RAGE

It is a wonder my faithful few, that I have not snapped living here in red state hell. Atlanta is a multi cultural and diverse city. I don't exactly live in the city of Atlanta. I live just a bit outside in perhaps the whitest community in America. Lily white. Snow white. Even the black people are whiter than me. I am sick of living here. Almost everything that happens in this community irritates me.

Today my 13 year old son brings home a paper that states that abstinence only curriculum approved by local ministers is taught in his PUBLIC school. What's worse is that the program is funded by a FEDERAL abstinence only grant.

I am holding a piece of paper urging me to allow my son to participate in a program that has no hope of success. Not only does the program preach abstinence through adolescence but abstinence until marriage. Good luck!!

There are numerous studies which state that teaching abstinence is not only ineffective, but also irresponsible. Teaching abstinence without teaching proper contraception technique is reckless. Do you know why? Kids are going to have sex. They are going to have sex. THEY ARE GOING TO HAVE SEX!!!!

Why are ministers involved in the teaching curriculum? I am pretty sure that is a clear violation of The Constitution. Why is the federal government giving out absitnence grants. The GAO, the governments own oversight organization said that teaching abstinence without fully teaching contraception techniques (among other things) is a violation of federal law. After the GAO made this recommendation HHS (Health and Human Services Admin) changed the Federal Abstinence Grant guidelines to specifically preclude the teaching of contraception techniques. It is wonderful to see the Bush administration isn't just interested in breaking laws involving illegal search and seizure. They are violating the Constitutional rights of children and endangering their lives at the same time. Rock on.

No 1 of Consequence

The saga is at an end

Milton Bradley has torn his ACL and is out for the year. 244 Plate appearances and a cloud of dust.

So sad. Sadder still that I care.

No 1 of Consequence

Never tie your fantasy baseball hopes to an insane player

Read my post about Milton Bradley. Then read this. Then picture myself slamming my head into my desk saying "6 more plate appearances... YOU F-ING LUNATIC YOU COULDN'T WAIT SIX MORE PLATE APPEARANCES BEFORE YOU MELTED DOWN LIKE CHERNOBYL?"

No 1 of Consequence

Today's sign I am a major nerd

I have been in the same fantasy baseball league for over a decade. I won't go into details about how much more geeky my league is than others but take my word for it when I say, we go above and beyond. I actually flew to NJ last year for the draft.

"No 1, who cares? Why are you telling us this unimportant nonsense?"

Very good question.

Milton Bradley of the San Diego Padres needs 250 plate appearances in order to qualify for the league next year. As of this moment he has 240. I am currently monitoring the Padres - Rockies box score to check each time he comes up to bat.

"Why in the name of all that is good in this world would you do that?"

Another good question.

Milton Bradley has been injured about half a dozen times this season. This is the reason he has so few plate appearances. (500-600 is the norm for a baseball season) He is currently battling a strain to one of the oblique muscles on his side. The Padres are fighting for a playoff spot right now, so if they feel he can't play up to his normal level they may sit him down for the last 2 weeks of the season and play a healthy player instead.

I don't care about Milton Bradley. I don't care about the San Diego Padres. All I care about are these last ten plate appearances. Yes, I am the biggest geek in all the land

No 1 of Consequence

The trials and tribulations of being a busy blogger

There is no excuse really, but work is once again all I am thinking about. Well, that and how many rounds of Resistance I will get to play on any given night. Well that, Resistance, and the ever blooming entrepreneurial ideas that are gnawing at me.

I want to write about the country. It makes me sad and I want to share that with you. I want to write about the kids. They make me happy and I want to share that too. I want to write about the Jets. They make me suicidal and I am sure that will make you laugh. I want to write about what I am thinking. Some people have found that interesting from time to time. I want to do all of these things. However, I don't have enough time to really explore my thoughts.

What do you think of the new template?

No 1 of Consequence

5 years

I have been using blogger for 5 years in the first and second incarnations of No 1 of Consequence. In that 5 years I have not changed the layout of the blog at all. I am going to do it. I have links that need to be updated and some more traffic drivers I want to add in. The new blogger layout is much more conducive to easy editing.

This weekend it will happen.

L'Shana Tova (that means Happy New Year to my non Hebrew readers)

No 1 of Consequence

International travel is yucky

Please forgive the lowbrow title, but I am exhausted. I am in Geneva this week and after spending labor day on various planes getting here. Between all day overnight travel on Monday and working all day and part of the evening on Tuesday I am still not totally recovered. I slept well last night, but am still jet lagged to a significant degree. I will start to feel better tomorrow and Friday, right in time to waste my entire Saturday traveling home.

This place is so absolutely gorgeous it is almost worth the trip. It make me wish I could paint.

No 1 of Consequence

I lived in Israel

From 1993-1994 I lived in Israel as a participant in the Otzma community service program. At the time a large portion of that program was spent living on a kibbutz and learning to speak Hebrew. I found the kibbutz experience to be one of the most rewarding and peaceful experiences of my life. It was disconnected living for the most part, completely foreign to anything I had ever known in my life as a priviledged teen-ager/early twenty something from NJ.

I worked in a plastics factory and picked potatoes. I ate hearty meals with the community and played basketball every night with my friends. All the pain and heartache that my time at Temple University had worn into me seemed to melt away in the Negev sun. In addition I was surrounded by one of the most talented and brilliant groups of young people I ever had the good fortune to meet and being around them made me a better person.

Gary Becker & Richard Posner, perhaps two of the greatest minds of our time have a blog. They recently wrote about the transformation of the kibbutz movement and postulate that the time of the kibbutz has passed. This makes me very sad.

No 1 of Consequence