Quotation Saturday: Randominities

Posted on by March 6, 2010
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quotationsaturdayMamacita says: There’s no actual theme for this week’s Quotation Saturday; it’s full of random wordbytes of wisdom.  Oh, and if you don’t see any wisdom, you’re not looking closely enough.

Oh, and you know what “they” say. . .that’s the omnipotent antecedentless “they” of the ages. . .if you are offended by a quotation, you probably need to evaluate your own belief system, paying special attention to values, norms, and what you REALLY do all day.

1.  Nations have recently been led to borrow billions for war; no nation has ever borrowed largely for education.  Probably, no nation is rich enough to pay for both war and civilization.  We must make our choice; we cannot have both.  — Abraham Flexner

2.  The problems we face cannot be solved at the same level of thinking we were at when we created them.  –Albert Einstein

3.  The door of a bigoted mind opens outwards so that the only result of the pressure of facts upon it is to close it more snugly.  –Ogden Nash

4.  A belief which leaves no place for doubt is not a blief; it is a superstition  –Jose Bergamin

5.  If you hold a cat by the tail, you learn things that cannot be learned in any other way.  –Mark Twain

6.  Words, like eyeglasses, obscure everything they do not make clear.  –Joseph Joubert

7.  Be yourself.  Everyone else is already taken.  — James Joyce

8.  The propagandist’s purpose is to make one set of people forget that certain other sets of people are human.  — Aldous Huxley

9.  What a distressing contrast there is between the radiant intelligence of the child and the feeble mentality of the average adult.  — Sigmund Freud

10.  Do not condemn the judgment of another because it differs from your own.  You may both be wrong.  — Dandamis

11.  I have lived in this world just long enough to look carefully the second time into things that I am most certain of the first time.  –Josh Billings

12.  Your greatness is measured by your kindness; your education and intellect by your modesty; your ignorance is betrayed by your suspicions and prejudices, and your real caliber is measured by the consideration and tolerance you have for others.  — William J. H. Boetcker

13.  Never, never be afraid to do what’s right, especially if the well-being of a person or animal is at stake.  Society’s punishments are small compared to the wounds we inflict on our soul when we look the other way.   — Martin Luther King Jr.

14.  Do you wish to rise?  Begin by descending.  YOu plan a tower that will pierce the clouds?  Lay first the foundation of humility.  — St. Augustine

15.  People are always blaming their circumstances for what they are.  I don’t believe in circumstances.  The people who get on in this world are the people who get up and look for the circumstances they want, and if they can’t find them, they make them.  — George Bernard Shaw

16.  My father didn’t tell me how to live; he lived, and let me watch him do it.  — Clarance B. Kelland

17.  If a man would register all his opinions upon love, politics, religion, learning, etc., beginning from his youth and so go on to old age, what a bundle of inconsistencies and contradictions would appear at last!  — Jonathan Swift

18.  Evil is like a shadow – it has no real substance of its own, it is simply a lack of light.  You cannot cause a shadow to disappear by trying to fight it, stamp on it, by railing against it, or any other form of emotional or physical resistance.  IN order to cause a shadow to disappear, you must shine light on it.  — Shakti Gawain

19.  Every normal man must be tempted at times to spit on his hands, hoist the black flag, and begin slitting throats.  — H.L. Mencken

20.  Analyzing humor is like dissecting a frog – few people are interested, and the frog dies.  — E.B. White

21.  Everybody is a potential murderer.  I’ve never killed anyone, but I frequently get satisfaction reading the obituary notices.  — Clarance Darrow

22.  Any child can tell you that the sole purpose of a middle name is so he can tell when he’s in trouble.  — Dennis Fakes

