Prodigal,

{otmon}
No, I don't care about whatever you were responding to. I was just
making the point that both sides of this political gulf have already
forgotten the hard learned lessons of less than sixty years ago. So,
I guess that we will all have to re-learn those lessons the hard way.

That we includes the western world, and it includes the islamic world.

And the "sheesh" was aimed at Richard Reid, and the people who inspired
him, not at you.

What I responded to in your post was the comment comparing the current USA
to the German REICH of 1936-45, and saying that we were already living in
it. We may yet get there (and I really really hope that we don't), but if
we were already there you would have been too scared to make a comment like
that in a public forum--because there _would_ have been a knock at your door in
the night, and the rest of us would never have known what happened to you.
I gather that you are not at all worried about that possibility?? Well then
we must not be there yet.

Defensive?? puhllleeeeze spare me. I'm just a student of history who has
a grasp on the reality of what happened during our grandparents generation.
It was a lot of really ugly things that all of us should have the sense not
to do again.

{otmoff}

Instead, we should go cruising, and make friends with people all over the
world. We should smile, and laugh, and dance, and tell jokes. Sometimes
we should laugh at other peoples lame jokes just because it makes them feel
good. We should eat good food that we prepared ourselves, and marvel at the
sunsets, and the deep azure blue ocean. And on that perfect day when the sun
smiles and the winds are fair, we should remember to feel a little sadness for
those who take life too seriously and thus never really get to live it.

Life's blessings and fair winds to you,

Don W.

prodigal1 wrote:

Don,
You want to take me to task for responding to whatsisname's OT political
comments?
puhllleeeeze
spare me defensiveness
do go cruising on that boat of yours
I think you'll find that the further you get away from the noise, the
clearer your perspective will be on current events

wrote
It's almost unspeakably sad, if not revolting, that some of the above
posters have actually been, or are, PARENTS. But they would never
undersant WHY.

Try grandparents. I think it revolting that you are so selfish as to hamper
your kids' futures so you can avoid your obligations to them and go play.
And we do understand - we understand that you think your kids are your pets.
They are not.

I didn't make the rules but without credentials your kids will be
unemployable. Do you care?

"prodigal1" wrote in message
...
Vito wrote:
I don't have time to do an in-depth background check then interview
each of them....

jeezus Vito, if _you_ don't have the time to do your due diligence...who
will? and if you don't...

I don't owe anybody 'due dilligence'. I just need to hire somebody to do a
job and if (s)he can I'm happy and my boss is happy. I have my own work to
do. I have neither time nor any obligation to tease an applicants
qualifications out of him. It is up to the applicant to present them and
make them as creditable as possible. It is a parent's duty to get their
kids the credentials they'll need to succeed as adults. You wanna go play
instead you shouldn't have had kids.

"Frank" wrote
.....I seem to remember a
homeschooler/sailor named something like Robin Lee Graham (Had a little
boat named "Dove." Ring a bell for anyone?), who sailed completely
alone (not even domineering parents for socialization, oh my!) but
still somehow managed to make friends in various places around the
world and even met a girl and got married! Mais jamais de ma vie!

Where did he get the boat? How did he earn a living - especially in his
doteage?

"Stephen Trapani" wrote
Pardon my saying, but you seem to have a bias against homeschooling. ...

No, I do not. I have a bias against parents failing to get their kids the
*credentials* they will need to succeed in a lifestyle of their own
choosing, not necessarily that of their parents. Some parents homeschool in
order to give their kids a better education than they can find in public
schools. That's great. OTOH, some "homeschool" because they are too lazy
and/or selfish to send their kids to school. Some of these would rather go
sailing. Either way, there will come times when the kids will need to
present credentials - diplomas, degrees, grade transcripts, et cetera - in
order to get into a college and/or find a job. My point is that it is a
parent's obligation to make sure his/her children have those credentials.

"WaIIy" wrote
Perhaps you should visit a Cleveland school and see how well things are
going with a 30% graduation rate.

That has nothing to do with my, or Larry's point. Say I'm looking at five
resumes for a trainee position. Four graduated from a Cleveland HS with
above average GPAs. One spent the last 15 years on a boat cruising the
islands with his parents who 'home schooled' him, but he has nothing to
prove that. I don't know if his parents were conscientious or religious
kooks. Now,am I going to call any of them in to take hours of tests to prove
they learned enough to do the job at hand, or am I going to believe the GPAs
and transcripts and round file the fifth kid? It'd be different if the home
schooled kid had the equivalent of the others' credentials but if he doesn't
he's SOL.

