POLITICAL: Thinking about “fair”!

Monday, May 3, 2010

I was watching an old episode of Family Fued and one of the questions spurred a RANT. Really political.

“What do you think is a fair salary for a new teacher?”

Arghhhhhh!

Regardless of the answer, this had so many “teachable moments” it was astonishing.

(1) Opinions are like …, everyone has one. Who cares what people think is “fair”? The ONLY “fair” price is one that is freely offered and accepted. A marketplace establish what is “fair” better than any vote or opinion.

(2) The teacher is an employee of the gooferment. With a capturing captive union that exerts tremendous political pressure. Starting salary is political. Very political.

(3) The salary of day care “teachers” is by definition “fair”. And, much lower than that of “real teachers”. Why do we have gooferment “education”? I’d call it “youth propaganda prisons”. And we sneered at the Communists and their “political reeducation camps”; what’s different?

(4) The whole education system isn’t “fair”. I don’t decide ANYTHING in a child’s life, but I’m forced to pay for their education. That ain’t “fair”.

Argh!

Did I miss anything?

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FUN: 57 PIC from Mom’s stash

Monday, May 3, 2010

1957-DEC-XX Oregon Photo

My father, who everyone called “Ferdie”, my paternal grandmother Marie, me, and an unknown person.

Going through my Mom’s old pictures. Too bad people don’t write the names, date, and place. Start now to memorialize your history.

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GOVEROTRAGEOUS: Eliminate the Public Schools

Sunday, May 2, 2010

http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig10/galvin5.1.1.html

Strike a Victory for Federalism: Eliminate the Public Schools
by Paul Galvin

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But eliminating public schooling, an institution not extant at the country’s founding, would have national implications extending well beyond the boundaries of any one state. Chief beneficiaries would be an overall strengthening, and rehabilitation, of the American federal system and an increase in individual liberty.

*** end quote ***

The whole public school “sysstem” is:

(1) Immoral

• Forcibly separating children from their families. The model was to create cannon fodder and factory workers easily led by the elite.

• Indoctrinating future voters to support the government.

• Excessive costs drive senior citizens from their homes

• The “public education” model demotivates the student, “un-involves” the parents, and creates an “education” political force.

(2) Ineffective

•  Education results are in free fall; without factoring in all the tricks being used to pump up results.

• Unlike a free market, education isn’t delivered where it is needed at price that can be afforded. It’s political; not market based.

• One size fits all squeezes everyone into the same mold; the smart are held back and the “dumb” are lost.

(3) Inefficient

• The Horace Mann model hasn’t changed with the times; University of Phoenix delivers over the inet, why not everyone?

• Cost per student “educated” is double Catholic, private, or other parochial schools.

• Mandatory attendance, child labor, and licensing laws deprive us of non-academic education (i.e., craft apprenticeship)

(4) Harmful

• Creates “education factories with gun free zones” that are an undefended target rich environment.

• Puts children is a hostile environment where they are exposed to drugs and bullying.

• Some teachers are sexual predators.

• Children are not taught the skills they need to survive in the real world. School life is completely unlike real life.

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JOBSEARCH: An example of “Using Your Corporate Email”

Sunday, May 2, 2010

http://techcrunch.com/2010/04/24/how-not-to-handle-a-resignation-gracefully

How Not To Handle A Resignation Gracefully
by Jack McKenna on Apr 24, 2010

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I should note, that instead of responding, he instead removed my email account. Real pro of him. Good thing I forwarded it to myself first :P

*** end quote ***

Argh!

Now while the story is about who’s the bigger a hole, a fact which is debatable.

I would like to direct your attention to the email account. And, how fragile that threat is.

https://reinkefaceslife.com/2007/11/16/linkedin-may-i-suggest-that-you-not-use-your-employers-email-on-linkedin/

You should be EXTREMELY careful how you use any email address that you don’t own and control. You’re employer can nuke your email address on a whim as you are escorted out of their premises. Even your Internet Service Provider, whom you pay faithfully every month, can nuke you or change your email address on a whim. Sell out, buy out, merge, or exit the biz and you are the one who is screwed!

Your address book may go up in internet smoke in a heartbeat never to be seen again.

You try and find everyone who knows you by that email address. And, remember, you may not have given someone the address. They could have gotten it from a third party. Try and find those.

And, when you used that now lost email address to register for sites, you’re stuck with the obsolete sign on. And, don’t have a a password malfunction with the now defunct email address because you can’t get a password reset there. Good luck changing that old email address for a new one. (I’ve even seen a site restore my old one on me!)

Bottom line: If you don’t own your own domain, you are asking for trouble and the Universe will send you what you ask for when you can least afford it.

For a few bucks? Don’t say you weren’t warned.