23.  Puritan:  Someone who is afraid that, somewhere, someone else is having a good time.  — H.L. Mencken

24.  Too often we enjoy the comfort of opinion without the discomfort of thought. — John F. Kennedy

25.  The most pathetic man in the world is someone who has sight, but has no vision.  — Helen Keller

26.  Beware of false knowledge; it is more dangerous than ignorance.  — George Bernard Shaw

27.  A little government and a little luck are necessary in life, but only a fool trusts either of them.  — P.J. O’Rourke

28.  A lot of disappointed people have been left standing on the street corner waiting for the bus marked Perfection.  — Donald Kennedy

29.  To one who has faith, no explanation is necessary.  To one without faith, no explanation is possible.  — St. Thomas Aquinas

30.The whole purpose of education is to turn mirrors into windows. — Sydney J. Harris

31. You can get all A’s and still flunk life. — Walker Percy

32. Repetition does not transform a lie into a truth. — FDR

33. I’m glad I am a woman who once danced naked in the Mediterranean Sea at midnight. — Mercedes McCambridge

34. Vegetables are a must on a diet. I suggest carrot cake, zucchini bread, and pumpkin pie. — Jim Davis

35. Sex is good, but not as good as fresh, sweet corn. — Garrison Keillor

36. It’s bizarre that the produce manager is more important to my children’s health than the pediatrician. — Meryl Streep

37. We are living in a world today where lemonade is made from artificial flavors and furniture polish is made from real lemons. — Alfred E. Newman

38. In the presence of eternity, the mountains are as transient as the clouds. — Robert Green Ingersoll,

39. If people are good only because they fear punishment, and hope for reward, then we are a sorry lot indeed. — Albert Einstein

40. It is impossible to defeat an ignorant man in argument. — William G. McAdoo

41. The world in which you were born is just one model of reality. Other cultures are not failed attempts at being you; they are unique manifestations of the human spirit. –Wade Davis

42. Finding the right answer is only the beginning. There are other right answers if one can change one’s perspective. –Judy Wellington

43. Here’s to the crazy ones. The misfits. The rebels. The troublemakers. The round pegs in the square hole. The ones who see things differently. They’re not fond of rules. And they have no respect for the status quo. You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify or vilify them. About the only thing you can’t do is ignore them. Because they change things. They push the human race forward. And while some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius. Because the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world, are the ones who do. — Apple Computer Inc

44. We all live in suspense, from day to day, from hour to hour; in other words, we are the hero of our own story. — Mary McCarthy

45. It’s the friends you can call up at 4 am that matter. — Marlene Dietrich

46. Learn from the mistakes of others. You can’t live long enough to make them all yourself. — Eleanor Roosevelt

47. I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones. — Albert Einstein

48. How far you go in life depends on your being tender with the young, compassionate with the aged, sympathetic with the striving and tolerant with the weak and wrong…because sometime in your life you will have been all of these. — George Washington Carver

49. The only thing I regret about my past is the length of it. If I had to live my life again, I’d make the same mistakes, only sooner. — Tallulah Bankhead

50. The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated. — Gandhi

51. No one in the world needs a mink coat but a mink. — Murray Banks

52. Make the most of yourself, for that is all there is of you. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

53. You can stand tall without standing on someone. You can be a victor without having victims. — Harriet Woods

54. If you look at what you do not have in life; you don’t have anything. If you look at what you have in life; you have everything. — Unknown

55. Whether you think you can, or think you can’t, you’re right. — Henry Ford

56. Always be a first-rate version of yourself, instead of a second-rate version of somebody else. — Judy Garland

57. Never think you are too small to make a difference…ever been to bed with a mosquito — ” Ita Buttrose

58. A gourmet who thinks of calories is like a tart who looks at her watch. –James Beard

59. As for butter versus margarine, I trust cows more than chemists. — Joan Gussow

60. The opposite of love is not hate, it’s indifference. — Elie Wiesel

P.S.  Yes, I realize I’ve used many of these before, but the fact that you noticed makes me really, really happy.  Thank you!

"This child was born of parents who can read and write. To me, this is a great miracle."

