Thankful Thursday

Today I am thankful for/that:

It Is Well With My Soul

When peace like a river, attendeth my way,
When sorrows like sea billows roll;
Whatever my lot, Thou hast taught me to say,
It is well, it is well, with my soul.

Refrain:
It is well, with my soul,
It is well, with my soul,
It is well, it is well, with my soul.

Though Satan should buffet, though trials should come,
Let this blest assurance control,
That Christ has regarded my helpless estate,
And hath shed His own blood for my soul.

My sin, oh, the bliss of this glorious thought!
My sin, not in part but the whole,
Is nailed to the cross, and I bear it no more,
Praise the Lord, praise the Lord, O my soul!

For me, be it Christ, be it Christ hence to live:
If Jordan above me shall roll,
No pang shall be mine, for in death as in life,
Thou wilt whisper Thy peace to my soul.

But Lord, 'tis for Thee, for Thy coming we wait,
The sky, not the grave, is our goal;
Oh, trump of the angel! Oh, voice of the Lord!
Blessed hope, blessed rest of my soul.

And Lord, haste the day when my faith shall be sight,
The clouds be rolled back as a scroll;
The trump shall resound, and the Lord shall descend,
Even so, it is well with my soul.

Horatio Spafford

What are you thankful for?

Wisconsin Union Protest: Myth vs. Fact

For my part I think the debate should be about keeping as many teachers in their classrooms as possible given budgetary constraints. Strange I know but I've always been a bit of an odd duck.



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gcDnKQul_c8

This is the real world

Watching the budget protests by teachers in Wisconsin over the last week I have to say I am not at all impressed. It seems like a really simple thing to me, your state is broke and looking to save some money. Government officials looking at the education budget. I would if I were in their shoes. No one wants to lose teachers or classroom staff so you propose cutting teacher pay and ask teachers to contribute more for their benefits. Seems like a good deal to me. Teachers get to keep their jobs, unlike so many others in this country who have no jobs, they get to keep some good benefits, unlike so many others in this country who have little or no benefits, and kids get presumably qualified professionals teaching them in the classroom. I am at a loss to see how forcing a situation where teachers have to be fired is good for teachers or students.

Now on to the situation in New York state. I've been getting emails about a planned rally to take place in Albany in March to demand that the state not cut any education funding and particularly not any funding for special education. As the mother to two children with special needs one would normally be safe in assuming that I would be on board with this sort of protest. But I'm not, far from it in fact. I won't be going to Albany and I won't be writing any letters to elected officials demanding that they not cut education budgets either. If anything I'll be writing to ask my elected officials not to chicken out on this issue. I want them to do what needs to be done to keep qualified individuals in the classroom while staying within budgetary constraints.

People in New York state need to get real. New York state is broke. The Syracuse City School District alone is in the hole to the tune of $50 million. All over this state cities, towns, and school districts and hurting for cash and trying to find ways to meet their responsibilities to their citizens. I'm wondering where the people demanding that legislators save our schools by not slashing budgets expect said legislators to get the money to fill those gaping holes in the budget. Demands that we tax the "rich" are problematic. No, I'm sorry the word problematic just to mild. Demands that the government tax the "rich" are down right juvenile, short sighted, and the kind of simplistic thinking that got New York state in the financial mess it is in in the first place. We don't need no stinking financial discipline we can just tax the "rich" right? Wrong.

The "rich" serve as both a cash cow to be bled dry and a scapegoat. Setting up the "rich" as the boogie we must defeat in order for the middle class to prosper is a convenient smoke screen. The fact of the matter is that New York state already has one of the highest tax burdens in the country. Do we really want to play how high can you go? The definition of "rich" is so conveniently indistinct and transient that the "rich" are whoever government officials decide are "rich" and ripe for plundering despite any reference to economic realities.

