Lift Up Your Hearts!

Parents in Rochester, New York no longer have to stay home with sick children, nor be inconvenienced by having to take them to the doctor, thanks to a program that connects schools and day care centers with doctors via the Internet. Little Johnny wakes up feeling miserable? No need to fret; just pack him off to school or day care anyway. There, a staff member with a whole week's worth of training will examine his ears, swab his throat, and otherwise check him out using equipment that sends the results over the Internet to a physician. The diagnosis is made, medication begun, and you pick your child up at the end of the day as usual, no fuss, no bother. (More)

I'm am really tired of reading about procedures that were once known to be right now being shown to be useless or even harmful. Actually, I'm not tired of learning the truth, just frustrated with those (especially doctors, teachers, and governmental authorities) who are absolutely certain they know best and thus justiify runing roughshod over other people. I think of the Canadian judge who will force an unwanted medical procedure on a child, in violation of her own conscience and the desires of her family, because he and some doctors think it's the best thing for her; of those who would insist, with the force of law, that a hospital is the only acceptable place to be born, and a school the only acceptable place to be educated, despite mounting evidence to the contrary; of bloodletting, and hormone replacement therapy, and routine circumcision, all procedures once pushed by the medical profession and since retracted. Here's the latest: episiotomies, once considered essential to prevent serious problems during and after childbirth, have now been shown to be useless.

I know we must make decisions based on the knowledge we have at the time, and have no problem with honest errors. My quarrel is with those—I include myself—who in the certainty of their own convictions would use the force of law or their position to shut down contrary beliefs.

"First, do no harm."

Happy Cinco de Mayo to all!

Regular breast self exams, pap smears, mammograms, colonoscopies, prostate exams, full excision and pathological examination of moles that once were just shaved off at skin level, even routine full body scans—our understandable fear of cancer is reflected in the many procedures available and often recommended in hopes of besting this scourge.

However, there is a downside to all this screening that is now beginning to be recognized. (More)

So today is National Teacher Day. (I know because Google told me so.) Since this blog includes rants against the terrible damage done to children and families by an inhuman and inhumane government-sponsored school system, and such private schools as seek (or are required) to emulate it, it is meet and right to make space today to recognize teaching as an honorable profession, and good teachers as incomparable treasures. The monstrosity that is school destroys teachers as well as students. In particular, today I honor: (More)

If this story doesn't scare you, you need to read it again. (Here's another version.) A 14-year-old Canadian girl has gone into hiding to avoid being forced to have a blood transfusion that some doctors in British Columbia believe she needs because of her cancer chemotherapy. The girl does not want the transfusion, and her parents agree with her. Whether you believe private medical decisions belong in the hands of individuals of any age, or of parents in the case of under-age children, this is a gross violation of individual and family rights by the Canadian government. Of course it's all done with the best of motives and "for her own good," but somehow that makes it even more frightening. (More)

Hard, painstaking work is the toll an independent spirit charges itself for self-respect.

— John Taylor Gatto

"Socialization"—the homeschooler's "s-word," the final recourse of opponents and skeptical relatives who, unable to discredit homeschooling in any other way, declare that if children don't attend school they will not be properly "socialized."

Homeschooling families puzzle over this concern, having observed that their children are much more at ease with people of all ages than are most schoolchildren, arguing that peer-socialization is unnatural and generally negative, and pointing to the vast array of sports teams, musical ensembles, church groups, and other associations to which they belong. Why this concern, they wonder, with something as natural and easily attainable as socialization? (More)

Watching our grandson grow, seeing his parents making choices for his care that I wish we had made with our children, knowing much more now than I did 30 years ago, I sometimes wish I were having children now rather than before the turn of the century. (More)

Janet needed a chest x-ray as part of a pre-employment physical. Having been advised that insurance would not cover the procedure, she attempted to find out what it would cost. That was much easier said than done, and more than once in her quest she received the following encouragement:

You don't have to pay anything now, you'll get a bill later.

As if that had any effect on the cost! Have we become so inured to debt—home mortages, car financing, credit cards, college loans—that the only price tag we care about is what we must pay right now, the copay, the down payment, the minimum monthly charge?

And what are we to think of a health care system that buries the price of its procedures under so many layers of bureaucracy that no one knows the true cost?

Let the Baby Drive, by Lu Hanessian (St. Martin's Press, New York, 2004)

Recently we opened a bottle of wine of far higher class (and expense) than I could hope to appreciate. (I can occasionally enjoy half of a small glass of wine, but my discernment rarely goes beyond "I like this" or "I don't like this"; I can distinguish red from white with my eyes closed, but "redolent of old oak with faint hints of chocolate, raspberry, and mushroom" is beyond me.) After my first sip or two, I said, "This isn't my kind of wine." By the third sip I had changed my mind, and thoroughly enjoyed the rest of the bottle over the next few days.

That's how I feel about Let the Baby Drive. I saw it advertised in The Compleat Mother magazine, and borrowed it from our local library. For the first several chapters I was thinking, 'Yeah, this is mildly interesting, but I wouldn't recommend it to anyone. Why does this lady make such a big deal out of life with a newborn, something women have been handling for millennia? She is 'way too focussed on herself, her angst, the minutiae of her feelings." (More)

Better yet, who proofreads them?

I was curious to compare the ingredients and nutritional value of the two varieties of soy milk in my refrigerator: Organic Valley Soy Vanilla, and Silk Unsweetened Soymilk. Staring at the nutritional labelling, I couldn't get past the beginning. Two half-gallon containers. Both say "Serving size: 1 cup." The Organic Valley carton says the expected, "Servings per container: 8," whereas the Silk Unsweetened says, "Servings per container: 4."

When kids would come to me for tutoring in mathematics, I would often feed them cookies, claiming this would help their "math brains." I offer the above as evidence that sugar is, indeed, important for correct mathematical thinking.

I don't normally read the sports page, but Porter called my attention to last Friday's Orlando Sentinel, and an outrageous statement by David Stern, Commissioner of the National Basketball Association. The Orlando Magic, our own NBA franchise, is currently trying to shake down the city for still more financial incentives not to pack up and go where the bribes might be greater.

What Stern said was this: "If a city builds a symphony hall, there is a cultural benefit to the city, despite the fact that the hall is not likely to make money. The same can be said for having an NBA franchise." (More)

Squeezing in one final visit before our Disney World passes expired, we went to EPCOT last weekend to see their International Flower and Garden Festival. Once again it was lovely, thanks in no small measure to the weather. It really was a glorious day—sunny, dry, and unbelievably cool for mid-April in Central Florida. By evening, with a steady breeze, we were even a bit chilly in our short-sleeved shirts. To some of the visitors from northern climes it must have seemed hot, though, as I overheard one mother telling her small child that they needed to put sunscreen on their faces. If there was one thing they didn't need, it was sunscreen in that mild April sunshine, especially since much of one's time at EPCOT is spent either indoors or in the shade. It's a wonder more American children aren't suffering from rickets. (More)

With one friend recovering from a life-threatening illness, and another still in the midst of one, I shouldn't need anything special to remind me that it's good to be alive. But today was one of those days when the physical elements combined to emphasize the point. (More)