Posted on by March 5, 2010
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Mamacita says:  This topic has been on my mind lately (as usual), so I’m re-running this post from March of 2008.

Oh please, society, let us learn from the past, just a little bit?

“Francie thought it was the most beautiful church in Brooklyn. It was made of old gray stone and had twin spires that rose cleanly into the sky, high above the tallest tenements. Inside, the high vaulted ceilings, narrow deepset stained-glass windows and elaborately carved altars made it a miniature cathedral.”

Betty Smith, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1943) p 390.

This is Most Holy Trinity Church in Brooklyn. Betty Smith used it in her novel and had her heroine, Francie Nolan, in A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, love to look at it, and love knowing that her grandfather had carved the altar as part of his tithe. He had no money, so he donated his considerable talent. Francie’s grandfather was a horrible abusive man, but he honored his commitment to God.

Francie’s grandmother and all but two of her daughters were illiterate, but revered literacy. The grandmother did not at first understand that education was free to all in America, so her two older daughters didn’t go to school. Her two younger daughters, however, were sent to school and kept there as long as possible, until family circumstances required them to go to work. Such was life, back then. Formal education was honored above most other things, but it was also one of the first things to go when times got harder.

Two of my favorite books are A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, by Betty Smith, and Everything But Money, by Sam Levinson. They are a great deal alike in that they are both about immigrant parents, the value of education, and the sacrifices that good parents make so their children can have better lives.

Our immigrant ancestors came to this country pretty much knowing that there was no chance of them, personally, fulfilling very many of their own dreams and aspirations: all of their hopes and dreams and aspirations were for their children.

Our immigrant ancestors didn’t really move to this country for themselves; they were adults, and the time was long past for them to develop and use their talents in any official or professional capacity, especially in a new land that had customs and language that were both unfamiliar in every possible way . There were exceptions, of course, but the truth is, most of our immigrant ancestors put their own hopes and dreams and ambitions on the back burner so they could concentrate on the hopes and dreams and ambitions they held for their children.

Tenement houses were filled with mothers, grandmothers, maiden aunts, and shirttail relatives, singing in the kitchen that their children might some day sing in Carnegie Hall. Factories and stores were filled with fathers, grandfathers, uncles, and more shirttail relatives, singing at the assembly lines and behind the counters and down in the mines that their children might some day sing in synogogues and cathedrals. People with artistic talent displayed their art with beautiful pies, cakes that were a picture, carved altars in the church, rich embroidery on simple pillow slips, and tailoring that was a work of art. Ancestors who, today, might have organized businesses and found success on the stock market used their skills to make something out of nothing, that their children might have something to make something more out of when it was their turn.

Their children were being educated, and that was enough. Our ancestors looked ahead to the future; they had no time or energy or money to do much for themselves. It was all for the children, and for the future.

Parents too weary from sweatshops and never-ending domestic drudgery didn’t have much time to “play” any more. These parents loved their children far too much to stop and indulge themselves; every nap meant pennies not earned. Parents were there for discipline and meals and clothing and love that was demonstrated by the laying aside of their own desires to focus entirely on the future of their children. NOW was never as important as TOMORROW. This forced their children to be inventive, creative, organized, resourceful, problem-solving, appreciative of things that today’s kids throw away, and hungry enough every night to eat whatever Mother put on the table. A child who asked for something else would have been laughed at.

Adults gave each other blessings that relied on the behavior of the children. “May your children bring you happiness,” “May your children make you proud,” “May your find joy in your children,” etc. Children who misbehaved in school or in public or right there in the house brought shame to their parents and disgrace to the family name. His siblings recoiled from a misbehaving kid, and his mother cried. Families used “shame” to help shape a character that knew what it meant and therefore stayed as far away from it as possible.

