I had planned to stay away from other topics this month and stick to love.

Leave it to a bunch of asswipe researchers and lawmakers to screw that UP.

This is my evening rant for February 1, 2012…and boy am I pissed!

Sugar should be considered a toxin and regulated like tobacco and alcohol…AND TAXED!  This according to researchers in California.

One key word:  TAXED.

This is just another way to steal from the people who keep this country going.

Moderation is the key to just about every thing, (strychnine being one thing that is not included) but using the reckless behavior of over eaters and over sugarers to garner more cash for 536 people in Washington to waste is not the answer.

If sugar is a toxin, you just might have to buy your Coca Colas at the liquor store, and they will cost more.

You can’t bake correctly without sugar…oh, yes, I know there are sugar free diets and cook books for cakes, candies, and such…but they all taste like crap.

Wake UP people.  This is not about health.  This is about stealing more of your money for worthless, egotistical, holier than thou politicians to spend on programs that will continue to get them elected.

The second key word:  TOTALITARIANISM.

These are people who think they know what’s better for YOUR life than you do, and want to control YOUR behavior by pricing things THEY don’t like off the market.

Well, they can all kiss my sweet ass!

Here is one article:    http://news.yahoo.com/sugar-regulated-toxin-researchers-180605186.html

Here is another one:  http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-16822533

The second article compares sugar banning and taxing to condoms, smoke free restaurants, and designated drivers.

Frankly, I think they are all suffering from low blood-sugar, and need a freakin’ mint!

I don’t really get all the hoopla about the Chinese New Year.  Frankly, I don’t care much about our own New Year’s celebrations either.

I don’t stay UP to watch the ball drop any more, and watching Dick Clark breaks my heart.

Plus, the music sucks, and the ubiquitous Ryan Seacrest is wearing a tad thin on me.

But, the other day, a friend of mine said, “Happy Tet!” on the way out the door.

Really, Happy Tet.

I’ll pass.

When I hear Tet, which is the Vietnamese celebration of the new year, I think of one thing:

The Tet Offensive.

The US was caught with their pants down on this one.

Tet Nguyen Dan is the celebration of the Vietnamese Lunar New Year, and usually coincides with the Chinese New Year.

On January 30, 1968, after a mutually agreed cease-fire, the forces of the People’s Army of Viet Nam launched a surprise attack against the Republic of Vietnam (South Vietnam) and the United States.

Its purpose was to use the element of surprise to attack civilian and military commands in South Viet Nam.

We, the allied forces of the United States of America and South Viet Nam, were not ready.  The National Liberation Front, aka Viet Cong, launched an attack of 80,000 communist soldiers, striking more than 100 towns and cities.  It was well planned, well thought out, and well executed.

In the city of Hue alone, more than 2,000 civilians are still listed as missing.  Thousands – THOUSANDS – were killed there by the Viet Cong and the National Liberation Front.

The initial attacks stunned the Allied forces of the South and did major damage to command, life, and the South’s cause. The world and most importantly, America realized that North Viet Nam could launch a devastating attack, and could possibly…and eventually…win the war.

Technically, it ended in a defeat for the Viet Cong, but it changed the American Psyche, turned the tide of public opinion of the war in the United States.

In the offensive, there were 45,850 casualties:  9,078 killed, 35,212 wounded, and 1,530 missing.

Some of those are still missing.

Today, the Tet Offensive is barely mentioned in the US.  Oh, they study it in school, there’s a paragraph or two about it in the US History books, and it’s mentioned in passing.

Frankly, we should remember it more often.

So, forgive me if I pass on the Happy Tet thing.  I don’t remember it as happy at all.

Yeah, I’ll pass.

Just some things in my head.

I find it odd…

…that people who are supposed to believe the same things and are members of the same political party can rip each other apart for months on end, and then come back together like nothing has happened.

… that most plus size clothing is blowsy and flowery rather than dark and slimming.

…that rather than embarrass her lover, Potemkin, Catherine the Great passed a law that said no one was allowed to blow their nose on her drapes.

…that Warren Buffet really cares what people pay in taxes.

…that Michael Jordan and Nike haven’t done something to prevent the mall mess and violence caused by each release of Air Jordans.

…we consider any country in the world an ally.

…that we think we can win in Afghanistan when the Greeks, Persians, Romans, British, and Soviet Union couldn’t when each were at the height of their power.

…we continue to pour money into places that hate us, steal from us, and trash us to the world.

…that Brad Pitt left Jennifer Anniston for Angelina Jolie.

…that “Friends” lasted as long as it did.

…and kept the same cast.

…that more people don’t feel the same way I do.

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.