Parents, and especially parents of special needs kids, need to live in the real world when it comes to the state education budget. The same way families across this state, and across the country, are going no frills to make sure that the essentials are taken care of our schools, towns, cities, and the state need to as well. Instead of demanding that politicians keep spending money that they haven't got (unless you want to fork over more of that shrinking paycheck that you may or may not be getting or those unemployment benefits) work on ways to meet the needs of students without breaking the bank.

Schools are required by law to provide free and appropriate education to all of their students. Parents need to be having frank discussions on how to do that within budgetary constraints not chasing pie in the sky dreams and alienating potential allies. I have this radical idea that instead of firing teachers and support staff in classrooms we should cut teacher pay and dial back some of their benefits so we can keep more of them doing the jobs that they love. I've met some wonderful educators and support staff who stand to loose their jobs otherwise.

While people are busting a vein at the suggestion that teacher pay and benefits should be cut I'm saying go ahead, trim paychecks and benefits all the way up the way up the hierarchy. It is for the children after all. If teachers' unions don't want to get on board with the plan for the sake of keeping more of their members bringing home a paycheck and for the sake of the students those teachers serve then go nuclear and go after collective bargaining rights. Again, it's all for the children.

Thankful Thursday

Today I am thankful for/that:

Because He Lives

God sent His son, they called Him Jesus
He came to love, heal, and forgive.
He lived and died to buy my pardon,
An empty grave is there to prove my Savior lives.


Because He lives, I can face tomorrow.
Because He lives, All fear is gone.
Because I know He holds the future,
And life is worth the living just because He lives.


How sweet to hold a newborn baby,
And feel the pride and joy he gives.
But greater still the calm assurance,
This child can face uncertain days because He lives.


Because He lives, I can face tomorrow.
Because He lives, All fear is gone.
Because I know He holds the future,
And life is worth the living just because He lives.


And then one day I'll cross the river,
I'll fight life's final war with pain.
And then as death gives way to victory,
I'll see the lights of glory and I'll know He lives.


Because He lives, I can face tomorrow.
Because He lives, All fear is gone!
Because I know He holds the future
And life is worth the living just because He lives!

Words: Bill & Gloria Gaither

That's all. What are you thankful for?

Thankful Thursday

Today I am thankful for/that:

1. Sleep! Here's hoping I get a little more in the weeks to come.
2. The blessing of helping hands.
3. Wisdom. It's one of the few things in this world where there is no such thing as too much.
4. Spring is coming! Have you seen how bright 5 o'clock in the evening is these days!

What are you thankful for?

Buyers of the human cargo

Last summer a friend gave me a copy of The Caribbean Islands in Full Color by Hans W. Hannau, published in 1972. I started reading it as I was embarking on a study of the history and culture of the region at the time. While billed as a pictorial volume I found it contained a surprising amount of historical and cultural information. The following excerpt from page 12 caught my attention when I first read it and has stayed with me since. I've added links to the text for those as curious as I was.

“Sugar was in some ways the curse of the Caribbean. The industry brought economic, political and social upheaval to the islands, much of it violent and destructive.

            The Spaniards brought the first African slaves to the Caribbean in 1510 to work their mines and sugar plantations on Hispaniola. They came from West Africa. Factories were set up along the Guinea coast where African chiefs and kings brought slaves for trade. Each chief or king received a fee for each slave sold, plus a commission. First the Portuguese, then the English, Dutch and French came to fill the growing demand for the Caribbean plantations. When the trade began, a good horse would buy fifteen slaves. Later, the Africans demanded payment in their own coin, cowrie shells and certain European goods.

            The Middle Passage taken by the slave ships across the Atlantic was pure hell. The slaves were crowded together in the hold, swept by small-pox and dysentery. It is conservatively estimated that six per cent of all slaves shipped during the centuries that slave trade flourished died on the Atlantic voyage.

