Occasional Rants: Primarily Speaking

A few months ago the website Teacher Certification Degrees put HSD on their list of the Top100  homeschooling  blogs.  In their description of my blog they described me by saying, "Dave is the “Home School Dad”, White Sox fan and movie buff whose sense of humor shows in creative nicknames and occasional rants;"

While I appreciated the mention, I was especially tickled by the phrase "Occasional Rants".  I thought that would make for a pretty good segment here.  So here is my rant for the occasion of political primaries.

The Illinois Primary was last Tuesday.  I voted in it, as I do in most elections.   I voted in every contest listed on my ballot.  I tried to do as much homework as I could in deciding who to vote for. I even took Spider Droid to see one of the Presidential candidates speak. 

Because I have been asking for a Republican ballot in primaries for better than 2 decades,  I get targeted by Republican pollsters and candidates come election time.  For example, I received no less than 15 calls from representatives of one of the Republican Presidential Candidates in the 4 days prior to the Illinois primary.

Not once in any of these calls was I told why to vote for this candidate, a former governor whose name fits him like a glove. I was only told repeatedly why not to vote for one of his opponents, Rick Santorum. 

It has been repeatedly said of this robocalling Republican that since he has run a successful business, he will know how to use our money.  I don't think so! He doesn't even know how to spend his.  He outspent all the other candidates in the Illinois election and not once with all that money spent, did he tell me why to vote for Him. 

It turns out that all the spending did not get my vote.  If the calls were enough to dissuade me from voting for Santorum, I would have simply voted for another one of his opponents.  He  had 15 opportunities to tell me why to vote for Him and failed each time.  This candidate, okay, okay you dragged it out of me, Mitt Romney, ended up winning in Illinois by a pretty good margin.  On Tuesday I heard his victory speech on the radio and when he finally got around to telling me why I should vote for him  he had some convincing reasons why I should support him.  They might not have swayed my vote, but I would much rather heard them before I voted rather than 14 hours after.  Sure, I could have researched him on my own, but if a guys gonna call you 15 times shouldn't that provide you with all the information you need to get about Him?

Following up Romney's victory in Illinois, one of his top advisers was asked about his social policies.  Here is what happened . . .



I found this particularly disturbing as every one of Romney's 15 calls were about Santorum flip flopping to the left on social issues. It seems Romney's plan is to outspend his opponents telling voters why not to support his opponents.  His adviser's comments make me wonder if the reason why he doesn't tell social conservatives why to vote for him is because he doesn't have anything to say.

Change of Face

Puppy has been obsessed with the beginning of Spring for almost a month now. Each morning she checks her calendar and announces how many days until Spring.



In honor of the start of Spring tomorrow I decided to shave of my beard. As you may recall, I grew my present beard because my having facial hair was a previous obsession of hers.



So, after dinner and a pleasant stroll with my beloved Amy, I transformed myself from this to this

This

To This

Pandora and other Fragments

It is time once again .  Yes Half past Kissing Time and time for Friday Fragments. 

1.  I heart Pandora.

I have a very eclectic taste in music.  Show tunes, Pop, Rock, Christian, folk, country.  You name it I like it.  I don't even mind listening to many genre's at the same time.  That'w why I like Pandora.  I have about 50 different channels and when the mood strikes me, I hit the shuffle option and get my eclectic on .  This is what I am listening to right now.  I can go from that to Under The Sea from Little Mermaid.  (Which, incidentally just happened.) From there maybe Bowling For Soup or Barry Manilow to Bing Crosby or Puppy's favorite, JJ Heller.   This musical journey may contine with music from Journey or the musical saga may continue with The Saga Begins by Weird Al.  Like I said, eclectic.

Sure, I could do and  do the same thing with my IPod and Itunes.  But, the songs I listen to, I have to own.  With Pandora it often plays songs I not only don't own but am sometimes not even aware of.  I just listened to 5 O'clock world by the Vogues from my Beach Monkeys(Beach Boys and Monkees are the seed artists)  channel on Pandora.  I may have heard it before on an oldies stattion but I would never be able to ask for it by name.  That's why I like the music genome project employed by Pandora.  It takes what you like and plays music similar to it.

2.  A to Z coming soon.







Earlier this year I joined up for the A to Z blogging challenge for this April. March is 1/2 way over and I hope I am up to the task of 26 letters in 30 days. We get each Sunday off except the first Sunday, which is the first of April. It seems a little NABLOPOmish to me. Click here to review my love/hate with Nablopomo. I don't have a theme or even a plan yet. But I do have a little inkling of a system. I love systems, so it may still work.

Here is a cool promotional video for the event.



3.  I owe I owe so back to blog I go. 

I am so behind in my blogging for promotional items  I have received.  There is a math program that Spider Droid and I used last month that I need to write a review of.  There are almost a half dozen books I received that I owe reviews for.  Hey I think that's a good future Friday Fragment post!
I also owe the host of Home Spun Juggling a review of her fabulous book of cartoons. 

Bunny did  her own review of this fine Tome of Homeschool wit and wisdom.  So in lieu of my  review here is a link to hers.  Hopefully, I'll catch up soon.

4. It's not a test, it's Iowa

Did you ever take the Iowa Test of Basic Skills? I did a few times as a kid.  I really enjoyed it, because it was a day or 2 off from the routine of regular school.  I also brake for scantron.  Next week I will be proctoring an Iowa Test for a bunch of home school kids.  Spider Droid and Bunny will be among those taking the test.  I will spend the next few days of school just getting them  familiar with the world of testtaking in a classroom setting.

I'm not out of fragments but I am out of time.Click here   For more fun filled fragments of Fridaytude.