Adults have changed. A large percentage of adults put their own desires and urges and feelings and wants before the needs and wants of their children. Kids today don’t care if they bring shame and disgrace to their parents. It’s never their fault anyway; it’s that heartless teacher who doesn’t understand Buddy or Muffy and doesn’t appreciate the cute way he stomps his foot when he’s mad or the adorable way she twists and chews her hair when she’s deciding who to invite to her latest party. Adults get home from work far earlier (usually) than their great-grandparents did, yet adults today are too tired to go to PTA meetings or choir concerts or spelling bees, things their ancestors viewed with such honor (they were not available to peasants in the old country) that they wept and trembled with emotion as they bathed and put on their best clothing in order to show respect to the school and the teacher, and to watch their children represent the family in a scholarly event. (Surprisingly, many adults are not too tired to go to an athletic event.)

Many immigrants came here in the first place so their children could take advantage of the free public education. Illiterate parents pointed with pride to the row of schoolbooks on the kitchen shelf, and boasted that their children could READ THEM! They weren’t worried about new ideas; they encouraged the learning of new things. They did not worry that the new ideas would usurp the old ideas; they just honored all learning and assumed their kids were wise enough to blend the old and the new together and come out with a new “new.”  Sam Levinson writes most eloquently and beautifully about his father’s pride in his many sons’ books and accomplishments, even those the old man knew nothing about and knew he never would.

A poorly behaved child brought great sadness and shame to his parents; usually, the sight of his father and mother’s grief, brought on by the child’s poor choices, was enough to straighten the kid out. If not, our ancestors weren’t afraid to use other means to demonstrate to child that certain behaviors brought certain consequences. Shockingly, this didn’t result in a child quivering with sadness and with no ego or esteem left in his system; it usually resulted in a child who knew better than to try THAT again, by golly.

Note:  I am NOT referring to people who beat their children or broke their spirits or desired to turn them into shrinking nonentities la the Pearls.  I am referring to people who loved their children too much to allow them to ruin their futures.

Modern parents are often so worried about causing their children emotional pain that they ignore or neglect all kinds of opportunities to demonstrate to their children that nice people are a lot more welcome in society than people who feel they have a right to do their own thing regardless of where they are or what the mean old rules might be. A child who is taught in no uncertain terms that one sits quietly at the table, be it at home or elsewhere, eats whatever might be on his plate – or at least tries to eat it – without complaining, and who knows, because he was taught, that one does not get up from the table without permission, and that “please,” “thank you,” and “excuse me” really are magic words. . . well, let us be euphemistic, even though I loathe euphemisms, and just say that nice people of all ages are more welcome and appreciated than are people whose manners and whose tolerance for poor manners need some adjustment.  Think of the mall.  Think of restaurants.

Our ancestors would be appalled at some of the attitudes and behaviors of their descendants. I know I am.

The title? I’ve used this quotation many times before. Do you know which novel it’s from, and who said it?

P.S.   Self esteem must be EARNED.  It’s not a given.  Nobody has a RIGHT to it.  We’re not born with it.  It can’t be presented as a gift.  And kids know the difference even if some adults don’t.  We have to deserve it.  Otherwise, it’s all just a big joke, and the joke’s on the adults.


It Might Be INSIDE the Classroom, But It's Still BULLYING!!!

Posted on by March 2, 2010
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whyMamacita says:  So many of the teachers I’ve spoken to lately are frustrated almost beyond words by their schools’ insistence that they keep disruptive, non-participatory, and often violent students in their classrooms, to the severe detriment of the other children.

All students have a right to be educated in their least restrictive environment.  How can this be possible if there are students in the classroom whose sole purpose in life seems to be to prevent other students from possibly learning something?

When a child goes home at the end of almost every day scratched, bruised, pinched, frustrated, and crying because once again “that same kid” tormented him/her, swiped the pencils, broke the scissors, yelled out, distracted, pulled the hair, marked on the paper, constantly poked, stole the lunch, chased, teased, and in any other way prevented a child from having a relaxed-yet-exciting, unimpeded, nurturing, SAFE environment in which he/she might learn and excel and advance upward and onward, and nothing is ever done to the perpetrator, who is allowed to pretty much rule the school with such behaviors, I call it bullying and I refuse to accept any other label for it.

