The Politically Incorrect Mom

THE OPINIONATED RANTINGS OF A CONSERVATIVE MOM

Tuesday, March 28, 2006

It's 11:00...Do You Know Where Your Children Are?

When I was a little girl, pre-kindergarten era, my mother used to allow me to stay up late with her sometimes and wait up for my dad when he worked the second shift. I remember well the newscaster saying, “It’s 11:00, do you know where your children are?”

Somewhere along the way over the past 30+ years, it stopped being a parent’s responsibility to know where their children are in the middle of the night. Even those who seem to be fine, respectable parents are finding themselves in tragic situations asking, “how could this have happened to us”, yet nobody seems to be reminding them that they, and only they, are responsible for their children’s well-being.

I’m not talking about child abductions or runaways or even drive-by shootings. I’m talking about 13, 14, 15 year old children being left on their own in the wee hours of the nighttime, only to prove to their parents that they are children... and children shouldn’t be left to their own devises in the middle of the night.

The other night on the O’reilly show, an attorney representing the family of a 15 year-old Irish girl who became drunk on a family vacation aboard a cruise ship and fell overboard to her death at 2:00 AM, described the cruise ship as “lawless palace” and is filing a lawsuit against the company because they…the cruise ship…NOT the parents allowed the 15 year old girl to get dangerously drunk. The attorney described the folks as a “fine Irish family” who were on a vacation with 20+ other members of their extended family. The attorney basically dodged questions about why the girl was unsupervised and given the opportunity in the first place.

As a parent, this concerns me. As a parent who has taken her teenaged children on cruise vacations, it’s appalling. This is disturbing on many levels, but at the very least, here are the issues:

The attorney stated that she was petitioning the government to force cruise ships to not allow children to purchase alcohol on the boats. Guess what? They already do that! In fact, if the parents had been paying attention when they boarded and read the literature mailed to them before they got on the ship, they would have known that you may even eliminate your child’s ability to charge ANYTHING on their shipboard card. Cruise ships don’t allow you to spend cash – you must charge everything to your stateroom. The cards are basically a credit card with no limit. You wouldn’t hand one of those to your 15 year old, so it’s beyond me why anyone would not at the very least limit what the child could purchase. My kids didn’t have a dime of credit on their cards. If they wanted to buy something, they had to ask me to use my card for the purchase. That allowed me to keep tabs on what they were buying and how much they were spending.

Bill O’reilly at least had the nerve to ask the attorney what this kid was doing out drinking at 2:00 am. The attorney responded by saying the kid was drinking at 11 pm – and had fallen overboard at 2 am. O’reilly backed down, so I’ll go ahead and ask the question…”ok, so she was drinking at 11 pm and fell overboard at 2 am – what the heck is the difference? Where the heck were her parents??” The parents had to be awakened to be informed that their child had fallen overboard while throwing up over the rail. What the heck were these people doing sleeping in their stateroom while their 15 year old daughter was out partying?? I may not be getting any nominations for mother of the year, but I can promise you that aside from the Disney Cruise we took, when my youngest daughter attended children’s programs where they sent me away with a pager in case she wanted to leave (because she wasn’t allowed to leave unless accompanied by a parent), my kids were by my side every waking moment while we were cruising and their butts were tucked into the bed next to mine when I went to sleep. It is absolutely preposterous to blame the cruise ship for these parents obvious neglect. 15 year old kids will find trouble if they are not supervised. PERIOD!

There is a reason why children are not allowed to make adult decisions until they are 18 years of age (and if it were up to me, the age would be raised to 21). Parents have an obligation to their children to pay attention to what they’re doing. When you take a family vacation, the idea is supposed to be to spend time with your family. If you want to ditch your kids, leave them at home with the grandparents. A cruise ship is no more a babysitter than an amusement park or a zoo. You just don’t leave your kids unattended for more than a short period of time when there are obvious dangers around you.

Another case came to my attention today regarding a 14 year old girl who was one of the victims of the shooting in Seattle last weekend. In this article

The youngsters father describes how he dropped her off at a bowling ally the night before so she could meet friends to go to a rave. A rave, people! She was dressed like a zombie, so he didn’t kiss her goodbye, for fear of smearing her make-up or getting it on himself. The article goes on to praise the girl for being such a good Samaritan, which I’m sure she was, and describes how the father learned of his daughter’s murder the next day. The article says, “By Saturday morning, her father was worried.”

YA THINK?

So, let me get this straight. You drop your 14 year old kid off at a bowling ally, knowing she’s going to another location (one which you have not taken her to, so you can’t even go there to look for her if she fails to return). You’re aware that she is planning to attend a very grown-up event and then when she doesn’t come home, all night long, you begin to get worried in the morning.

Are these people out of their friggin’ minds?

