WobLog

From the Onion:

WASHINGTON--According to a report released Monday by the U.S. Department of Education, an increasing number of American parents are choosing to have their children raised at school rather than at home.

Deputy Education Secretary Anthony W. Miller said that many parents who school-home find U.S. households to be frightening, overwhelming environments for their children, and feel that they are just not conducive to producing well-rounded members of society.

[...]

"It's really a matter of who has more experience in dealing with my child," Cincinnati- resident Kevin Dufrense said of his decision to have his 10-year-old son Jake, who suffers from ADHD and dyslexia, school-homed. "These teachers are dealing with upwards of 40 students in their classrooms at a time, so obviously they know a lot more about children than someone like me, who only has one son and doesn't know where he is half the time anyway."

"Simply put, it's not the job of parents to raise these kids," Dufrense added.

Though school-homing has proven to be an ideal solution for millions of uninvolved parents, increasingly overburdened public schools have recently led to a steady upswing in the number of students being prison-homed.

H/T St. Louis Catholic

Posted by Don Roberts at 6:47 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Today is Lazarus Saturday in the Orthodox Church and the Byzantine Catholic Rite. In preparation for Holy Week, this is well worth a listen. Byzantine Chant is awesome.

Posted by Don Roberts at 8:47 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Helen, now 2 1/2, has struggled with the names of her siblings ever since she started talking. Originally "Sarah" and "Alex" sounded exactly the same, but eventually "Sarah" became "Eye-yah" and Alex became "Ah-gah." After even more time passed, Helen finally got to the point where she could say, "Sarah."

Today she said, "Alex." Don was trying to get her to do it again for me without himself using the name.

Don: Helen, who is that over there?
Helen: Seven (which is Alex's age)
Don: No, say your brother's name.
Helen: Brother's name.

Yes, it really was like George and Gracie. She eventually said it for me, and while I was excited, I was also a little sad. Her days of saying "Ah-gah" are numbered, just one more proof that the toddler days are swiftly passing.

Posted by Lisa Roberts at 9:17 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Health Care legislation is getting down to the wire. The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops has a page that makes it easy to send e-mail letters to your Senators and Representative urging them to oppose any bill that takes the Senate's approach to abortion, conscience protections, and immigrant coverage. You can add to or edit their pre-fab letters here.

Posted by Don Roberts at 7:26 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

This was not the kind of morning I had leaving for work today:

*NB: The title of the video, according to Google Translate, is "I am very glad, because I'm finally back home"

Posted by Don Roberts at 10:12 AM | Permalink | Comments (4)

Over at National Review Online, Mark Steyn excerpts a John Stossel piece on California micro-regulation run amok:

Micro-regulation is tyranny with extra paperwork. With its uncanny ability to prioritize, California, land of Golden Statism for unionized bureaucrats, is cracking down on complimentary coffee. From John Stossel:

For 15 years, the B & B Do it Center, a local hardware store in the small California town of Camarillo, has been putting out coffee and doughnuts for its morning customers. Actually longer, says owner Randy Collins; the previous owner did it too. Customers liked the courtesy, but . . . well, you know where this is going.

Indeed.

Inspectors told Collins that unless he was willing to install stainless-steel sinks with hot and cold water and have a prep kitchen to handle the food, he was violating the law. . . . "What some establishments do is hire a mobile food preparation services or in some cases a coffee service," said Huff. "Those establishments have permits."

In California, what doesn't? Stossel adds:

It's amazing that they still allow people to have children without permits.

You can read the original Ventura County Star story here.

Posted by Don Roberts at 6:27 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)