Tuesday - September 04, 2007

“Sometimes, you are not gonna know some.”

Via Say Anything

I have long said that language is the glue that holds the nation together. When we began to offer services in other languages, it was in the name of “helping” people to get acclimated.  Now it is simply the way its done.

Inspectors in Arizona recently made the rounds to see how English classes were going.  Want to know what they found?

Words escape me.

An official state inspection of Arizona public schools reveals that many students are being taught English by Spanish-speaking teachers whose command of English is so poor that the officials can barely understand them.

The recent inspection revealed teachers providing instruction in Spanish instead of the legally required English, students unable to answer questions in English, and teachers’ instructions such as “Sometimes, you are not gonna know some.”

The results of the inspections were reported by the Arizona Republic, which concluded hundreds of students in the state are trying to learn English from teachers who don’t know the language.

The inspections found teachers who are unable to use English grammar and cannot pronounce English words. The “You are not gonna know” comment came from a Mesa teacher instructing a classroom filled with students trying to learn English.

From a Casa Grande Elementary District teacher came, “read me first how it was before,” and a Phoenix teacher at Creighton Elementary asked, “If you have problems, to who are you going to ask?”

State officials each year visit classrooms where children are learning English. Of the 32 school districts visited last year, there were problems at about one-third.

“Some teachers’ English was so poor that even state officials strained to understand them,” the assessment found. “At a dozen districts, evaluators found teachers who ignored state law and taught in Spanish.”

The visits, which lasted from one to three days, discovered teachers did not know grammar or pronunciation. “In one classroom, the teacher’s English was ‘labored and arduous.’ Other teachers were just difficult to understand. Some teachers pronounced ‘levels’ as ‘lebels’ and ‘much’ as ‘mush,’” the newspaper reported.

The article has some quotes from resident who have some suggestions for dealing with the problem.  Said one:

Indeed

Posted by Drew458     on 09/04/2007 at 02:35 AM   
Filed Under: • Outrageous •  
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   Monday - September 03, 2007

Voluntary Mandatory Care

Amazing

Edwards backs mandatory preventive care

TIPTON, Iowa - Democratic presidential hopeful John Edwards said on Sunday that his universal health care proposal would require that Americans go to the doctor for preventive care.

“It requires that everybody be covered. It requires that everybody get preventive care,” he told a crowd sitting in lawn chairs in front of the Cedar County Courthouse. “If you are going to be in the system, you can’t choose not to go to the doctor for 20 years. You have to go in and be checked and make sure that you are OK.”

Nothing like a little home-grown American Socialism for the start of Fall.

So, of course, since this is America, land of the free and home of the brave, we can choose whether or not we want to participate in this little ponzi scheme, right?

Edwards said his mandatory health care plan would cover preventive, chronic and long-term health care. The plan would include mental health care as well as dental and vision coverage for all Americans

Oh, and I loved this part.  How does Silky plan on paying for all of this care?

Edwards said his plan would cost up to $120 billion a year, a cost he proposes covering by ending President Bush’s tax cuts to people who make more than $200,000 per year.

Let me get this straight.  President Bush puts tax cuts into place and the left cries about how we can’t afford it and the deficit goes down.  In fact, revenue is so high, the projected defisit into the future is cut by a large margin.  So the way to generate even more revenue is to put those taxes back on the backs of people?

And they wonder why we laugh at them and just shake our collective heads in amuzement.

Posted by Drew458     on 09/03/2007 at 10:10 PM   
Filed Under: • Democrats-Liberals-Moonbat Leftists • Health-Medicine •  
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Happy Labor Day

Sorry for the lack of posting this weekend.  My wife and two daughters are heading out to France today as part of a 12-day mission work team.  So we’ve been packing and re-packing (that 50lb limit per bag is a real hassle), looking at maps and planning.  I’ll be leaving in a little while to carry them and the rest up to Dulles for their flight out this afternoon.

In the meantime, enjoy the day, cook a hot dog to celebrate the end of summer.

