All Things Hold Together

I love - love - Crayola. We use a lot of art supplies and I have found theirs to be of the best quality, when it comes to children’s art supplies. And their innovation is amazing. They are always coming up with new, fun children’s art and craft supplies. And their website is full of awesome project ideas.

And, no, I am not getting paid for this.

Recently, I e-mailed the company with reference to the recent toy recalls, asking if any of their products are made in China. Here is the reply I received.

Dear Charity,

Thank you for your recent inquiry.

Providing quality, safe, kid-friendly products is our #1 goal. We source a small amount of our products from China. All Crayola(R) products, including licensed products, must be produced in compliance with our rigorous safety standards and specifications. This procedure ensures the materials supplied to us meet or exceed U.S. and European regulations and standards specific to our industry.

Our products undergo independent laboratory testing in Asia, and many are tested again in Europe, which has some of the highest standards for toy safety in the world. In addition, our art material products also undergo third-party toxicological testing by the Arts and Creative Materials Institute (ACMI) and carry the AP (Approved Product)(R) seal.

We are confident that we have the processes and systems in place to ensure the safety of Crayola products. Your comments and concerns are welcomed, and we appreciate the opportunity to assist you.

Colorfully yours,

Christine Mann
E-Mail Response Representative
CRAYOLA

Take it for what it is worth. I just wanted to share this.

Colorfully yours, how cute is that?

The toy Aqua Dots has been recalled after two children in the US and three in Australia were hospitalized after ingesting the dots. The toy is called “Bindeez” in Australia.

The toy beads are sold in general merchandise stores and over the Internet for use in arts and crafts projects. They can be arranged into designs and fused when sprayed with water.

Scientists say a chemical coating on the beads, when ingested, metabolizes into the so-called date rape drug gamma hydroxy butyrate. When eaten, the compound — made from common and easily available ingredients — can induce unconsciousness, seizures, drowsiness, coma and death.

Just the day before yesterday, I was looking at these in a sale flier and thinking to myself, “These look cool, but there is no way I would buy them. If the beads fuse together when sprayed with water, I don’t even want to think about what kind of nasty chemicals they are made out of.”

Well, now I know: Date rape drugs.

Since I started blogging, I have always used StatCounter on all my blogs. I really like it. So, when I got an e-mail this morning saying that Aodhan Cullen, StatCounter’s founder, won Business Week’s Young Entrepreneur contest, I was not surprised.

It was a web vote and they had e-mailed all of their clients about the contest. If others are as happy with the service as I am, it is no wonder he got the votes.

What did surprise me was that this guy is such a go-getter. He started his first business at 12, typing resumes, and had a web design business by age 16, which is what gave him the idea to launch StatCounter.

Amazing!

I was reading Dr. Helen’s column on Pajamas Media the other day. Her final question was:

Do you think you could ever be married to, or in a long-term relationship with, someone with radically different political views from your own?

My answer is “no.”

Dr. Helen’s answer was basically that she has certain qualities that she values and, as long as the person has those qualities, political views shouldn’t matter.

That sounds good, but for most of us, our political views flow from the qualities we value, so it would follow that vastly different political views would indicate some level of incompatibility.

I have no problem getting along with people who have different political views, but I wouldn’t want to have to reconcile those opposing views on issues that impact my personal life.

When it comes to the big issues in life, for example, raising children, I just don’t see how two people with radically different views could make it work, or at least, why they would want to.

I’ll take my extreme, right-winger hubby any day. It just makes life that much easier.

Okay, now that I have a little time, I am going to rant a little about that anti-homeschooling post I was talking about yesterday.

Since kestrel9000 has since backpedaled from his original agreement with the statement that, “home schooling does more damage than it does good, and should not be allowed to be a continued practice,” I’m going to turn from his post and, instead, look at a few of the comments made there.

Maybe there is a distinction

I’m an educator and I’ve interacted with homeschooled students who come to me for private music lessons. There is a “right” way to homeschool such as mataliandy mentions downthread and there is the fundy way. There are plenty of legitimate homeschoolers out there. I’ve seen plenty of homeschoolers who go on to be successful in college and in their adult lives. The distinction should be made between Christofascist homeschooling and people who have children who do not fit into their school system for whatever reason.