Fair? The world isn't fair.

Vito,

You don't really want answers; you just wanna confirm your position
that homeschoolers are unworthy of being hired by you. Fine. If you're
doing the hiring, you can set the standards. And feel free to continue
to think that homeschoolers are engaging in selfish behavior, compared
to those who farm their kids out to the school system all day every
day. You wanna have kids, you should be responsible for them and make
some effort on their behalf. You wanna pursue your lame career instead,
you shouldn't have had 'em. (A grandparent and still working? Not very
"successful," are you?)

Just FYI, Graham returned to the US and was accepted to Stanford. This
is, of course, after he wrote his book and worked on several
photographic assignments for National Geographic. Guess National
Geographic isn't as picky as you are in their hiring practices.

He didn't like life at Stanford; and he and his wife moved to Montana.
I have no idea what he's doing nowadays. OTOH, the Colfax family sent
their kids to Harvard and Yale from their homeschooling goat farm in
Northern Callifornia. (_Homeschooling for Excellence_ by David and Miki
Colfax.)

But you're gonna choose to look at any example given about "successful"
homeschooling as a case of abusus non tollit usum. I have other things
to do than sit here and beat this dead horse; so I'm gonna go do 'em.

Happy sailing!

Frank

"Frank" wrote
You .... just wanna confirm your position
that homeschoolers are unworthy of being hired by you.

That is untrue. I have nothing against home schooling provided the
schooling is adequately documented, thus providing the kids with the
credentials needed to get into colleges and to find employment. If a kid
were homeschooled, accepted at an accredited university and obtained a
degree I would give him/her the same consideration as anyone else. What I
am trying to do is to warn parents that these credentials will be needed so
they can aquire them as they go along. If your kid shows up to compete for a
job and has to check the "no" box under "HS Diploma?" on the application
he's going to be at a serious disadvantage no matter how well his mama
schooled him. If you care about your kids that won't happen but you'll have
to do the right things at the right times.

Vito wrote:

I don't owe anybody 'due dilligence'.

Vito, you owe yourself/your employer _your_ due diligence. Since you
don't seem to know:
a) what that means or
b) what consequences await those who don't take care of their own business,
there's not much more we have to communicate about

WaIIy wrote in
:

Larry, were you raped in homeschool or something?



No, actually I'm a former South Carolina Technical Education Electronics
Department Head who had to fight long and hard to get employers and Human
Resources management like "WaIIy" to give my kids' resumes that second
look, especially when I first started the electronics program at our little
TEC school. I worked very hard to convince them of the seriousness of my
department as there is really little certification for such schools.

Once the department had an employer references base to point to and get
recommendations from for the newest survivors of my electronics boot camp,
I had little trouble placing them all in quite nice technician positions,
though maybe not in the local area to the dismay of my school president.
The phone companies got wind that I wasn't trying to tell them they were
all going to be engineers and taught a great basic electronics school they
could use as a base to build on in their own telephone schools.

The $outhern Bell HR representative in Columbia used to come to interview
my class each year. I asked him why he drove all that way when a much
larger TEC was just down the street from his office. "Oh, I need
TECHNICIANS!", he exclaimed. "At Midlands TEC, they tell them they are all
going to be junior engineers and they're not interested in jobs behind
wiring frames and switching racks. Your guys can't wait to get their hands
dirty!", he continued. My reputation for turning out a quality product was
great, but my salary was $14,200/year for working 12 months, not 9, so I
had to find a real job that didn't pay like a hobby. TEC always assumed
you had a military retirement check in your box each month and were looking
for a hobby. My first year teaching in 1971, I was paid the princely sum
of $7,200.

I'd loved to teach. I took a black kid off a farm tractor plowing tobacco.
He was the first in his family to graduate from high school. Today, he is
head of the long line telephone switching center that feeds busy Myrtle
Beach, SC, with long distance calls. Not bad for a kid from Tobacco Row,
eh? His father insisted I sit with the family at his graduation....(c;
Noone ever reproduced that feeling I got when they all had good jobs
outside my doors....instead of working at some mill as an indentured
servant with no future. We called him "Scooter" in class. His secretary
wasn't amused when I asked, "Is Scooter in, today?", outside his
office...(c; His golf club serves an excellent lunch at their clubhouse.

--
Larry

You know you've had a rough night when you wake up and you're outlined in
chalk.