Here’s a little history on tge holiday we celebrate today from the Department of Labor:

The History of Labor Day


Labor Day: How it Came About; What it Means

“Labor Day differs in every essential way from the other holidays of the year in any country,” said Samuel Gompers, founder and longtime president of the American Federation of Labor. “All other holidays are in a more or less degree connected with conflicts and battles of man’s prowess over man, of strife and discord for greed and power, of glories achieved by one nation over another. Labor Day...is devoted to no man, living or dead, to no sect, race, or nation.”

Labor Day, the first Monday in September, is a creation of the labor movement and is dedicated to the social and economic achievements of American workers. It constitutes a yearly national tribute to the contributions workers have made to the strength, prosperity, and well-being of our country.

Founder of Labor Day

More than 100 years after the first Labor Day observance, there is still some doubt as to who first proposed the holiday for workers.

Some records show that Peter J. McGuire, general secretary of the Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners and a cofounder of the American Federation of Labor, was first in suggesting a day to honor those “who from rude nature have delved and carved all the grandeur we behold.”

But Peter McGuire’s place in Labor Day history has not gone unchallenged. Many believe that Matthew Maguire, a machinist, not Peter McGuire, founded the holiday. Recent research seems to support the contention that Matthew Maguire, later the secretary of Local 344 of the International Association of Machinists in Paterson, N.J., proposed the holiday in 1882 while serving as secretary of the Central Labor Union in New York. What is clear is that the Central Labor Union adopted a Labor Day proposal and appointed a committee to plan a demonstration and picnic.

The First Labor Day

The first Labor Day holiday was celebrated on Tuesday, September 5, 1882, in New York City, in accordance with the plans of the Central Labor Union. The Central Labor Union held its second Labor Day holiday just a year later, on September 5, 1883.

In 1884 the first Monday in September was selected as the holiday, as originally proposed, and the Central Labor Union urged similar organizations in other cities to follow the example of New York and celebrate a “workingmen’s holiday” on that date. The idea spread with the growth of labor organizations, and in 1885 Labor Day was celebrated in many industrial centers of the country.

Labor Day Legislation

Through the years the nation gave increasing emphasis to Labor Day. The first governmental recognition came through municipal ordinances passed during 1885 and 1886. From them developed the movement to secure state legislation. The first state bill was introduced into the New York legislature, but the first to become law was passed by Oregon on February 21, 1887. During the year four more states — Colorado, Massachusetts, New Jersey, and New York — created the Labor Day holiday by legislative enactment. By the end of the decade Connecticut, Nebraska, and Pennsylvania had followed suit. By 1894, 23 other states had adopted the holiday in honor of workers, and on June 28 of that year, Congress passed an act making the first Monday in September of each year a legal holiday in the District of Columbia and the territories.

A Nationwide Holiday

The form that the observance and celebration of Labor Day should take were outlined in the first proposal of the holiday — a street parade to exhibit to the public “the strength and esprit de corps of the trade and labor organizations” of the community, followed by a festival for the recreation and amusement of the workers and their families. This became the pattern for the celebrations of Labor Day. Speeches by prominent men and women were introduced later, as more emphasis was placed upon the economic and civic significance of the holiday. Still later, by a resolution of the American Federation of Labor convention of 1909, the Sunday preceding Labor Day was adopted as Labor Sunday and dedicated to the spiritual and educational aspects of the labor movement.

The character of the Labor Day celebration has undergone a change in recent years, especially in large industrial centers where mass displays and huge parades have proved a problem. This change, however, is more a shift in emphasis and medium of expression. Labor Day addresses by leading union officials, industrialists, educators, clerics and government officials are given wide coverage in newspapers, radio, and television.

The vital force of labor added materially to the highest standard of living and the greatest production the world has ever known and has brought us closer to the realization of our traditional ideals of economic and political democracy. It is appropriate, therefore, that the nation pay tribute on Labor Day to the creator of so much of the nation’s strength, freedom, and leadership — the American worker.

Posted by Drew458     on 09/03/2007 at 07:58 AM   
Filed Under: • History •  
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