            Buyers of this human cargo in the West Indies had preferences as to tribes. The Gold Coast Negros [sic], the Koromantyn, were tough, hard-working, brave and stubborn. From them were to come leaders of slave rebellions. From the tribes to the north and east of Sierra Leone came Mohammedan Negroes who could read and write in Arabic. They were not fitted for hard labor in the fields. Papaws from Whydah were popular as slaves because they worked hard, were skilled farmers, and were afraid of death and, consequently, submitted to discipline. The yellowish-colored Eboes from the Bight of Benin were timid and despondent, given to suicide, though they were cannibals at home. Negroes from Angola and the Congo were considered excellent mechanics, better fitted for domestic service than for work in the fields.”

I found this while I was researching the tribes and areas mentioned in the above passage, Slavery in the West Indies in the 18th Century. The transcribed text at this link could have been a source text for the above passage from Hannau's book. It was the only online reference to Papaws I could find that wasn't about the fruit. The active involvement of various African people groups in the institution of slavery illustrates the folly of seeking to derive pride and self worth from one's ancestors. It is striking to consider a man standing in a market square picking over men, women, and children as if they were chickens. Accepting one breed while rejecting another according to his needs. And another who stands over what appears to be a group of his own people to overseeing selling them to the highest bidder. What madness. Worse, consider that such madness persists still to this day. It has just moved around the globe a bit and ensnares women and children in domestic and sexual slavery.

Tidbits

These are just a few things that caught my eye over the last week.

If you're inclined to commit murder and don't want to get caught Oklahoma is apparently the place to be.
Parents Fight To Find Truth Behind Daughter's Death. Who needs an autopsy when you've got someone who should be a prime suspect telling you that it was suicide?

Seriously, when was the last time you heard someone who believed in AGW say that something was NOT a sign/symptom/proof of AGW?
Charles Krauthammer: 'If Godzilla Appeared on National Mall Gore Would Say It’s Global Warming'

GMO done right.
Cassava packs a protein punch with bean genes
A DEADLY poison could save the lives of millions of African children, thanks to the discovery that cassava can be duped into turning about half of the cyanide it makes into extra protein.

Mystery of the mummy's Chinese travel ban
The government-approved story of China's first contact with the West dates back to 200BC when China's emperor Wu Di wanted to establish an alliance with the West against the marauding Huns, then based in Mongolia. However, the discovery of the mummies suggests that Caucasians were settled in a part of China thousands of years before Wu Di: the notion that they arrived in Xinjiang before the first East Asians is truly explosive.

And before anyone goes off on China for meddling with history for political reasons, ever hear of Kennewick Man? Me neither so here you go.

In many cases Indians have persuaded state agencies to uphold tribal taboos, such as preventing menstruating women from handling certain objects. "A lot of this nonsense comes from the politicization of NAGPRA," says one physical anthropologist who wishes to remain anonymous. "Many Indian tribes are just creating traditions as a way of pursuing social, legal, and cultural power."

The issue came to a head with Kennewick Man. In this much-publicized case, the chance discovery of a skull along the Columbia River in Kennewick, Washington, in 1996, led to the finding of 9,000-year-old skeletal remains. Although scientists believed the bones originated from a Caucasian man, a coalition of Indian groups claimed the remains, asserting that the skeleton lay in territory that has traditionally belonged to their people. Or, as one tribal leader stated, "From our oral histories, we know that our people have been part of this land since the dawn of time." The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers -- which has jurisdiction over the Columbia River -- accepted this argument and announced it would repatriate the skeleton.

Members of the scientific community cried foul and filed a lawsuit; the government and Native American tribes appealed. As the case awaited resolution, archaeologists found they had to battle Indians and their government supporters for every scrap of information they could glean from the skeleton. "The government did a CAT scan of the bones and we asked for the results," says Schneider, who served as a lawyer representing the scientists in the case. "Native Americans objected, and we had to file a motion to see the data." In the words of one physical anthropologist, "It's clear to me that Native Americans are eager to block study of the skeleton. Otherwise it might prove they were not the first to inhabit this continent."

Thankful Thursday

Today I am thankful for/that:

1. The big storm seems to have completely missed us.
2. Central heating.
3. Warm blankets.
4. Freedom.

What are you thankful for?