And the comment by mataliandy referenced above…

Translation: If you agree with us, you should be allowed to homeschool, but if you don’t, then, no way.

I would like to think that the problem with that line of thinking is self-explanatory, but the blogosphere continues to chip away at my idealistic naivete on a daily basis, so I will attempt an explanation.

There is a “right” way to homeschool … and there is the fundy way.

Determining one’s fitness to homeschool based on whether or not you agree with their ideology and/or religious views is wrong for a multitude of reasons, not the least of which is that you might not be the one deciding the fitness criterion in the future.

I mean, do you really want that line drawn when you want to homeschool, but the people deciding the acceptability standard are not like you?

I cannot believe there are actual participants in our democratic process that are so exclusive in how they think rights should be appropriated.

News flash: There is this little thing called Freedom of Religion that actually prohibits the government from disallowing certain parents to homeschool because they hold religious view you oppose.

*Deep breaths* …Charity suddenly remembers the downside to political blogging…

What I find funny is that what mataliandy describes is exactly what many “fundy” homeschooler do, in addition to teaching young earth creation and providential history.

So now what? How are you going to weed out the “bad” ones, huh? How will you separate out those using the “fundy method” if their kids can parrot back all of the facts you want them to know, but still believe what their parents believe? What then?

Here’s the thing, despite watching hours of “real” science videos and reading “real” science books from our secular library on evolution my kids still believe that God is creator, that He created man, and that we do not share a common ancestor with apes.

Oh yeah, and I didn’t tell them that.

I have actually tried to play Devil’s advocate and open their minds a little bit on the issue. I don’t fully know how to reconcile God and science. The Bible provides an insufficient account to know exactly what happened, so I don’t pretend to know all of the answers.

The bottom line is that they can pass all of the secular science tests that you could possibly throw at them, but they will likely still emerge from their homeschool experience believing in creation.

So how are you going to stop us from infecting our children with the fundy virus?

Here’s a word of advice; ripping them out of their home and putting them back in the public school that failed to meet their needs will only drive them further away from your world view.

The thing that really peeves me about this is that there are homeschoolers out there who refuse to recognize that all parents have a right to homeschool, not just the ones that attend the local Democracy for America meet-ups.

Okay, rant over. We now resume regularly scheduled bland, homeschool mommy blogging.

I really want to get back to doing some homeschooling posts, but, well, there hasn’t been a whole lot of homeschooling going on around here lately.

This past week, we were gone most of the time with Bob’s grandfather’s funeral and all associated traveling.

The week before that, we were busy with the neighbors moving and all associated celebrating and crying.

So instead, you are getting this post.

On my ride home from my parents-in-law’s house in Massachusetts, once I had crossed into Vermont, I saw a car with Vermont plates that had the following bumper sticker:

At least the war on the environment is going well

To put it in context, this was the view from my window:

Someone needs to tell those evil conservatives to step up that war on the environment!

I think people forget when they transplant to Vermont that this line of attack doesn’t play so well here.

I was reading this morning that the Vermont legislature is trying to work out the differences in the highway safety bills that came out of the two chambers. It looks like they won’t resolve it this session, which is good news for anyone who does not want to see Vermont turn into a police state.

No, I’m not complaining about the banning of cell phones.

I’m referring to the primary enforcement seatbelt law that both chambers agree on. The legislature is selling our freedom for 3.7 million in federal highway dollars. Once this passes, the police can stop a person for not wearing a seatbelt.

My guess, based on the overwhelming support for this, is that most people already wear seatbelts. They figure that this law will not affect them.

They couldn’t be more wrong.

This law authorizes the police to pull over anyone they want to, as long as they claim that the person did not have on a seatbelt. I have no reason to believe that the police will abuse this power, but I have no reason to believe that they won’t either.

The important thing here is that once we give our rights away, we are not likely to get them back.

Here’s a question for those who are supporting this law: when you are in court fighting your ticket because you were wearing your seatbelt, who do you think the judge will believe, you or the officer?

This law grants power to the police that they should not have. Thankfully, since the legislature cannot agree on whether or not to ban hand-held cell phone use while driving, there is still time to stop this.

