I am sure this has been national news.  Who knew boring Gwinnett County could make such a stink.  After all, we’re most famous for the Runaway Bride and being known as the place where Larry Flynt (happy Jan) was shot.

But, headlines galore, a math teacher at Beaver Ruin Elementary School, which is across the street from ‘that place where I work’, has been front page news for several days here.

Doing what the school board has encouraged them to do, a teacher gave a math test which combined a social studies lesson with math.

The result was a brouhaha that enraged parents, prompted protests, calls to the Principal, school board, and picketing.

Really getting to work was a bee-atch, and well, in the end, it’s all about me.

After teaching the kids about slavery – which, I might add was a reality – and following direction of integrating (no pun intended) courses, a teacher created a math test with questions such as those pictured below.

Parents were outraged.

Furious, UP in arms, on the phone, in the faces of everyone who would listen.

The social studies lesson was about Frederick Douglas, a former slave, who was beaten, and if not cotton, I’m sure picked something.

Slavery was and remains a horrid thing.  It should be taught as a lesson of what not to do, and the teachers (there were four who used the test) were doing their job by combining lessons as directed, and reinforcing both math and social studies.

Now, one of them as resigned.  Luis Rivera, left his/her (I’m not sure as to the gender of the teacher) job on January 18 amid a personnel investigation.

I would venture to guess, and this is merely an educated guess, that Rivera had a choice, resign or get fired and lose his/her teaching credentials.  It’s happened before.  Teachers rarely get fired, they chose to resign.

The other three are still under investigation, and we…shall see.

The school board is using the old saw that the test “failed to undergo a content review”,  I say, caca del toro.  Tests are made UP every day and very few of them are reviewed.

Frankly, I have in the past made UP test on the fly, asking the questions as I went.  There was no review.

In an elementary school where 88% of the students are either Black or Hispanic – which leads us to the conclusion that fewer than 12% are Caucasian, allowing for Asians, of which in that area there are many, it isn’t the usual Black/White discrimination story.

More than 50% of the faculty and staff at the school is ‘non-White’ as well.

This isn’t a race thing.

It is just an ill-advised plan being implemented in an ill-thought out way, by dedicated teachers who were trying to balance all the balls and dance as fast as they can at the same time.  It was bad judgement, not maliciousness, as some parents would have us believe.  One angry couple, featured in the AJC, were scowling in the picture while their happy, smiling child showed them the paper.

I’ll admit, beating and picking cotton aren’t pretty things, and better examples could have been used, but they happened.

Get the hell over it!

Slavery existed, math haunts us today, and kids need to learn both.  So, if you want an integrated curriculum, plan it better or live with what you get.

It still isn’t over.

SOPA and PIPA, (not the sister of the Duchess of Cambridge) are proposed laws in the Senate and Congress that are designed to stop rogue websites and internet piracy.

This is what Redneck Latte Ravings will could look like if they pass.

Every blogger and webmaster in the world should be UP in arms about this attack on freedom.

Call, write, email your lawmakers today*.  It’s apparent they have no conscience, maybe they’ll listen to yours.

However, after 13,000,000 – that’s 13 MILLION calls to lawmakers, the bills are “under review”, on hold – we’ve made an impact.  We must keep doing so.

I can’t imagine my life without Redneck Latte Ravings, could you?

*I heard back from two of my lawmakers, both US Senators from Georgia, I was not pleased with what I heard!

An open letter to Emily of http://momminitup.com/ .

Oddly enough, I have no pictures to go with this post!

Gilda was our first.  We got her six months after we were married, the day before we moved 400 miles away to Tennessee .  She rode in the car with me all the way, spent most of the time whining her box and some between my neck and the car seat head-rest.  She was a cutie.  Eleven ounces and six weeks old when we got her, she actually fit in the inside coat pocket of my old Navy Pea Coat.

We took her everywhere.

She chewed up everything, would not sleep in her bed, wound up in ours, and woke me up everyday like clock work once she was house broken.

But we loved her.

Eight years later, when our daughter was born, Gilda had to go.  She was jealous, snippy, and snappy.  I really didn’t want to A. permanently scar my child’s face; and B. Explain all that to the Department of Children’s Services.  I hear they can be picky.