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TECHNOLOGY: “Drive by” messages!

Saturday, May 1, 2010

Ever notice how many more what I call “drive by messages” are being sent?

That is a message that includes a disclaimer saying that it won’t be read.

I imagine them saying: “If you ask for clarification, we’re going to ignore you”!

Arghhhh!

Wasn’t “marketing” supposed to be a “conversation with customers”?

Well, that’s like “Customer Service” being expected to “service” “customers”?

I know I feel like I’ve been “serviced”! In the sense of bulls and cows.

Argh!

*** begin quote ***

This is an automated email, and replies will not be delivered. If you need to contact us, please log on to your account and click the “Contact Us” link to send an email.

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Please do not reply to this message. This is a service email related to your use of XXXXXXX. To learn more about XXXXXXXX’s use of personal information, including the use of web beacons in HTML-based email, please read our Privacy Policy.

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RANT: Government is not us

Saturday, May 1, 2010

http://www.lewrockwell.com/blog/lewrw/archives/56930.html

Not Us. Never, Ever Us.
Posted by Charles Featherstone on May 1, 2010 10:50 AM

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But second, it’s important to emphasize again and again and again that this notion that we, the people, are in any way the government is fraudulent. The government is not us. It cannot ever be us. If it were, there’d be no need for signs that say “Property of the United States Government” with warnings to trespassers because how can citizens — who are sovereign — trespass on the property over which they are sovereign? It’s the problem of socialist property writ large, and it’s why popular sovereignty is bunkum. All human societies become societies in which a relatively tiny elite rule a majority, and democracy (along with ideology) is just modernity’s method of legitimizing that elite rule. I have compared democratic rituals to religious rituals before, and I do believe that elections are the central sacrament of democracy. A pointless sacrament of an idolatrous religion.

The truth is governments are always a menacing entity. Often times they are evil. Sometimes they are even foreign. Government is not us. And it will not ever be us.

*** end quote ***

Important to underscore.

This is not a democracy.

It’s an oligarchy.

Leadership by a political elite, who do what they want.

(Think the healthcare polls!)

We have to follow Gandhi and just not cooperate!

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TINFOILHAT: OKC and the second man

Saturday, May 1, 2010

http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=143865

What Clinton didn’t say about OKC
Posted: April 22, 2010
Jack Cashill is an Emmy-award winning independent writer and producer with a Ph.D. in American Studies from Purdue.

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“The magistrate, Ronald L. Howland, ordered McVeigh to be held without bail after listening to four hours of testimony from FBI special agent John Hersley in which he described eyewitness accounts of a yellow Mercury with McVeigh and another man inside speeding away from a parking lot near the federal building.”

Rather than put a single witness on the stand who could place McVeigh in or near Oklahoma City on April 19, the prosecution chose to build an entire case on circumstantial evidence.

The Justice Department had lost all interest in the eyewitnesses as soon as the White House had established its talking points. They also lost interest in any Islamic connection.

“Could the al-Qaida explosives expert [Ramzi Yousef] have been introduced to the angry American [Terry Nichols] who proclaimed his hatred for America,” writes Richard Clarke of Nichols’ visit to the Philippines in “Against All Enemies.” “We do not know, despite some FBI investigation.”

“Some FBI investigation”? Why was there not a massive FBI investigation? The reason is fairly obvious: McVeigh and Nichols served as poster boys for the natural progression of the “Republican revolution.”

*** end quote ***

Seems like some unanswered questions about “OKC BOMBING”.

As usual, we never get the truth. And, yes, I think we can handle the truth.

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POLITICAL: No more Vietnams

Friday, April 30, 2010

http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=146437

35 years after fall of Saigon
Posted: April 28, 2010
By Richard Botkin

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America’s investment in Vietnam was significant. Aside from the tens of billions of dollars spent to fight the war, 58,000 men paid the ultimate price. Several times that number were wounded, and every man who endured combat has been marked forever by that experience.

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Even those, who didn’t endure that combat, has been marked forever.

Good “boys”, really men, followed their consciences to Canada or underground. Some of them died as well. Driven from society, their friends, their family, their supporting social circles, their dreams into who knows what type of personal and civil hell. My best friend died in that hell. I didn’t know about it because he was on the wrong side of the law and I had a security clearance. His girl, who in normal times, might have become his wife, drifted on without him. He was a “casualty of war” as much as any man lost in combat.

There were a lot more casualties.

“No More Vietnams” to me means no more welfare / warfare state illusions. George Washington was perceptive about “entangling alliances” and MYOB!

Donna Nobis Pacem!