I can’t believe that cell phone use would bring about disagreement, but giving police a free pass to pull over anyone they want garners universal support.

Do I sound like I have anti-government paranoia? Maybe, but I’m not the only one.

Here’s a good post, from a non-local.

Here’s a quote from a University of Vermont student:

He has a right to be here, but I think it is a very limited First Amendment right.

Unbeknownst to me, the First Amendment contains a clause that limits the rights of those engaging in “diatribe,” subject to the opinion of the aforementioned college student, of course. I doubt this clause applies to the endless diatribe he encounters on campus aimed at the right.

Now, the back story.

The alternate title of this post was: Evangelism 101: How NOT to Share the Gospel.

This morning, The Burlington Free Press had a story about two evangelists from New Orleans who are traveling around to colleges calling for people to repent and be saved. The problem, in my opinion, is that they carry signs that read:

“Repent Sinner. Surrender all to Jesus.” On the flip side was written a laundry list of people to watch out for. Among them, “Jesus mockers, homos and lesbos, pornofreaks, drunkards and Muslims.”

Now I know that there are lots of different ways to share the Good News and that there are a multitude of interpretations of what not to do. I seriously do not think that I know everything, or even anything, for that matter, about the best way to do it. But, I think it goes without saying that the in your face tactics tend not to work.

Exhibit A: “We had one salvation in California,” Breaud said. (Okay, so they work a tiny fraction of the time.)

Worse yet, such tactics kind of hurt the efforts of the rest of us to share our faith, or even just to live with out being hated and harassed.

I’m just sayin’.

Back to the students. I didn’t realize that there was such a thing as limited First Amendment rights, as it applies to voicing a point of view. According to the article, the student in question “said he is all for free speech, but he draws the line at ‘bigoted nonsense’”

Um, with all due respect kiddo, free speech applies to bigoted nonsense, too. How else would the brilliant folks in the comments of the online article be able to compare peaceful evangelism with suicide bombing jihadists. Bigoted nonsense abounds in public discourse these days. There’s enough to go around. If we limit free speech on anyone, we limit it on everyone. This is so basic and fundamental, I feel like it needs no further elaboration.

What on earth are colleges teaching these kids?

That was rhetorical. I went to UVM. I know what they are teaching. The real question is, why are parents still paying for it?

I was just reading this ridiculous story about employers praising the Me Generation workers in order to keep their self-esteem up. I don’t even know where to begin commenting on this. It is so unbelievably stupid.

I couldn’t even finish reading it. Once I got to this part, I had to stop.

Employers are finding ways to adjust. Sure, there are still plenty of surly managers who offer little or no positive feedback, but many withholders are now joining America’s praise parade to hold on to young workers. They’re being taught by employee-retention consultants such as Mark Holmes, who encourages employers to give away baseball bats with engravings (”Thanks for a home-run job”) or to write notes to employees’ kids (”Thanks for letting dad work here. He’s terrific!”)

My mind went off on a tangent of, If Bob’s employer ever did such an asinine thing as to actually encourage our children to think they are letting him work there, like they have any such control over our lives, he would have to quit, and I just called it quits on the article.

This reminded me of something that happened in the grocery store once with The D. He was really good, after a phase of being a pain in the store, so I said, You did a nice job behaving today. He replied, Can I get a candy bar, since I did such a nice job behaving today?

I said, No, we don’t deserve a reward for doing what we are supposed to do anyway. You did a nice job and I am proud of you for the improvement, but this is what you should have been doing all along. Rewards are for when you do something extra.

There was a woman standing behind us who looked aghast. Apparently, she did not agree with what I said. I just remember thinking, I hope she doesn’t have any kids.

One of my first lessons learned in homeschooling was that my children had had their self-esteem decimated by the over-praise of the public school. When they received praise that they did not deserve, it made them feel uncomfortable and less confident. Worse than that, they started having a problem believing anything good that was said about them, even when it was warranted.

I worry about what the future holds when we are now faced with young adults whose self-worth and psychological well-being depends on constant praise.

It’s a scary thought.

(Hat tip: Crunchy Con)