has a "fair competition law" which basically states that a company cannot sell a current item at a loss in order to drum up business. Thus, all of the major retailers have to create separate prices and ads for Wisconsin (and Minnesota, as I understand it) in which the prices are about ten percent higher. Needless to say, as a firm believer in the basic tenets of capitalism, I don't like to shop in an artificially created business climate.

So, when Thanksgiving rolls around, I hop in the car and visit one of my friends, and we do a great dinner and go Black Friday shopping.

This year, we had a slightly different plan than in past years. We went out at midnight so that she could snag some kid's pajamas for her boys (an annual tradition). Walmart was a study in order and chaos. Around the pallet of video games, you had all of the ,young, unmarried gamers in what was basically a rugby scrum. Around the pajamas, the moms had told each other what they were looking for and if the one right up at the pallet found yours before she found hers, she passed it to you to help you out. One wonderful woman even got hers, set them on top of the display then helped other people find theirs.

We accomplished everything we wanted, except we passed on stopping at Menard's, due to the fact that the line to get in wrapped across half of the front of the store and down one of the sides.

At almost every store, we were in and out in about half an hour, a testament to Katie's planning and preparation for the adventure. In most of the stores, there was no pushing, shoving or grabbing. Most of the people were kind and friendly.

At BigLots, there was a rather obnoxious woman giving the clerks a hard time over another clerk handing a woman a limited quantity item, then taking it back when he realized she didn't have the "I waited in line for this" ticket they had handed people as they walked in. Then, to top it off, she was arguing with them over the WRONG item, due to the fact that she didn't read the banner at the top of the ad that said "available Saturday only". I felt so bad for the clerk, that when she (somewhat rudely, given that the mistake was hers) demanded to know what time they opened the next day, I chimed in with "the time posted on the door", which then set this beastly woman on me, giving the poor clerk a very short reprieve.

I vaguely remember reading or heading someone say that the day after thanksgiving should be called "thanksgetting". That may sound a bit extreme, but if you haven't gone Black Friday shopping lately, may I suggest you strap on your pads and helmet, and give it a try.

8^) Jim
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Location:1st St,Sunfield,United States

The Integrity of our Elections

Elections are no longer about the will of the people. There, I said it.

The will of the people, if it to be properly determined has to be done in a manner which leaves no doubt as to the veracity of the election results.

Enter modern elections. Early voting, same day registration, and no identification required have opened our electoral system to widespread vote fraud. wether it is the buying or bullying of votes via corrupt political machines of the past such as Tammany Hall, or modern vote fraud of registering ficticious people from non-existent addresses and then later voting in their names, our electoral system cannot be guaranteed to be safe and accurate.

At a minmum, we need:

• Pre-registration, at least 30 days in advance
• Identification required to vote on election day
• Voting only ON election day or absentee via mail ...

these are the first, sane steps needed to ensure valid and fair elections.

Getting back up to speed ...

once upon a time, I said in one of my posts that I wanted to update this blog more or less daily. As you can see by th etime gap between my last post and this one, I havne't exactly held up to that now, have I? What has made my life soooo, hectic that I have neglected this blog?

Short answer: I am a teacher.

Long answer: I am a teacher attempting to have a life.

In the past couple weeks, I have been turning a few things over in my brain that would affect this blog and a few other things.

#1: I am so buying an iPad. This is important because, well, I want one and a while back I was not too keen on them.

#2: I may retitle the blog. not sure yet, since I really like this title and format.

#3: I want to change the layout .... done! Boy that was easy!

#4: I am contemplating a different narrative style for writing the blog, making it more ... I dunno, personal.

#5: I will stop cross-posting at TCUNation ... too much work involved.

More to come ...

OK, make up your minds environmentalists!

So I was talking to a friend today.  She takes issue with the fact that I take issue with environmentalism.  Our discussion today was caused by this article about Arizona spending $1.25 million to save some endangered squirrels.

She argued that spending the money was a good thing because of the whole circle of life thing, saying you never know what bad things will happen if this particular breed of squirrel goes extinct.  I countered with extinction being a PART of the circle of life, and to name one bad thing that has happened because the dinosaurs became extinct.  Her counter was that dinosaurs became extinct because of a natural event, not because we were building roads through their habitats.

That got me thinking about life and common sense.  According to environmentalists, we (humans) are the product of a billion years or so of evolution.  If this is true, what is humankind but a very evolved animal – the king of the animal kingdom if you will, the top of the evolutionary ladder.

Now the other side of the argument is creationism.  God said, and it came to pass.  End of story.  We are created, we didn’t come from no monkey.  God created the earth, planted a garden, and then created man to care for the garden.  Expand the metaphor of the garden to the planet, and God gave us the earth and wants us to take care of it.

Which leads to the question: why is it that conservative religious groups who believe in the literal words of the Bible don’t seem to care about the planet?  Why is it that eco-leftists who believe we are just another animal care about the planet more than anything else? 

So, my question to eco-leftists and environmentalists is, if humans really are just highly evolved animals, then we are a PART of nature and everything we do is an act of nature.  The answer is simple: ALL SPECIES CHANGE THEIR ENVORONMENT TO THEIR BENEFIT: as sure as that dam built by beavers causing flooding in a valley is a part of nature, that road through the mountains is a part of nature because we are a part of nature (according to environmentalists).

As for creationism, I am not sure what I believe.  Intelligent design, day equals age, seven literal days, evolution, I honestly don’t know any more.  I prefer to focus on the here and now, and spending $1.25 million to save a squirrel population of 250 from extinction really doesn’t matter in the world of the here and now.