After child number 2 came along, grew to walking stage, wiping his own butt stage (hallelujah, one of the greatest days of all time and a whole ‘nother blog), we all felt the ‘call of dog’.  Many feel the call of God, but alas, we felt the call of dog.

Then came Lacy.  A blonde Cocker Spaniel that was obviously more inbred than I, had the IQ of a lawn chair, and came with her own IEP.

She would dig one hole under the fence to get out and another one to get back in.  After a while it looked like it was warped, and the neighbors would point and shake their heads as they walked by.

One day she disappeared.  Really, just gone.  I had nothing to do with it, though I was accused, glared at and repeatedly questioned.  The lie detector test was “inconclusive”.  But alas, another one gone.  (Remarkably, my Sister-in-law’s dog, who was Lacy’s litter mate vanished the same week.  My brother-in-law survived the questioning much better than I.)  We never found either of them.  I was not sad.

Again, the dog conversation started.  I hedged, said no, fought, and as all of us do, gave in…just as you will Emily.

That was Dagy, or Dagmar.  Pure bred, black as coal, sweet as sugar and the most wonderful companion ever.  She met me at the door every night.    When every one else was mad, she loved me, when every one else was out, she was at the door.

Then her back went out.  $600.00 and several days at the vet’s later, we had to let her go.  On my 50^th birthday.  Yeah, happy freakin’ birthday.

I swore off dogs, again.

Forever.

But, again, I heard the call of dog.  So I bought two at the same time.  Don’t ever do this.  They won’t learn their own names, they will both come when you call one, they will not train, they will not stop chewing, and they encourage each other to mischief.

After I cam home from my quadruple bypass surgery (I promise to talk about that at length some day),  I was actually afraid they would jump up on me and open up every slice and dice the doctors had done.  Thank goodness for rescue sites.  They were both gone in 2 days.

Then one day, Mugly (short for my ugly dog, ‘cause she was clock stopping hideous – I mean, seriously, “cover your watch!”) showed up.  Really, she just arrived in the yard, decided she liked the place and stayed…for exactly a year.  Then she moved on.

Oh, I looked for her.  I put UP post-it notes advertising “lost dog” on telephone poles, canvassed the neighborhood…all ten houses…but alas, we never found her.  Until I went walking a week later and there she was, dead on the side of the road.  She wasn’t hit; she just went off to die.  I was sad, and swore off dogs, once again.

Then there was Lola.  Lola was my son’s dog.  She had feet the size of hams when she was born.  Now, the biggest dog I had weighed in at about 18 pounds.  This one was 40 at six months.

She was part yellow lab and part idiot.  She was a chewer, a whiner, a barker, a digger, just like all the others.

She had to go.

I bided my time.

Well, the boy decides to go to college.  (I’m happy about that.) He left his dog at home.

Error!

Duh!  Working two jobs and napping got in the way of play time with Lola, so she had to go.

Napping is important.

It just wasn’t fair to her.

One add on kijiji.com and 8 hours later.  I was runnin’ through the house singing “Dog Free” and praising Jesus.

This dog, the last dog, didn’t die.  She went to a nice family with four kids and big fenced yard.  She could have been a science project at UGA and I’d have lost no sleep!

She was the last dog…well, for now.

Seriously, Em, get that bunch under control!  Heed not the Call of Dog!

…well, they’re back.

The Fat Rascals hit the gym bright and early this year.  All that Fruitcake and those Christmas Cookies have taken their toll on the midriffs of the masses.

They clogged the arteries of the gym from the opening bell to the time I got there.

I applaud anyone who makes an effort to get in shape, lose weight, and who resolves to get healthier, but this is off the chain.

And frankly, since it’s all about me, do ME a favor, and give UP earlier this year.  You know you’re not going to last past  Single Awareness Day Valentine’s Day, so quit now, get out of my way.

Oh, I know the plan.  Work out, get reasonably better looking, lose a few pounds, find a Valentine’s Day date, get laid, and the quit the gym.

Seriously, quit now!

Move it!  I have a schedule!

I’m sure you’re just as lovable as a Fat Rascal as a slightly less fat one.