Comments for Rumblings of an Ol' Curmudgeon

Comment on Let Not Your Heart Be Troubled - - by turtlemom3

turtlemom3 — Sat, 17 May 2008 12:37:26 +0000

Herself Sez: Kip - He isn’t a raving lunatic, he’s just passionate about some subjects. The leftward slide of this country is one of them. Where does he come across as a raving lunatic? When he says “If we don’t put the brakes on the leftward slide, your heart indeed should be troubled, for we will not last much longer as a proud and free people?” Not hardly.
I do wish people who comment would give some more information as to exactly what they are referring to.

Comment on Why do I despise Universities - by turtlemom3

turtlemom3 — Sat, 17 May 2008 11:25:53 +0000

Herself Sez: Yeah, that PhD experience cured me of wanting to teach in a university. I’d love to teach if it weren’t for all the BS that goes on. First, they want me to give up my religious beliefs. Second they want me to give up my political affiliation. Third they want me to do significant research and to go through the process of “publish or perish” - depending on the institution, this can mean as many as 3 or 4 peer-reviewed articles PUBLISHED each year (that could be a full-time position in and of itself). Fourth they want me to “give back” to the community in the form of community service. Fifth they want me to teach full time. Now, where, in all that, they expect me to find the time to teach, I don’t know, The research and community service assignments alone could take up a full-time position.
Then there are the volumes of self-touting documentation faculty have to put together every year to “prove” they are “qualified” to be retained for the following academic year.
Look, just evaluate my teaching plans, whether my students pass the NCLEX and other qualifying and certifying exams, whether my students are able to discuss and deal with issues cogently. I have enough to do what with planning classes, grading papers, planning clinicals, evalauating seminars, attending and evaluating clinicals. Teaching in the nursing area on the BSN level will involve up to 80 hours a week. Teaching on the MS or PhD levels can involve over 60 hours a week. That’s just the teaching component. Doesn’t take the research and community service components into consideration! I have always been of the opinion that an academic position should be split into proportionate areas. Those who are more interested in research could spend 2 semesters in research and one semester in teaching. Those more interested in teaching could spend 2 semesters in teaching and one semester in community service. Or some other combination. But for heaven’s sake, if someone is a “natural” teacher and can make things understandable for even the most confused student, don’t tie their hands with all the academic BS about research!! If someone is a “natural” researcher, don’t tie their hands with all the academic BS about community service! If you have an academic position in a university, you are supposed to TEACH, but you don’t necessarily have to teach full time. A research position is perfectly tenable. A service position is tenable, too. But you should put in at least 1/3 of your time teaching. If you have a teaching position, you perhaps could choose how you would spend the other 1/3 of your time.
Cheers!
Turtlemom3

Comment on We Went Into Iraq for the Oil – by Mrs. Mutton

Mrs. Mutton — Thu, 15 May 2008 12:59:40 +0000

I’m actually with both of you. The environment is also very important to me, but I *loathe* the way the Left has taken it over, and disagree with almost everything they say on the subject. And DON’T get me started on the subject of the war being “about oil”!!!!!

I remember when the war in Afghanistan started, and one of the local protesters was holding up a poster of a cute little Afghan girl with the sign, “Is she your enemy?” How I wished I had a photo of that little 3-year-old who was killed on Flight 11 with the sign, “Was she their enemy?” Of course she was, just as all of us are — but what kind of a nut case makes an enemy out of a 3-year-old?!?! (See Achmed the Dead Terrorist on You-Tube…!!)

Comment on We Went Into Iraq for the Oil – by Mike Harmon

Mike Harmon — Thu, 15 May 2008 12:14:18 +0000

I came across your blog on Technorati. Nice site layout. I will stop by and read more soon.

Mike Harmon

Comment on We Went Into Iraq for the Oil – by turtlemom3

turtlemom3 — Thu, 15 May 2008 11:31:52 +0000

Herself Sez: The Ol’ Curmudgeon is from Missouri - can you tell? Show Him! Don’t just say something, show him!

He and I are at odds on a couple of energy issues. So I’ll just jump in here with my proof-less allegations and let him rumble about it later. I’m a “flower child” of the 60’s and 70’s. I delivered babies in some really weird situations. The XH and I had some real down and dirty ideas based on “The Whole Earth Catalog” and “5 Acres and Independence.” Draw your own conclusions from that! I’m convinced that IF-IF-IF-IF-IF the PTB had worked at it, we would have reasonably-priced photovoltaic roofing tiles and energy storage system right now. Given that, we certainly are in a position to move into a rapid-development on that front.That would reduce the wind-coal-nuclear needs.

As far as our gas needs go, I’m convinced that the electric-powered auto is not feasible for much of our needs. But high-efficiency engines for long commutes, and the electric moped type smart-car for running errands around town is probably a good combination. We will always need the van for deliveries and the mini-van both for soccer moms and for us disabled people to use. That’s a given. But increase the engine efficiency. Please.