Administrators who require teachers to put up with these behaviors and give teachers no support when these kids become insistently uncooperative (that’s a euphemism, by the way), teachers who fail to protect their students from these behaviors, parents who expect the school to deal with their child’s behaviors in such a way that their child is never responsible, and the child himself/herself who continues to torture other children or in any way put up an obstacle to their success. . . these are all bullies, too.  And our good, p0lite, hard-working, creative kids who WANT to learn and advance have to sit there and wait, and be pinched, etc., and wait some more, most often never getting to advance because they’re still waiting on the other kids. . . .

Bullying isn’t only on the playground or the internet.  Any time Susie can’t learn, advance, concentrate, or sit in peace and be allowed to work because of Billy’s behavior,  Billy is a bully and Susie is a victim and the adult in the room is the enabler and the administration is Dolores Umbridge.  Why, then, is Billy soothed, placated, rewarded, and continued to be allowed to sit near Susie and torment her?  And why is nobody outraged that Susie is being held back, harassed, and hindered from learning?

I’m outraged.  You should be, too.

But nobody does anything about it because Billy is apparently more important than Susie.

And Dolores Umbridge doesn’t WANT our children to learn, advance, and soar because that makes them more difficult to bully, herself.

Bah.

When are we going to grow a pair and demand that our schools become once again what they were intended to be: places where those who wish to learn might learn?  At the rate we’re going these days, the answer is “never.”

Shame on us.  Shame on anyone and everyone responsible.

Sunday Songlist, Territory, and the. . . . RED PEN

Posted on by February 28, 2010
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SundaySonglistMamacita says:  the weekend is almost over – indeed, on Sunday afternoon, the weekend is as good as over because that’s when the depression starts, although it’s not as bad as it used to be.  More than anything else, it’s the “have to get up in the morning as normal people always do” that hits me more than depression about going back to work on Monday.  The happy fact is, I LOVE my job.  Or, rather, jobs.    “Find a job you love and you’ll never have to work a day in your life,”  said Jim Fox’s dad, and this has come true for me at last.  I have several jobs now and I absolutely love all of them.  No exaggeration. Besides, I keep working at all of them but one on weekends and vacations anyway.  Not because I have to; I do it because I want to.

The only part of any of my jobs that I don’t like is grading essays.  I have too much respect for my students NOT to tell them when something needs to be changed in some way.  To give every essay a big red A+ without reading it properly and letting them know when they’ve done something improperly is to do students a grave disservice.  Self esteem is one thing, but letting a serious student think that a piece of writing is perfect just because he/she wrote it is to play a dirty trick on the student.  Future employers won’t appreciate it, either.

And yes, I fully believe in the use of the RED PEN.  Red is the color of attention.  Pay attention to the red and you won’t get a traffic ticket, cause an accident, or fail to pay careful attention when you see it.  I like a nice red gel pen, so the color jumps right into the face.

So, what am I doing this afternoon?  The music is still cranked up to eleven; the player is set on “random,” and I’m as usual doing about ten things at once.  When my husband gets home from CA tonight, he’ll find his side of the dresser cleaned and put in order.  (N0thing was thrown away; I would not throw anything away that belongs to someone else.  How would I know what’s important to someone else?)  But it’s organized now.  And yes, I am so territorial that our dresser top is divided into “his” and “mine,” and if you know what’s good for you, you won’t touch mine unless you ask first.

And yes, there is a dividing line on our dresser top.  I keep my side tidy and bare, which makes him crazy because everyone in his family, it seems, views a cleared-off space as an invitation to put something of THEIRS on it.

