I agree completely.

You have written blogs wanting to fire people up. Now you want these people to shut up. I think you are messing with someone!

I would hardly consider this author an intellectual. Perhaps the use of nouns and verbs in the same sentence would help.

Cow{noun} Rancher {verb}. That helps.

Cow-adjective

Rancher-noun

Now that helps.

I don't think Drew should brag about using his brain and then not use it. Grammar check would be good for a newspaper post. For example, "Yes, the whole country." and "I did not like the rich getting bigger tax cuts, now why did I not protest around Bill Gates' security fence?" makes it hard to follow your thought process.

The point is, one should not tout their expertise, in one sentence, and then say something that exploits their lack of expertise in another sentence. It hurts credibility and is hard for us stupid farmers to follow. Granted, I make grammatical errors regularly, but I am not a journalist.

It is also an insult for Drew to call the Tea Parties idiotic when they were protesting his right to keep his Constitutional rights, including free speech.

CNN is hardly a centrist broadcasting organization. They are hard left and lost most of their audience when they finished broadcasting the gulf war. Most Americans just don't want to be pounded with liberal commentators skewed perception of our country. I guess that explains why FOX has the top ten slots in the ratings for cable TV. If the white house is offended by FOX, then they should appear on the station and give their point of view. To use the bully pulpit of the white house, to condemn FOX, is cowardly and is not addressing the real issue. The issue is that the administration needs to be stealthy to pass the social programs and FOX exposes their agenda with the largest audience in the free world.

A little research goes a long way towards being an accomplished journalist.

Thank you for explaining your position. Now that I know that you are not a journalist, I feel better. Give me an example of me having "no room to talk" about intelligence. Since you say there are clear indications of this, then it should only take you a brief moment to find an example. You say that this is not academia but then try to convince us that you have superior intelligence and research behind your "contemporary commentary".

Why is it OK for you to insult people but you are exempt from it? Communication is a two-way street and when you call people idiotic, petty, tell people to shut up, stop whining, etc...be certain that people will respond. Do you consider this a mouthpiece with only one side represented? You will probably have the editor cancel my comments or remove me from the blog.

In my opinion, you are violating the blog rules as much as anyone.

Back to your title of the blog...is morality in the eyes of the beholder or is it a universally accepted set of standards? I contend, by the remarks on this blog, it is in the eyes of the beholder.

I'm not a big fan of extremists either. Most people fall somewhere in the middle. Seems most extreme groups just cause a bigger divide. If you are pro-gay/lesbian...then you swing their way...if you are a moderate Democrat...it makes you swing farther to the middle. Republicans do the same thing.

I'm not sure about the Tea party. It seems like a lot of good hard working Americans, but something about it seems off. It seems no matter the group...the far left or right will try to use them as the poster child for their new movement...that seems to be the direction it is headed.

cow rancher- I'm sure it feels good to sit behind a computer and take personal shots at a person in a public forum. Fact is Drew's intelligence should not be in question. You disagree. That is OK. Since when does differing views mean a lack of intelligence. Seems childish, disrepectful, and rude. I've seen small children act in this way routinely. What is your excuse?

Snakeplisken- So you disagree with his point, or are you also capable of accurately evaluating intelligence by a few blogs. If so congrats.

The blog was intended to provoke debate, not become a debate over intelligence. I doubt Drew could prove either of you his intelligence. Seems you have already etched that in stone. I guess hiding behind a username means you have no need to use manners.

Drew Landry seens a little sensitive to any thoughts contrary to those of his own. As he said, he's not a journalist; just an amateur Blogger who shows his temperment every now and again.

"A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves money from the public treasure. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most money from the public treasury, with the result that democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy followed by a dictatorship. The average of the world's greatest civilizations has been two hundred years. These nations have progressed through the following sequence: from bondage to spiritual faith, from spiritual faith to great courage, from courage to liberty, from liberty to abundance, from abundance to selfishness, from selfishness to complacency, from complacency to apathy, from apathy to dependency, and from dependency back to bondage." - a wise observer

May the people shout from their front doors, their windows, their telephones, faxes, and keyboards a resounding "No more borrowing from future generations!"

