Memorial Day: A Time to Remember

By John Kubicek

Memorial Day, it is a time to remember that freedom isn't free.

Freedom's Not Free - By The Rivoli Revue (Ron and Kay Rivoli)


It is a time to remember the many that have fallen for our freedom.

Memorial Day - Arlington (With music by Trace Adkins)


It is a time to honor all of the men and women that have fought and served in the military and those who have died for this great country, the United States of America.

Freedom Rocks at the Freedom Rock, by a Patriot In Iowa, Ray "Bubba" Sorensen


I am praying that Bubba Sorensen has had a chance to work on the FreedomRock 2009 version without too many weather delays. He's been doing this for every Memorial Day for the last 10 years. I am looking forward to the 2009 Freedom Rock!

Here's another excellent video I found at Bubba's Blog where he is being interviewed by Mike Huckabee:



While Ray - I mean Bubba - has been bringing us the memories of our veterans on Memorial Day through his very gifted artwork, there is somebody else that used her gifts for the same purpose. Patrice Lewis brought us a story this weekend called, "Forever Young," an account of her husband's uncle who valiantly fell in battle during WWII at the young age of 19. It will help you comprehend just how much it means when somebody makes the ultimate sacrifice for our freedom.

I hope you have enjoyed the Memorial Day tributes above, from the various perspectives in the forms of music, art and text. It really IS a time to remember those that have paid the ultimate price in defending our freedom. I only wanted to raise the awareness that their courage and patriotic duty is remembered during the long holiday weekend. This needs to be a time when we have to think about the reason that some of us have a long weekend to enjoy with our loved ones. It truly must be a time to remember.

Living Side By Side In Peace

By John Kubicek

I've known that my dog Moochie was very lonely when I went to work. I had really been considering getting another dog, hopefully one at the local kennel that had been abandoned... and preferably a yellow lab.

While God answers our prayers, He sometimes gives us something that may be a litlle different than we were asking for. Instead, I got ... a kitten!

I was at work Sunday night, and out of nowhere, here comes this cute little kitten, probably a month old, and walks right up to me. I found out from co-workers that this kitten had been around for a few days.

My immediate feeling was that I wanted to adopt this poor lost kitty. I had concerns, though, because I have a pretty good sized dog, Moochie, and I didn't want to endanger that poor little lost and homeless kitty. I decided to take on the risk, and bring the kitty home, and see if Moochie would be able to tolerate a cat in the house.

I was amazed. Moochie and the kitty took to each other right off the bat. It was truly love at first sight!

I've had three dogs in the last 18 years. I've never raised a cat before. But I am definitely up for this. While I've never had the experience of raising a cat, I think I'll do just fine. I seem to have this infinite love for animals, kind of like Ellie Mae of the Beverly Hillbillies. To me, my pets are part of the family.

This new member of the family has been named: Pearse (sounds like "pierce"). I hope that name isn't too gender-specific, because at this time, I am not even sure if Pearse is a male or female. Yes, there is a real gender identity crisis going on here. A friend at work thought it was a male, but I'm not so sure now. When Pearse goes to meet the vet on Saturday morning for an initial check up, I'll then know for sure, and there won't be any more gender identity issues.

What has happened in the last two days has been a very welcome break for me. This precious little kitty has taken my mind off of all the problems of the world at least for a day or two. I am pretty sure that I was in need of a time-out. It was getting difficult to decide what to write about these days, there is so much happening. And I will admit, I was beginning to ask myself some thought-provoking questions: Just how much was there that I could opine on that you haven't already read somewhere else? Was it important whether or not it was about a topic that attracted a lot of reader interest? Or, should I just continue writing about some of the issues that aren't the topics of the day, and not worry about whether or not those columns are popular and draw more readers?

There was something that came out of those questions that ended up being quite profound. Perhaps writing blogs won't be what I'll be able to do for the rest of my life as a career choice in order to produce a life-sustaining income. (And don't forget, I now have one more mouth to feed!) It would be great if I was able to get to that point, but that seemed to be the whole problem. Putting that desire to write blogs for an income - above everything else - became very stressful. Writing blogs about political issues, especially from a Conservative view point, made it even more difficult, because that guaranteed that there would be detractors to whatever I would post. Not to mention, there is always the possibility that at some point in the near future, there will be an attempt to silence the Conservatives. (That has already started.)