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INSPIRATIONAL: My father’s sister has passed

Friday, April 30, 2010

http://www.seefeldfuneral.com/index.cfm

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Berniece M. Reinke

(June 14, 1919 – April 21, 2010)

Berniece M. Reinke, age 90, went home to be with her Lord and Savior on Wednesday, April 21, 2010 at Elijah’s Place in Oshkosh. Berniece was born on June 14, 1919, the daughter of the late Jerome and Amanda (Plude) Burbey. She attended school in Dunbar and graduated high school there in 1937. Berniece was married to Robert E. Faehling from May 1937 to 1946. She married Carl E. Reinke in 1947 and he preceded her in death on March 30, 2006.

Berniece was a welder in the Sturgeon Bay shipyard during World War II and later worked for Hudson Company in Oshkosh. She was also employed by Sears in Oshkosh and other locations where her husband Carl was stationed with the Air Force. Berniece was also a volunteer Gray Lady for many years.

Berniece will always be cherished and missed by her daughter, Diane (George) Clark of Oostburg; son, Robert (Evelyn) Faehling of West Bend; seven grandchildren, Michael (Jody) Clark of Monument, Colorado, Todd (Debra) Clark of Stevens Point, Kristen (Kevin) Pisula of Orlando, Florida, Tami (James) Slayton of West Bend, Michelle (Brian) Schraufnagel of West Bend, Chip (Rhonda) Faehling of Kewaskum, Robin Faehling of West Bend; and fourteen great-grandchildren. She is further survived by several nieces, nephews and friends. Berniece was preceded in death by her husband, Carl; parents; four sisters and four brothers-in-law; six brothers and six sisters-in-law; two nieces and two nephews.

Memorial service for Berniece will take place at 2:00 p.m. on Sunday, May 2, 2010 at Seefeld Family of Funeral Chapels, 1025 Oregon Street, Oshkosh. A time of visiting and sharing of support will take place at the funeral chapel on Sunday at 1:00 p.m. until the time of service. Please visit http://www.seefeldfuneral.com to send online condolences to the family.

The family would like to a send a special thanks to the staff of Elijah’s Place, Chaplain Vicki Marxen, and Hospice Care for the kindness and wonderful care they showed our loved one.

*** end quote ***

It’s serendipity that I found this sad news. My Mom just died in April. She always spoke lovingly about “Bernie” and how she helped her, a “Nu Yawker”, with a newborn out on the “frontier”. Strange how fate joins, separates, and rejoins us.

Even though, I didn’t know my father’s family well, I have fond memories of Grandma Reinke and my visit with her in the nursing home when I was enroute to Fairchild AFB.

I feel a little poorer now. “No man is an island, entire of itself … any manʼs death diminishes me”. I am sorry for your loss.

I’ll try to post some pictures later. Or on my blog “Reinke Faces Life”.
photograph

(I’m top row on the right.)

It’s like the “hidden from me” pane of my JoHari window just became a little smaller. I’ve opened a special email address if any of the Oregonians want to communicate with me.

Tonight, I will say a prayer for Aunt Bernie and for all that might have been. Shoulda, coulda, and woulda! They’ll kill you. You have to declare an amnesty after a year, or you’ll drive yourself nuts. Still hard to imagine what would have been possible. Were war time marriages doomed to failure? Does this all have to be chalked up to the casualties of a long ago war?

“In three words I can sum up everything I’ve learned about life. It goes on.” — Robert Frost

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I guess I wasn’t clear enough. Bernice was married to Carl that’s my father’s brother. That makes her my aunt-in-law.

When my Mom and Dad separated, (never divorced; Catholics), it was nasty. And, I had very little contact with my West Coast Oregon Reinke family. Whenever my East Coast Bellew family did something I didn’t like, I’d always declare I was a “Reinke”. My Mom always laughed, but I think she knew it was true. I didn’t share a lot of the East Coast’s values. Still don’t. And, I attribute my “I don’t give an <synonym for excrement>” attitude to my Reinke roots. I remember my Dad wistfully describing how when fishing season came, everyone dropped everything and went fishing. While I don’t fish, (Thanks, to Ferdie, my childhood pet goldfish who died on me!), I do like that meme. Drop everything and go relax!

ROFL!

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POLITICAL: Beck is morphing into a libertarian

Friday, April 30, 2010

http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=144405

Beck breaks from the pack
Posted: April 23, 2010

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But more importantly: good guy Glenn is finally espousing a foreign policy compatible with limited authority and republican virtues.

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Glenn Beck has been slowly moving toward being a libertarian in thought, word, and deed.

The shift to a “humble foreign policy” is essential to getting our troops home and our “collective nose” out of everyone else’s business.

The question is it real or is it like “Rosie O’Donnell”? Where after the fame is no longer needed, the star rips off the mask and we see the truth.

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