I refuse to swallow Obama's cool-aid.

May the people reject the current direction of our great nation in 2010.

Bugsbunny is wise. I contend that you need to add revolution following dependency.

We the taxpayers will not tolerate the non-contributers.

Taxation without representation is more pronounced today than it was in 1775.

Thank you Lil'Hahn.

So let us peaceably debate our fate, while we still have time to do so.

May our Republic live long and prosper.

Cow Rancher - is it really taxation without representation that you are complaining about? "we the taxpayers will not tolerate the non-contributors?" Seems like you are arguing against representation without taxation? Surely you are not suggesting that those without property or a certain level of income should be stripped of thier right to choose their leaders?

There are more than 2,600,000 millionaires in this country. I'm sure they can afford to pay a little more on their taxes than the average american can. The average CEO in America makes in a day as much as the average American worker does in a year, and a lot of the CEOs' money never gets taxed. I don't know about most people, but I don't shed a tear when they have to pay a higher percentage than I do, because when they are all said and done with their taxes and I'm done with mine, they still have way more money than I do, and I think that's fair.

Taxes--Are you aware that the richest 1% of earners pay 39.9% of the country's total income tax bill? or the top 10% pay 71%? How about this figure-- The bottom 50% of all earners make 13% of the country's total income, yet pay less that 3% of the income taxes!

Same facts I brought to the last blog entry!

Merely statements from a conservative who firmly believes in Capitalism, small government, and freedom!

Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

jimmy42

Have you ever really sat down and thought about what you say. Yes there are maybe more than 2,600,000 millionaires in this country. But if you think about it one of those millionaires is responsible for giving you a paycheck. Either directly or indirectly one of those millionaires has created the job that you hold if you hold one. If your one of those societies leaches on welfare your income is still coming from the taxes from someone who does hold a job created by them. And for some reason you think they should be punished for this with higher tax rates. And pay more than their fair percentage. You say you hope this country heads in the same policy direction it is currently headed. As Bugsbunny's quote said "the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most money from the public treasury". This is the reason Obama won the election. We are into the dependency stage now! So that would mean your looking forward to moving back into bondage. If you really feel this way why don't you just buy a plane ticket and move to some communist country. You won't have to wait for it to come to you.

Drew Landry, two things you stated in your opening line really irk me. They are universal healthcare and promoting a hike in teacher pay.

First there is no universal health care on the table. What is being debated is health insurance. Insurance is not health care. Insurance will not make the health care get any better. If anything it will probably diminish the quality of care we have. To you and all the other people that are for the insurance reform I have to ask, what you are for? You don't even know what it is. What are the deductibles going to be? What are the co pays going to be? Affordable insurance, what does that mean? I have not seen any actual numbers on any of these. Maybe the co pays and deductibles will be so high you still can't afford to get care even with the insurance. I just don't understand how one can be so for something they know nothing about. Frankly it scares the hell out of me.

Second thing is higher teachers pay. My wife works at WRV School and totally agrees with me. Higher teachers pay will do nothing. You could give every teacher at WRV a $20,000 pay raise and the only result would be is they would have to re-stripe the parking lot so the Lexus and Lincolns could fit in the parking spaces. Our education system is broke and throwing money at it won't fix it. They recently held a class for the teachers. It was to introduce them to alternate methods of teaching. In the class they had a simple first grade math question. The teachers could not even agree on what the correct answer was. Some how you think that more money will make better teachers when 50% of them could not even perform First grade level math...

To all of you who are going to slam my spelling or grammar. What can I say I am a product of our education system.

Cow Rancher this was your statement in an earlier post, so you don't go by this post do you. Since we are all (supposedly) citizens of this great country, then each of us should pay the same percentage of our income to the government. By the way before you start helping Drew with his grammar, try reading your last post, what the hell is scoial ?

Warren Buffet pays capital gains tax while his employees pay income taxes. Capital gains tax rates are lower than income tax rates. It is true he pays less total taxes than his secretary but he is paying a different tax than the secretary. Its an apples to oranges comparison but the average American is ignorant of the difference. This could all be simplified under the Fair Tax. Check it out at "www.fairtax.org"

Also, I believe the ultimate goal of health care reform is single-payer, government run insurance. Whatever the Democrats can get passed now will only be a step towards that goal. All they need is a foot in the door and they can make changes later. Reform, as the Democrats are proposing it, is not about improving our health care system, it is about control. Once they control our health, they control the votes which keeps them in power.