And here I am today, writing about the rescue of a lost kitty, which I believe suffered the indignity of being dumped off out in the rural area, as an unwanted animal. It was my first inclination that made me want to adopt little Pearse. He or she really needed to feel loved.

After just two days of witnessing the love develop between Pearse and Moochie and myself, and seeing a dog and a cat get along so well, it gave me some hope for us people, too. I just wonder how good things could be if we learned from the dog and cat living side by side in love, peace and harmony.

I just wonder how many abortions could be averted if women knew that there are people out here that would be willing to adopt and give that child loving parents and siblings.

This story ended up being a lot more important than I thought it would be. Hey, I'm just sayin'...

More About "Being Schooled": Indoctrination

By John Kubicek

In my last column, "Being Schooled," I wrote the following:

So, here's my point: I'm pretty sure that the public education system is totally broken. I have this feeling that our kids are being indoctrinated... However, I am also aware of the fact that kids could also be indoctrinated if they went to private schools or if they were home-schooled. The obvious key here is, who are the ones that are indroctinating our kids? In my humble opinion, those that are going to the public schools are being indoctrinated by a political force with an evil agenda. I do not believe that agenda really has a happy ending for those of us that value freedom.

Of course, what I had written then was based on my own opinion, but I would not have written it had I any doubts that I was right. I can now happily say that something I saw Sunday morning (May 10) on Fox & Friends confirmed what I wrote. I WAS right! And I have the video up on youtube that will verify that. You will see the video below, but first, let me give you some of the background.

Did you hear the story about the high school student, Chad Farnan, who sued his teacher, James Corbett, for bashing Christianity during his lectures for a European History class? Chad and his attorney, Robert Tyler, won the case. U.S. District Court Judge James Selna ruled in Chad's favor. In this case, the allegation against the teacher and defendant, was that he was bashing Christianity and abusing his power as a teacher in order to denegrate Chad's religion. When you see this video, you'll see why Chad won the case.



What this teacher, James Corbett, had done was brazen abuse of his authority as Chad's teacher. In this case, it was about the teacher's defamation of Christianity. But, that isn't the whole story. And in fact, the victory for the student in U.S. district court was just a small part of the story. There is much more to this case that we should be aware of.

My initial plan was to put the video on my Cross Tribe Network, a Christian-oriented blog. When I uploaded the above video to youtube.com, I wrote in my title and description that Christian bashing by a teacher to his students won't be tolerated. That would have been fine, and I could have left it at that. But, I then realized there was more to the story.

Suppose the teacher was a Christian and was bashing Atheists? Would if the teacher had been a Muslim and was bashing Jews? Would those situations be tolerated? If a teacher was mocking anyone a different race or sexual orientation, we know what would happen. That teacher would not get a pass, no matter what. I'll guarantee you, that if Carrie Prejean became a public school teacher, and told the class that marriage should be between a man and a woman, the NEA would not be coming to her defense! So, why should it be allowed for them to disparage someone of a different religious belief? To keep in line with the 1st Amendment, what the teacher wants to say outside of the school environment is fine. But when it comes to what they are "teaching" in a class, that is no place for those attacks and they have no benefit to the students.

Taking that epiphany a little further, and spending an additional day in thinking about this before writing, I saw confirmation that public schools really were becoming indoctrination centers. In "Being Schooled" I had written the following:

The obvious key here is, who are the ones that are indroctinating our kids? In my humble opinion, those that are going to the public schools are being indoctrinated by a political force with an evil agenda. I do not believe that agenda really has a happy ending for those of us that value freedom.

In that writing, I only stated that there was a problem, but I wasn't really able to produce any possible solutions. It was my own opinion that there was a "political force with an evil agenda" in charge of indoctrinating our kids, and that it wouldn't have "a happy ending for those of us that value freedom."