Shut up.   If everyone kept his/her hands off anything that doesn’t belong to them, there would be world peace.  Besides, I’m sure I’m not the only one who labels things in the refrigerator so that when you finish yours you can’t easily help yourself to mine.  When the kids were home, this was a very handy system indeed.  (You drank yours already and she has some left, and you can have hers only if she gives you permission to touch it. If you take it without permission from the owner, you’ve stolen it.) And how did we keep track of who still had Cokes and who had drunk his/hers?  I labeled them, that’s how.  Because it’s not fair when two people each have a 12-pack of Coke that has to last for a week or more, and one person drinks up all of his/hers and then tries to help himself/herself to someone else’s. . . .  They knew not to ask me to make exceptions, either.  The Cokes weren’t mine any more and only the owner of something has the authority to give permissions.  Forced sharing only creates resentment and destroys trust.  Yes, I am a weird Mom.

Oh, I need to stop or I’ll start delving into my childhood again.

The ironic thing is, I will gladly share and even give you pretty much anything I have.  All you have to do is ask me nicely beforehand.  How hard is that to grasp?  My kids and sisters will tell you that I’ve been known to practically hound people to take my things if I suspect someone might need them.  I will not, however, give you permission to touch or use something that doesn’t belong to me.  I might even take it away from you until the owner gives you permission.  But you’ve all heard this little quirk about me before, and giggled discretely behind my back.  Or in my face, if you’re family.  Sigh.  It’s all right.  We all have our little quirks and mine at least doesn’t give me lung cancer, VD, or a hangover.

Oh, and if you think I am doing all this work in a creepy silent cave, you can think again.  Music up to eleven, remember, and on random?

So far these past few hours, I’ve cleaned, written, arranged, rearranged, washed, dried, folded, and surfed to the following:

1.  All the Pretty Little Horses – Shawn Colvin

2.  White Room – Cream

3.  Girls With Guitars – Dave Matheson

4.  Don’t Turn Around – Ace of Base

5.  I’ve Been Everywhere – Mike Ford

6.  A Summer Place – The Lettermen

7.  Forgive Me Love – Alanis Morrisette

8.  I Am the Highway – Audioslave

9.  Norwegian Wood – Beatles

10. Piano Man – Billy Joel

11.  Rivers of Babylon – Boney M

12.  If I Threw My Guitar – Cake

13.  Dream Police – Cheap Trick

14.  Creep – Damian Rice

15.  Coke – Flickerstick

16.  Bring Him Home – Gary Morris

17.  Wuthering Heights – Hayley Westenra

18.  Funk #49 – James Gang

19.  Across the Universe – Rufus Wainwright

20.  Dancing in the Street – Mick Jagger and David Bowie

21.  Time Is Running Out – Muse

22.  Let It Be – Nick Cave

23.  Santeria – Sublime

24.  Zard Snodgrass – Moxy Fruvous

25.  Bittersweet Symphony – The Verve

Now playing:  Mars – Holst

I love the contrasts of a random song setting.  And look at all those Beatles covers!

Snack time.

Quotation Saturday: The Weekend

Posted on by February 27, 2010
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quotationsaturdayMamacita says:  This weekend is unlike any I’ve ever experienced, ever.  I can’t remember it ever happening, anyway.  If you are a pervert, burglar, murderer, or one of my stalkers, please cover your eyes as other people read the following:  I’m alone in the house, ie, nobody’s home but me.

And since it’s temporary, it’s bloody awesome.  It’s after 3  in the morning and I’ve got the music cranked up to eleven.  I’m wearing flannel pants with skulls on them.  (I was going to post a picture but maybe your imagination is better, here.)  I’m eating pecans and caramel dip.  With a spoon.  Out of the container.  Diabetes, hold thy tongue, because I’m going to make popcorn in a few minutes.  With extra butter.  I’ll blame any weight gain on my stupid former gym that moved the treadmills upstairs where I can’t access them. The dryer keeps beeping but I’m ignoring it, because it’s full of towels and I’m not folding them today.  I’m surfing the net and commenting and writing articles and daydreaming about sleeping in.  I’ve been reading and petting the cats and answering emails and doing pretty much everything except housework and grading essays.  I haven’t worn shoes since Thursday night class.  Really, the only normal thing I’ve done all day is shower, because even when I’m alone, you know, pew and stuff?