What’s interesting about both these cases is that the media hasn’t said word one about the parent’s failure to properly supervise their children. Both these kids should have been in bed by 11 pm, not hanging out with people who are not looking out for their best interests, and left to stay out all night without so much as a “don’t you dare!” from their parents.


Go ahead. Tell me I’m naïve and over-protective. My kids are alive.

Thursday, March 23, 2006

…and stupid begat stupid.

Have you ever met a child about the same age as one of your own and wondered how someone could turn out to be such a complete imbecile, only to have the misfortune of attending the same PTSA meeting as their mother or father and be subjected to some ridiculous diatribe that only concerns their own child…and then it hits you…the apple doesn’t fall too far from the tree.

This is one of the many reasons why being a parent (if you are one) is the most important responsibility you’ll ever have and the reason I believe people should be forced to take a test and acquire a license before being allowed to breed. We are absolutely, 100%, without a doubt responsible for the way our children turn out, which is why I try very hard to take that responsibility seriously and apply logic to my children’s lives on a daily basis. My children have always been expected to question anything that is not logical or that does not wash with common sense, and with few exceptions (which could be chalked up to decisions grounded by their age and maturity level), I’ve been very fortunate that they are pretty level headed kids. The old adage, “children learn what they live” may be cliché, but it’s true nevertheless.

Of course, in this social experiment we call “life as we know it”, parents are not the only influential characters and children are not the only characters who can and are molded into stupid little miniatures of their inventors. Teachers, for instance, have the opportunity to mold children and just like super heroes, some use their influence for good – some for evil.

Take, for instance, Overland High School teacher Jay Bennish, whose lecture in a world geography class last month also included harsh words about capitalism, U.S. foreign policy and the invasion of Iraq. At one point in a 21- minute, 40-second recording of the lecture, Bennish called America "probably the single most violent nation on planet Earth." Of course, his blatant violation of school district policy that requires teachers to present varying viewpoints was chalked it up to his First Amendment Right.

This teacher and many others like him are able to mold far more people in their lifetime than most parents will ever influence – which is why the parents in the school district put their foot down on this issue immediately. We simply cannot afford to allow teachers to subject their captive audiences to their own private opinions and call it education.

The common link between people like this is that they all have to take their cue from somewhere. Like little liberal lemmings they keep going and going - all the while spewing one vituperation after another against anyone who should disagree…and stupid begat stupid begat stupid-er begat stupid-er-er… But from where do they take their cue? All one must do is look around at the MSN and Hollywood to have the answer.

Question…

When was the last time you heard Clint Eastwood or Dixie Carter or Dale Earnhardt, Jr. or Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson or Don Mattingly on a soap box verbally slapping Hillary Clinton until the snot flies? How about….never! Why? Because with few exceptions, conservative Republican celebrities understand the leverage they have and how many people are unable to make decisions on their own anymore…and…they’re not stupid!

Then there’s the likes of Charlie Sheen. The man who is better known for his affinity for cocaine, prostitutes and gambling than his Homeland Security credentials, was recently quoted as saying this about the 9/11 terrorist attacks,

"There was a feeling, it just didn't look like any commercial jetliner I've flown on any time in my life and then when the buildings came down later on that day I said to my brother 'call me insane,”

O.K. stupid! You’re insane!

“…but did it sorta look like those buildings came down in a controlled demolition?”

Forget about the fact that every single 9/11 myth has looooooong since been debunked - is the man just waking up from a 4 ½ year nap? Nope. As much an idiot as he is, he is well aware that a “new” birth to these absurd allegations will be swallowed whole by the stupid little lemmings he and his stupid father have played a part in spawning. Why? Because stupid must breed in order to multiply.

And what qualifies the stupid to continue their mating ritual? Is it a Bachelors degree from Yale and an MBA from Harvard, like our beloved President? Would it be an MBA like Colin Powell's or a Masters from Notre Dame and a Ph.D. from the University of Denver like the ones our National Security Advisor, Condoleezza Rice earned? No, no, no! The stupid need nothing from higher education! They’ve graduated from the school of life and everyone knows that a celebrity is in a much better position to understand the ins and outs of the United States government than those who are actually qualified to run it!

Just for the record, here are a few of the very impressive credentials of the stupids…

Charlie Sheen: Kicked out of High School.

Barbra Streisand : High School Diploma

Cher: Dropped out of school in 9th grade.

Martin Sheen: Flunked exam to enter University of Dayton.

Jessica Lange: Dropped out of college mid-freshman year.

Alec Baldwin: Dropped out of George Washington U. after scandal.

Julia Roberts: High School Diploma.

Sean Penn: High School Diploma

Susan Sarandon: Very impressive college degree in…..acting!

Ed Asner: High School Diploma.

George Clooney: Dropped out of University of Kentucky.

Michael Moore: Dropped out first year University of Michigan.