Now, consider what would have happened had the teacher, James Corbett, been able to continue on with his anti-Christian and anti-Conservative rants while teaching his class? But wait, it is worse, because I'm sure Corbett wasn't (isn't) the only teacher doing this! And you can be rest assured that there is much more insidious education being crammed into the heads of our youth in the public indoctrination centers... I mean, public schools. Well, there is now a solution. We now have legal precedent to employ in taking it to other teachers that do the same thing, and for that matter, school systems that allow it and even encourage it! This could be the NEA's worst nightmare!

Chad Farnan had innocently recorded his teacher's lectures in order to help him prepare for the class (tests). Little did he know what his studious efforts would lead to! It has become something that could turn around the way the public school system has been used to indoctrinate children to fit their liberal and socialist agenda. This is a way to put the brakes on the social decline that we have been witnessing. It's also a way that maybe we can now force teachers to start actually TEACHING, so that our next generation would actually be able to pass that 8th grade test from 1895 that we talked about in "Being Schooled."

What seems to be so absurd is why did it take an 11th grader to take on the "system" and claim victory? It reminds me of the David and Goliath story. Chad didn't just take on the teacher; he was taking on the power of the teacher's union (NEA), the State, and even the Federal Court.

My guess is that the case will be appealed. Or, wait.... will it? Does the NEA really want it to be public knowledge that there is indoctrination going on? To win their case, wouldn't they have to be trying to show that indoctrination is a "good thing"? But then, I guess if it's "for the children," that could work. Let's hope that it doesn't.

RELATED STORY:
Being Schooled ~ By John Kubicek

Being schooled

By John Kubicek

One of my college roomates was majoring in Education, and I have several relatives that are involved in the education field; from people who work with Special Ed kids, to teaching post-college graduate classes, to being school administrators. But, no, I am no expert. In fact, I didn't even participate in the PTA when my kids were in school. And, maybe that is part of the problem in today's world. Many of us can sit around and whine about where education has gone, but when we could have done something, we did nothing.

So, why would I even bother to write something that is so far "above my pay-grade," you may ask? It's simple, really. I truly confess that I didn't take part when I had the chance. The truth is, I had no idea what was going on back in those days when my kids were in school. Sure, like many of you, I've heard that the kids today are being "dumbed down." And like you, it seemed to be something we kind of felt was happening, but did we really have the evidence to prove our theory as being a fact? Probably not... Well, not until now.

You see, just yesterday I received a very enlightening email about our earlier generations not having the "education" that most of us will receive. The majority of us have graduated from high school. And there are many of us that have our college degrees, or better. But back in the day, a century or more ago, there were people who could proudly announce that they got through 8th grade. That sure seems to be no big deal these days (for good reason!), and you'll see what I mean when you see the following discussion about an 8th grade education in 1895. From the email I received from my friend, Rev. Gerri Janeway:

Remember when grandparents and great-grandparents stated that they only had an 8th grade education? Well, check this out. Could any of us have passed the 8th grade in 1895?

This is the eighth-grade final exam from 1895 in Salina, Kansas. It was taken from the original document on file at the Smokey Valley Genealogical Society and Library in Salina, and reprinted by the Salina Journal.

8th Grade Final Exam: Salina, KS - 1895

Grammar (Time, one hour)

1. Give nine rules for the use of capital letters.
2. Name the parts of speech and define those that have no modifications.
3. Define verse, stanza and paragraph
4. What are the principal parts of a verb? Give principal parts of 'lie,''play,' and 'run.'
5. Define case; illustrate each case.
6 What is punctuation? Give rules for principal marks of punctuation.
7 - 10. Write a composition of about 150 words and show therein that you understand the practical use of the rules of grammar.

Arithmetic (Time,1 hour 15 minutes)

1. Name and define the Fundamental Rules of Arithmetic.
2. A wagon box is 2 ft. Deep, 10 feet long, and 3 ft. Wide. How many bushels of wheat will it hold?
3. If a load of wheat weighs 3,942 lbs., what is it worth at 50cts/bushel, deducting 1,050 lbs. For tare?
4. District No 33 has a valuation of $35,000. What is the necessary levy to carry on a school seven months at $50 per month, and have $104 for incidentals?
5. Find the cost of 6,720 lbs. Coal at $6.00 per ton.
6. Find the interest of $512.60 for 8 months and 18 days at 7 percent.
7. What is the cost of 40 boards 12 inches wide and 16 ft.. Long at $20 per metre?
8. Find bank discount on $300 for 90 days (no grace) at 10 percent.
9. What is the cost of a square farm at $15 per acre, the distance of which is 640 rods?
10. Write a Bank Check, a Promissory Note, and a Receipt