So what better topic for this weekend’s Quotation Saturday than The Weekend itself?  Maybe, even, some odd quotes about The Weekend?

1. Living up to ideals is like doing everyday work with your Sunday clothes on. –Ed Howe

2. Every man has a right to a Saturday night bath. — Lyndon B. Johnson  (If you know the history behind this quote, it’s even better.)

3. Only Robinson Crusoe had everything done by Friday. — Author Unknown

4. Weekends don’t count unless you spend them doing something completely pointless. — Bill Watterson

5. If I do not return to the pulpit this weekend, millions of people will go to hell. — Jimmy Swaggart (My apologies for including this one, but I can’t help laughing at anything he ever said.)

6. Every Friday I used to have about fifty, sixty kids who would wait for me on Sunset Boulevard and I’d take them all to dinner. All runaways. — Al Lewis

7. There is nothing, I think, more unfortunate than to have soft, chubby, fat-looking children who go to watch their school play basketball every Saturday and regard that as their week’s exercise. — John Fitzgerald Kennedy

8. I don’t know what your childhood was like, but we didn’t have much money. We’d go to a movie on a Saturday night, then on Wednesday night my parents would walk us over to the library. It was such a big deal, to go in and get my own book. — Robert Redford

9. The dog doesn’t know the difference between Saturday, Sunday, and Monday, so I have to walk the dog early those days too. — Donna Shalala

10. On a lazy Saturday morning when you’re lying in bed, drifting in and out of sleep, there is a space where fantasy and reality become one. Are you awake, or are you dreaming? You see people and things; some are familiar; some are strange. You talk, you feel, but you move without walking; you fly without wings. Your mind and your body exist, but on separate planes. Time stands still. For me, this is the feeling I have when ideas come. — Lynn Johnston

11. Poetry is truth in its Sunday clothes. — Joseph Roux

12. What is to be done with people who can’t read a Sunday paper without messing it all up?… Show me a Sunday paper which has been left in a condition fit only for kite flying, and I will show you an antisocial and dangerous character who has left it that way. — Robert Benchley

13. Do not let Sunday be taken from you.  If your soul has no Sunday, it becomes an orphan. — Albert Schweitzer

14. Measure not men by Sundays, without regarding what they do all the week after. — Thomas Fuller

15. I don’t like to be gone all weekend and at night too. Because for 20 years, I’ve had children who are in school. — Meryl Streep

16. I much prefer working with kids whose life could be completely upended by a reading of a book over a weekend. You give them a book to read – they go home and come back a changed person. And that is so much more interesting and exciting. — Russell Banks

17. If all the cars in the United States were placed end to end, it would probably be Labor Day Weekend. — Doug Larson

18. “- “I’ve been thinking Hobbes –”
– “On a weekend?”
– “Well, it wasn’t on purpose…” — Bill Watterson.

19. The rhythm of the weekend, with its birth, its planned gaieties, and its announced end, followed the rhythm of life and was a substitute for it. — F. Scott Fitzgerald

20. Can’t anything be done about calling these guys student athletes? That’s like referring to Attila the Hun’s cavalry as “weekend warriors.” — Russell Baker

21. I used to get a haircut every Saturday so I would never miss any of the comic books. I had practically no hair when I was a kid! — R. L. Stine

22. Later, in the early teens, I used to ride my bike every Saturday morning to the nearest airport, ten miles away, push airplanes in and out of the hangars, and clean up the hangars. — Alan Shepard

23. Middle age is when you’re sitting at home on a Saturday night and the telephone rings and you hope it isn’t for you. — Ogden Nash

24. The worst thing about Saturday Night Live now is that, in the last 10 to 15 years, they’ve grown to some 40 writers. We had seven. And seven actors. — Chevy Chase

25. Everybody’s working for the weekend. –Loverboy

Sometimes the Pearls ARE Swine.