Sarah Jessica Parker: High School Diploma

Jennifer Anniston: High School Diploma

Mike Farrell: High School Diploma

Janeane Garofelo: Dropped out of college.

Larry Hagman: Dropped out of college

…and the lemmings march on.

After all the American public has done to make these High School and College drop-outs richer than the rest of us - this is the sense of responsibility they feel toward those who refuse to make decisions for themselves. Abuse of their celebrity to enhance their own agenda.

It's all very disheartening if you don't see the silver lining in all of this..and there is one...

Just as people have become uglier and uglier as time moves forward, because of course - ugly people are attracted to other ugly people and when they breed, well….you guessed it…uglier yet. So too are the stupid attracted to their own kind.

The silver lining?
Since my kids are neither ugly – nor stupid - the fate of my grandchildren is secure.

Friday, March 10, 2006

The Week In Weird

Get this –

The School for Human Rights is one of nearly 150 "small" public schools that opened in New York City in the last three years under a national movement to raise student achievement by shrinking school sizes. Such schools often have specific themes. Although it's normal for schools to discuss human rights, one built around the concept is rare.

Yeah, I’ll say – they usually masquerade the Amnesty International stuff as social studies. Amnesty International USA and Human Rights Education Associates have helped plan the school. The school strives to produce "socially engaged young adults committed to equity, dignity and social consciousness," according to its mission statement.

All I know about organizations whose entire mission is to supposedly uphold human rights is that they always end up promoting preferential affirmative action. Do we really need a school to teach that?

THIS…

A Florida homeowner, whose husband is serving his country in Iraq, is being asked to remove the 2 ft high “Support Our Troops” sign from her yard because, the homeowner’s association doesn’t like it. The head of the association had this to say,

“What if the neighbor across the street does not support the troops or is against the administration and starts to put up those type of signs – so here we would have a war of the signs and we don’t want to get into that”

The homeowners association is threatening to fine this family $100 a day until she takes the sign down (btw… her husband says she should keep the sign and just PAY the fine). Ironically, the head of the homeowners association says he served time in Iraq himself and this is just a case of “rules are rules”.

Give me a friggin’ break!

Let’s speak TO this issue, shall we? Please take 30 seconds and e-mail the Westchase Property Manager to let him know how utterly ridiculous this is!

Click Here to E-mail

NOLO

This is unbelievable!

Mayer Nagin…wasn’t it enough that you let hundreds of school busses flood out and sent your family to Texas while thousands of your residents had no way out of town?

Do ya think you could find it in your heart to pay for the stinking hotel rooms for the canine search and rescue teams?

Of course, their excuse is that the FEDERAL Emergency Management folks haven't paid the bill yet.

For crying out loud – it’s a couple of guys and a couple of dogs – somebody put them up in your guest room, would ya?

TWO things from JYB worth repeating…

  1. The government just jailed 2 of our boarder patrol agents for trying to take out a drug smuggler. PA-LEEZ!
  2. Dubai: Have We Just Made a New Enemy?

Real life really is stranger than fiction…
From the AP

ATASCADERO, Calif. - A retired salesman alleged a stripper and her friend beat and robbed him in his home. John Skinner, 54, said he was on his way to Bible study on Jan. 23 when exotic dancer Maureen Murphy, 25, knocked on his door and offered him a free strip-o-gram.

Bible Study.....yeeeeeeeeaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhh......

Murphy said a friend had already paid for the show, police said.

When Skinner agreed to let her perform, knife wielding Richard Adam, 23, allegedly forced his way inside and told Skinner he owed Murphy, owner of Bikini Assassins, and another woman money for earlier services.

Skinner said he owed Talbert money for sex one time but not for a previous time when he said she fell asleep before they could have sex.

Because having sex with Bible scholars is really tiring...

Adam allegedly tied up Skinner and hit him in the face. Investigators said Murphy went upstairs to find valuables and returned with thong underwear and medication for erectile dysfunction.
Because the story isn't ridiculous enough...

The pair allegedly tried to take Skinner's car, but it was out of gas.

NOT. MAKING. THIS. UP.

Prosecutors charged three people in the case.

Adam was charged with robbery, burglary and inflicting great bodily injury. Exotic dancer Leslie Talbert, 20, was charged with two counts of burglary and Murphy, 25, was charged with robbery, burglary, false imprisonment and battery. A preliminary hearing will be held March 23.

I'd say it's been a bad week for John.

BABY CHARLOTTE
No new news on Baby Charlotte, but keep her in your prayers and I promise to keep you posted as updates arrive.

Wednesday, March 08, 2006

The Latest on Baby Charlotte...

From her website

Charlotte is getting stronger day by day, and today she was able to be out of the head-box and on nasel prongs for several hours.


Keep up the prayers!
 



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