Thank you James30096 for reminding me about the anti-profit tax called the "capital gains tax".

Let's assume one wants to actually buy a property or business and make it in better shape than when you bought it. The government will be there waiting for their "fair share" of profits if you sell the said property or business for more than you paid for it.

Imagine the stimulus this country would experience if we had a fixed rate for fed. taxes, eliminate the capital gains tax, eliminate the death tax(inheritance), eliminate the IRS, eliminate the other non-constitutional taxes.

People would be spending money, hand over fist, and this country would boom. The stock market would explode upward, gold would drop and the citizens of this country would get better service as companies would be trying to outcompete each other with products and services.

We just want the government to get out of our way. Just like Chris Cornelius said, farmers also want a free market, but don't want to have to compete with foreign competition through tariffs. Let us compete, straight up, and we will dominate the world in agriculture and all other industries. Freedom and free enterprise has always provided the most and highest quality results over government.

not from Greene County;

You are clearly clueless in regards to education. I would be interested to know what role your wife plays within the school. Teacher? Custodian? Cook? I would guess the comment was taken out of context. First, WRV has two elementary buildings. Which building? What was the problem? All of the county schools have teachers working within a Federal Math grant...if it is in reference to that...it was no where near a 1st grade level question.

As for the pay increase, I would agree that true teachers will not perform better with higher pay or results based pay...I think we would hope the same goes for police officers, firefighters, and a multitude of other professions.

As for the Lexus and Lincolns...I'll settle for paying off two college loans and Master's Degree...not to mention setting back a few bucks for the 2 college classes($3,000??) required every 5 years to maintain a license. Then again vehicles, mortgage, or a college fund for my kids would be nice. I don't mind intelligent debate about improvements within education, but heresay and rumors are useless.

Thank you Garth, I did enjoy being told I was clueless in regards to education from a person who could not even read. Garth the bad part was two people just decided I was the one that posted something about WRV, which makes me think that they don't actually read the blogs, they just say what they want.

anybody got any gum ~David Letterman~

I apologize not from Greene County. I am guilty of going back and skimming over the name. I guess I am clueless in regards to checking up usernames:)

So a 28% increase, and still some say we don't need reform. Most workers are being told no increase this year, many are thrilled when they hear they are getting a 2 % increase.

GCC

I am assuming from your response you are a teacher yourself. You state that I am clueless about education. Please tell me what in my comment shows this, or is just because I criticized your profession. Then you go on to make a point about your Masters degree and other classes every five years. Bla Bla Bla it doesn't impress me. So you went to college, purchased credit hours and got a piece of paper. It does not mean you can put anything you learned to use. A piece of paper does not make you a teacher. Also incase you did not know it teachers are not the only people in the world that have to continuously go to school and training in order to maintain their licenses or certifications. It pretty much goes hand in hand with any professional. It's just no else whines and cries about it like a teacher.

You ask what role my wife plays. With your great superiority due to your masters I would have thought you could have figured this out. I will give you a clue. Was there any Custodian or Cooks in these classes? I guess that just leaves teachers.

As far as the hearsay and rumors go you kind verified that my commit wasn't. How else would you know exactly what class I was talking about. What I am curious about is if you have this Masters and have to go to classes to maintain your license then why is there a need for a grant (More taxpayers money wasted) to try and teach how to be a teacher?

I may have been wrong in one point. The particular question may not have been first grade it may have been second or third. I will post it at the end so the readers can decide. Maybe you could reply with the answer so we can see if you can do the math unless your afraid of getting it wrong.

P.S. just incase you teach spelling: you spelled hearsay incorrectly.