Posted on by February 24, 2010
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Mamacita says:  These particular scum-sucking spawn “humanoids” are once again being discussed in the Blogosphere, so I’m re-running my own take on them.  I refer to Michael and Debi Pearl.

I beg of you all, do not buy any books by these people. (link removed on advice from much smarter person than me.) I have seen other blogposts and articles that expose these people for what they really are, but I think this is the first time I’ve posted my opinion here.  (I call them “people” only because of my innate good breeding.  I do not consider the authors of this book “people” at all.  They are monsters.)

Michael and Debi Pearl. They are the Child Abuse Gurus of the uneducated and ignorant masses.

Follow their advice and you can murder your children in the name of blatant stupidity love. Beware of stupid people with masters and weapons.   Kool-aid, anyone?  Thrust your babies into the fire that YOU might enter paradise?

Show your deep and abiding love for your innocent little infant by hitting him with a stick and drawing blood. Be sure you lower the blinds first, because you know how those nosy neighbors like to call CPS on you. Choose your weapon carefully; you don’t want nosy daycare workers to see any welts. PVC plumbing pipes are good for hitting. Pull his hair out. Pinch him till it bleeds. Bite him. THAT’LL teach him to go to sleep when you tell him to; he’s four months old already and it’s time he’s aware of who’s in charge. It’s all about control, and showing your kids who’s the boss. And when your kids are too young to understand words, you can be sure they’ll understand pain. Train them like the dogs they are.

Dear Lord. Do not let these people get any more followers. They are evil, and they prey upon the ignorant. Their book is nothing more than a handbook for sadists and child abusers, with lines of scripture thrown in here and there to fool those who are easily fooled by such tactics. It’s the same tactic used by the KKK in their brochures. They are banking on you not being smart enough to understand what they are really saying.

I am not saying that we should let our children be the bosses. No way. I think by now you all know my opinion of brats. But I am saying that an adult who can be the boss only by inflicting pain on a child, or an INFANT, is a mighty poor excuse for a human being. And a supposed authority figure who not only encourages it, but TEACHES PEOPLE HOW, is evil personified.

Please, all you supposedly good and reputable websites who are allowing these people to advertise on your site: No more. Their presence on your website is bringing you down and reducing your credibility to the lower depths. Surely their money doesn’t mean THAT much to you? Although, if the ads remain, I guess it does, huh.

I know that there are people who claim they can take ‘some’ of these people’s advice and ignore the rest. No, you can’t. The mere presence of this book in your home is creepy. Heck, we can find good advice here and there in anything. Even a stopped clock is right twice a day.

Let’s love our children, and teach them by example. Let’s discipline them gently. Let’s not draw blood and raise welts and end each day with a handful of soft child’s hair in our hands, and a little toddler’s blood in our teeth.

Just thinking of these people makes me cry. And thinking of these people also makes me furious, at them, and at anyone who follows their violent and sadistic methods.

Let’s go home and hug our children. That’s “hug” them, not beat them.  Unlike the Pearls, I do not believe in disciplining little children with whips, chains, and blood-letting.

I hope there is a Hell that will give this couple, and all who follow them, exactly what they deserve.  EXACTLY.  Let them spend eternity being treated as they treated their own children and advised the ignorant to treat theirs.

As for the ignorant who follow their example, I do not feel sorry for you, either.  I hope you end up in the next cell beside the Pearls.  It’s one thing to be ignorant and hurt only yourselves, but when you are ignorant and hurt little children on purpose, you deserve precisely the same treatment.

Bah.  These people make me sick.