U.S. History (Time, 45 minutes)

1. Give the epochs into which U.S. History is divided
2. Give an account of the discovery of America by Columbus
3. Relate the causes and results of the Revolutionary War.
4. Show the territorial growth of the United States
5. Tell what you can of the history of Kansas
6. Describe three of the most prominent battles of the Rebellion.
7. Who were the following: Morse, Whitney, Fulton , Bell , Lincoln , Penn, and Howe?
8. Name events connected with the following dates: 1607, 1620, 1800, 1849, 1865.

Orthography (Time, one hour)

1. What is meant by the following: alphabet, phonetic, orthography, etymology, syllabication
2. What are elementary sounds? How classified?
3. What are the following, and give examples of each: trigraph, subvocals, diphthong, cognate letters, linguals
4. Give four substitutes for caret 'u.'
5. Give two rules for spelling words with final 'e.' Name two exceptions under each rule.
6. Give two uses of silent letters in spelling. Illustrate each.
7. Define the following prefixes and use in connection with a word: bi, dis-mis, pre, semi, post, non, inter, mono, sup.
8. Mark diacritically and divide into syllables the following, and name the sign that indicates the sound: card, ball, mercy, sir, odd, cell, rise, blood, fare, last.
9. Use the following correctly in sentences: cite, site, sight, fane, fain, feign, vane , vain, vein, raze, raise, rays.
10. Write 10 words frequently mispronounced and indicate pronunciation by use of diacritical marks and by syllabication.

Geography (Time, one hour)