Drilling in the US is critical. Drilling offshore is critical. But - BUT - SHOW ME exactly HOW the environment will be protected. For too many years we haven’t been particularly careful. The pendulum is swinging a bit too far to the left, but we do have to be careful of the environment, and SHOW the public how the environment will be protected.

Now let’s see how the Ol’ Curmudgeon grumps about this comment!

Comment on Compassion – by turtlemom3

turtlemom3 — Mon, 12 May 2008 00:00:30 +0000

Herself Sez: Do you remember (as I do) the days when the poor were only fed by places like the Salvation Army, and the poor had to sit and listen to a sermon and then were expected to take part in the cleaning up?? I remember that quite clearly. And I don’t know why or when it changed. But change it did.
Pendulums swing back and forth. They have to swing too far to one side before they return to the center. We seem to be remembering the center. Lord have mercy and God grant us patience - we are experiencing the pendulum going entirely too far. Has it already gone to the end of the swing? Or is it still swinging away from the middle?

Comment on Compassion – by Mrs. Mutton

Mrs. Mutton — Sat, 10 May 2008 12:12:01 +0000

My priest is from Romania, and one of the things that fries him about this country is the sense of, as he puts it, “entitlement” that poor people have towards the resources of those who are better off (notice I do not say “rich”). Our parish participates in a local soup kitchen once every few months, and when it was our turn a couple of weeks ago, he showed up. “They *expected* to be served,” he said in amazement, “and then they were complaining about the food! And when they were finished eating, they just got up and left, like they were in a big rush to go somewhere!” Only one woman stayed to help with the dishes.

I’ve come to the conclusion that churches who provide this service with no strings attached are as bad as not providing any service at all. I mean, yes, Christians are supposed to help people who *can’t* (NOT won’t) help themselves, but who says we have to help the community at large?! There are enough churches out there to provide help for *their own* indigent members, so why aren’t we insisting that these folks join a church and show up on Sundays, if they want the free grub on Tuesdays?! At least that way they’d hear St. Paul’s Epistle about “if any man not work, neither shall he eat” — it might give them pause to think.

Comment on Children Need to be Children - by Mrs. Mutton

Mrs. Mutton — Sat, 03 May 2008 11:36:34 +0000

I could tell you some stories from my own child-rearing years of 15 or so years ago — the teachers who thought I was abusing my son because I wouldn’t let him hang out at the mall with his “friends” (who would have dared him to shoplift, knowing the crowd in his class!), the teachers who thought it was child abuse for the kids to have chores to do (life-skills stuff like washing dishes, for crying out loud), and the church people who thought we were abnormal because we spent time together as a family. (Thankfully, since it was this last that finally propelled us into Orthodoxy.)

But I contrast my own two, now grown, children with the two little horrors I saw, a couple of years ago, racketing around the supermarket, cutting off people’s shopping carts, and making unholy nuisances of themselves. As luck would have it, the little horrors and their mother ended up in line behind me at the checkout counter. I had to ask the checkout clerk *five times* what he had said because I couldn’t hear a word, and as luck would have it, when I explained that to him, there was a momentary lull in the racket. As I was leaving, the mother actually left her kids with her order and came up to me. “Do you have a problem with my children?” There were a lot of different ways to answer that one, so I kept it as neutral as I could and said, “I couldn’t hear the checkout clerk.” And she actually said, “They’re kids, okay? That’s how kids behave. Do you have kids?”

Well, yes, that IS how kids behave — when parents don’t do their job and teach them how to conduct themselves (a) in public and (b) in a place of business. People seem to forget that a supermarket is still a place of business. (Even the checkout clerks. I’ve complained to management about having to listen to the kids’ love lives while my order is being rung through — I want them to pay attention to what they’re doing.)

Can you tell you touched a nerve?

(BTW, thanks for the cookie recipes. I may actually give them a try — they sound too tempting to be consigned to my usual I-Don’t-DO-Cookies stance, which I adopted after one rainy Saturday afternoon when I baked five dozen chocolate-chip cookies, and my husband and kiddos scarfed the lot while watching a WWII flick.)

Comment on The myth of the bomb - by The Sagebrush Gazette

The Sagebrush Gazette — Tue, 15 Apr 2008 21:09:08 +0000

Libs just don’t “get it.”

Comment on Liberal Fraud by Mrs. Mutton

Mrs. Mutton — Sun, 13 Apr 2008 17:40:00 +0000

Here it is in New England, mid-April, and we *still* have snow on the ground — have had since November. It actually wasn’t the coldest winter we’ve ever had — I can’t recall any below-zero temperatures at all — but boy howdy, we sure made up for it in snow. It snowed seven out of the first ten days in February, and we had at least two snowfalls every single week of winter — and a couple in late autumn and early spring. The “global warming” jokes are flying thick and fast in this neck of the woods!