The actual Question:

Mrs. Johnson thinks it is important to vary the whole when she teaches fractions. For example, she might use five dollars to be the whole, or ten students, or a single rectangle. On one particular day, she uses as the whole a picture of two pizzas. What fraction of the two pizzas is she illustrating below? (Mark ONE answer.)

a) 5/4 b) 5/3 c) 5/8 d)1/4

With this there was a picture of two circles. One circle was completely shaded and one circle was ¼ shaded.

oracle,oh man, that sh*t is awesome-I gotta get "The Crow"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1jn3KCZEq...

I heard Pres Obama watched a football game yesterday. Consequently, he has been awarded the Heisman Trophy.

notgreenenative;

I guess someone questioning your intelligence irritates you as well. Interesting.

First, I don't have my Master's, but I am close. I come from a family of hardworking blue collar people. I chose to get an education. I was always taught education and application should go hand and hand. Unfortunately, in some it does not. Plenty of brilliant people with no formal education beyond HS, while I'm sure there are plenty of college educated idiots(as my father says). I'm not sure how that applies to a Math grant.

Second, The Math grant is a federal grant. Greene county schools chip in to fund grant writers. These grants are usually a jumble of hoops that each school has to jump through in order to obtain the money. Note the grant will go to somebody...why not Greene county. It was initially sold as an opportunity for teachers to learn new ways to teach. I think everyone was under the impression it would be a chance to better themselves as math teachers. For once someone was going to pay teachers a stipend to do things they do on their free time anyway. It has turned into something far different. You make reference to a question from a test they give at the beginning of year one of the grant..and year two. It has been sold as test to show general improvement in overall knowledge. Note knowledge...not application. It really doesn't matter if a 1st grade teacher gets that answer wrong or right. The question is can she teach 1st graders...the application of teaching.

As for the question, it is 5/8. The kicker is using 2 pizzas as the whole...something a lot of people would miss on a quick read through. I would guess the teacher put 5/4. I'm sure she read through a bit too quickly and made a good mistake. A teachable mistake. The beautiful thing about this question...and all of the questions is that they have levels of correctness. 5/8 shows that they can read the question and apply their knowledge. 5/4 shows that they misread the question, but have a knowledge of improper fractions and fractions in general. 1/4 shows a knowledge of fractions. They may have multiple problems...reading comprehension could be the culprit, but most likely they have a much lesser understanding of fractions. 5/3 is probably the worst answer. This is like many ISTEP questions. I'm not a fan of teaching to the ISTEP, but we need to understand how to prepare them for those types of questions. A teacher needs to understand how to break down a student's weaknesses and help them improve.

So is your issue with teachers...or federal government? The point is it was obtained through a grant to help teachers increase their knowledge and help with the actual application. Honestly, I think the funds through the grant is misused, but it is what it is. There was never a question of whether or not this grant would be granted...it was where it would go. I'm glad it is in Greene county, rather than somewhere else. It is about odd that someone who is reaping the benefits of the grant...has such an issue with it.

I can't comment on what went on what went in that group, but many of the questions are presented for discussion...sometimes people disagree. We are also dealing with teachers that teach very basic math principles...the question isn't applicable to a 1st grader. Some of the teachers involved are 20+ years in teaching the same level. I wonder if your grasp of things learned(but no longer use regularly) long ago is as sharp. I know it sounds like excuses, but too many factors could contribute to why a group of teachers felt they couldn't answer the question.

If the student doesn't get it for some reason, it is the teachers job to figure that out. More than anything that is part of this grant. As adults we often forget the feeling we have when we don't understand...some of the questions posed at the grant meetings do just that. I don't feel that question should, but it did for someone. Hopefully, it will open their eyes to the struggles students go through...and it will make them a better teacher.

How can our future workers compete with others around the world when their teachers can't figure out how much pizza they have?

Thank goodness for voters like Drew who will insure that no matter whether or not someone knows how much pizza they have, their health care will be provided by those smart enough to figure it out in spite of their education. Hopefully we will have enough of those folks in the future to pay for the health care for everyone.

Merriam-Webster on-line definition of "journalist"

I think this qualifies newspaper bloggers as journalists even though they don't want the title.

Main Entry: jour·nal·ist

Pronunciation: \-nə-list\

Function: noun

Date: 1693

1 a : a person engaged in journalism; especially : a writer or editor for a news medium b : a writer who aims at a mass audience

2 : a person who keeps a journal