1 What is climate? Upon what does climate depend?
2. How do you account for the extremes of climate in Kansas ?
3. Of what use are rivers? Of what use is the ocean?
4. Describe the mountains of North America
5. Name and describe the following: Monrovia , Odessa , Denver , Manitoba , Hecla , Yukon , St. Helena, Juan Fernandez, Aspinwall and Orinoco
6. Name and locate the principal trade centers of the U.S. Name all the republics of Europe and give the capital of each.
7. Why is the Atlantic Coast colder than the Pacific in the same latitude?
8. Describe the process by which the water of the ocean returns to the sources of rivers.
9. Describe the movements of the earth. Give the inclination of the earth.
~~~
Notice that the exam took FIVE HOURS to complete. This certainly gives the saying "he only had an 8th grade education" a whole new meaning, doesn't it? This also shows you how poor our education system has become and, NO, I don't have the answers!

And I am guessing that those 8th graders weren't graded on a "curve", either. I'm guessing that you passed or failed. Who knows what the cut-off was, that information wasn't included in the email. However, it would have to be a pretty low percentage of correct answers before I would have passed that test! I'm just saying...

Perhaps it was because I was feeling like an idiot after reading through that email from Gerri, but I did write back to her, with my moronic reply. I wasn't being sarcastic in the response. I think I was covering my guilt by coming up with a satire of what I can could perceive as being the test for today's high school graduates.

Now please remember, this was meant in jest. It was meant only for humor, and in no way reflects the actual education system as we know it... (Or, does it? No, I certainly hope not!)

My awesome satirical reply:

THE MODERN DAY HIGH SCHOOL GRADUATION TEST

Language Arts (TIME: One hour)

1. Name three punctuation marks that you can use at the end of a sentence in an email?
2. When texting your friends, what does it mean when you write: "LOL"? "LMAO"? "BFF"?
3. Name the President of the United States that says "Uh" the most times in one sentence if his teleprompter isn't working?

Arithmetic (Time: 30 Minutes)

1. If you bought an ounce of marijuana for $125.00, how much profit could you make if you split it into eight (8) equal size bags and sold them for $30.00 each (Hint: You don't have to include the amount that you short each bag for your personal stash!!)
2. How many $100 bills could you receive if you cashed your welfare check of $508.00?
3. If your food stamps were $200/month, and you bought Five 2-liter bottles of Pepsi at $2.00 each, 10 bags of M&M's for $1.00 each, and traded $10.00 of your food-stamps to your friend for enough to buy two 40-ounce bottles of Budweiser, or two bottles of Boone's Farm wine, would you have enough left over to buy 5 cans of Similac for your baby if each of them cost $3.00? (Hint: If you are a male and don't have the personal experience to help you derive the answer from, feel free to ask any of your homies in the class that got their girlfriends knocked up.)

U.S. History (Time: Two hours)

1. Name one time in history when somebody of a mixed race that may not be a natural-born citizen became President of the United States.
2. Name a U.S. President who's first name was George. (Extra credit is given if you can name two.)
3. There have been several wars that the United States was involved in that have been fought on American soil. Which of the following wars were not fought on U.S. Soil?
a) Revolutionary War for U. S. Independence
b) The American Civil War
c) The Viet Nam conflict
d) The War in Iraq

Science (Time: One hour and 30 Minutes - DOES NOT INCLUDE THE TIME TO WATCH THE FILM MENTIONED IN QUESTION 2)

1. Essay question: In 300 words or less, explain why Darwin's Theory of Evolution is correct and the Book of Genesis in the Old Testament of the Bible is a myth?
2. Name three reasons why Man-Made Global Warming could kill you, penguins, and polar bears. (Note: Please wait until after the instructor shows you the film "An Inconvenient Truth" before proceeding to this question.)

Social Studies (Time: Take all the time you want, but the sooner you answer, the sooner you can get out of school so that you can have time to stop at McDonalds on the way home)

1 Which political party, Republicans or Democrats, would you trust to make sure that you are taken care of in case of personal hardships, such as having your children out of wedlock before you have a job?
2. Where would right-wing extremists most likely reside?
a) RED states b) BLUE states
3. Name two social websites that allow your freedom of speech, including the use of profanity?
4. In 100 words or less, explain why radio talk show hosts such as Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, Dr. Michael Savage, and Sean Hannity should be required by the government to be fair and unbiased?

Well, gee, I don't know, where would I ever get the idea that our education system may be a little bit flawed in the first place? Your first guess would probably be that I'm just your typical "ditto head," I've listened to Rush Limbaugh way too much. Bonk! Wrong answer! Close, but not quite it.

Actually, here would be the correct anwwer: How about the fact that I watched a lot of Jay Leno on the Tonight Show, and saw many "Jay Walking" segments. Have you seen any of those? (If not, try looking it up on hulu.com). But, I'll tell you, there were many times it was just too scary. He would go out on the street, and ask various tourists many very easy questions about current events and history, and many of the responses were horribly wrong. The problem was, some of those people were people with college degrees and professional careers, and ... (gulp) ... many that admitted to be K-12 educators.

(And keep in mind that Jay Leno lives and works in Hollywood, though I don't consider him to have a leftist agenda. Far from it. In fact, I think he did a great job in actually displaying how truly lame, and what total idiots, many of the Hollywood leftist elites are - in a very covert way!)

But I digress... It's time to make my point. There have been times when I wrote, like in my last post, and just let you develop your own point of view. I supplied the information package and let you decide where to go with it. (According to my staff of attorneys, I had to say it like that so as not to be stealing the idea from Fox News.)

So, here's my point: I'm pretty sure that the public education system is totally broken. I have this feeling that our kids are being indoctrinated... However, I am also aware of the fact that kids could also be indoctrinated if they went to private schools or if they were home-schooled. The obvious key here is, who are the ones that are indroctinating our kids? In my humble opinion, those that are going to the public schools are being indoctrinated by a political force with an evil agenda. I do not believe that agenda really has a happy ending for those of us that value freedom.

So, to end this long, long rant, let me leave you with the antidote to the indoctrination that has been going on in the public schools to make sure that the new generations will have a need to depend on the "ISMs" they talk about in the following video:



We, who believe that our public education system has vastly deteriorated, need to make a decision to get involved in the education of our kids. We can do the home-schooling or private school options all we want to, but what about all those kids out there that have no other choice but to attend public school?

Those of us who value our freedom must find a way to infiltrate and reform the public schools. Let there be no doubt, that is a monumental challenge. I hope it isn't too late.