CPI option 1 – Supervising Teacher

 CPI option 1 – Supervising Teacher            

               I have covered the IPI option, and CPI option 1 – HSAP. Today, I cover the other CPI option 1 choice. CPI option 1 is different from option 2 in the regards that under option 1, there is a real person that you must interact with who will supervise your homeschooling experience. Option 2 is more about testing and I’ll cover that in upcoming posts.

               We know that under the HSAP option, the school provides you with a supervising teacher. Under the Supervising Teacher option, you provide your own teacher. There are teachers in Iowa who you can hire to be your supervising teacher. Maybe you’re lucky and you have a teacher’s certificate, or maybe you have a family member with a teaching certificate? All you need for this option it seems is a teacher who has a current folder on file with the Iowa Department of Education. A folder is technically a teaching license. It is also recommended that you find a teacher whose folder reflects those areas of teaching that pertain to what you are teaching at home.

               This supervising teacher will meet with your child twice per quarter, face to face. The school cannot dictate which subjects to teach your child. No annual testing is required. All you do is write the name of your supervising teacher on the CPI Form A where indicated and that’s all you have to do. You still have to show proof of up to date immunizations with your first filing of Form A.

•                This option also allows for dual enrollment with the school. Just make sure that you check that option on Form A where indicated.

•                You can choose this option anytime during the school-year, but must file Form A within 14 days of pulling your child out of school.

               I would also note; your supervising teacher is your link between homeschooling the way you want to, and running afoul with the school. It seems imperative that you find a supervising teacher with a like-minded vision for educating your child.

 

CPI option 1 – HSAP

CPI option 1 – HSAP 

               In my last blog post, I mentioned the IPI option for homeschooling in Iowa. Today, I’ll start wading through the other homeschool options currently available to Iowa families. While IPI is an option all its own, the CPI (Competent Private Instruction) has four separate options which make the CPI a little more tricky. What adds to the ambiguity is the fact that the Iowa Legislature changed a lot of stuff this year (2013) and it’s not really all cut and dry. CPI has two option, and with each of those two options, are two more options. Today, I’ll focus on CPI option 1 – HSAP 

               Just a note to the reader – understand; I have never homeschooled under the CPI option. I am fairly new to this myself. I may have chosen the CPI option if it weren’t so confusing. The CPI option 1 – HSAP is probably the least confusing of the CPI options, but it’s also the one you may find the hardest to utilize. What it depends upon is whether or not your school offers a HSAP. HSAP stands for Home School Assistance Program. Under this option, the school assigns you a supervising teacher. This supervising teacher will hold your hand during home schooling. They will help supervise you and they are required by law to meet face to face with your child a certain number of times per quarter. I believe it’s currently 4 times per quarter. If your school does not offer a HSAP, this option is unavailable to you unless you open enroll into a school which offers a HSAP. Marion Independent Schools in Marion, Iowa supposedly has a very successful HSAP and it’s my understanding that a lot of people open enroll in their school just to have access to their HSAP.  

               Depending on the school, you may pick your own curriculum, or the school may choose it for you. Many HSAPs I understand provide curriculum for you if asked. Remember this though, if you choose the HSAP option, you are obligated to teach your child whatever the school tells you if they choose. They have that right under the HSAP rules. If you don’t like their curriculum, this may not be the best option for you.

               If you want your child to have access to classes at school such as band, art, or anything else that you’re not able to or comfortable teaching, then you have the option to dual enroll. This also opens the door for those of you who want your children to participate in sports. If you wish to utilize these services from the school, you must choose the dual enrollment option. Dual enrollment is not available to IPI. If you want your kids to participate in sports, choose one of these CPI options.

               You must fill out Form A which is available from the Iowa Department of Education website. Every CPI option requires that this form be filled out. You also need to have proof of immunizations filed with the school. You can choose this option anytime during the school year, but must file Form A within 14 days of pulling your child out of school. Also, it’s my understanding that the school does not have to enroll your child into the HSAP program after a certain date in the school year. It seems to have something to do with funding.  My advice to you is to make your choice before school starts and make sure your paperwork is in before September 1^st. Otherwise, unless you have assurance from your superintendent that they will allow your child into the HSAP after the cutoff date, it may be best to choose another option for the rest of the school year.

               If you wish to consider this option further, I would highly recommend contacting your school’s superintendent.

 

Homeschooling in Iowa 2013

               I have thought about homeschooling for several years now. Every time I sought information on how to homeschool, I seemed to hit roadblocks. It was almost like a secret that outsiders weren’t allowed to be privy to. While I never did ask a current homeschooling family how they homeschooled (because I personally don't know any), I did ask a couple of families that I knew homeschooled in the past. They seriously acted like they didn’t know how they did it and told me to go ask another family.

               When I went to the websites available online to get information, I can honestly tell you that I got confused. It wasn’t a cut and dry process. These websites beat around the bush with a bunch of gobble-dy-gook and never seemed to come out with a step by step process on how to homeschool in Iowa.

               Most of these homeschool websites have a Christian slant to them. That’s all well and good, but the law doesn’t mention religion. What I wanted was to know how to homeschool legally. I want to help clarify how in a few blog posts.

               I am new to homeschooling. So far, everything is going great. I love the freedom. I love spending more time with my kids. I like the thought that when my kids grow up, they’ll be able to say that I was their teacher. Just that thought alone gives me the “warm fuzzies”. 

               So….do you want to homeschool? If the answer is yes, then the first thing you need to do is choose a homeschool option. There are many and the paperwork and information required will be determined by the option you choose. There are two main options currently (late 2013) in Iowa. One is the IPI which is new, and the other is the CPI which has been around for a long time. However, the CPI options are varied and complex.

               Do you want to homeschool your kid now? I mean right now. You can pull your kid out tomorrow and homeschool. While you can pull them out immediately in most cases with the CPI option, the IPI option is the easiest and simplest way to homeschool your child right now.

The IPI Option
 

               To homeschool your child under the IPI, all you need to do is write your school superintendent a letter stating your intent to homeschool your child under the IPI option. It doesn’t need to be fancy. It doesn’t need to have a lot of information. You can simply write, “Dear Mr. or Mrs. XXXXXX, I will be homeschooling my son/daughter (Insert name & date of birth) via the IPI option. This will be effective (insert date). Thank you.” Then sign your name. Make a copy of it. Give one copy to the superintendent’s office and keep the other for yourself. You’re done. Clean out your child’s desk and that’s all there is to it.

               There are a couple of things to keep in mind with the IPI. First, you must teach certain classes to your child. They are; mathematics, reading, language arts, science, and social studies. However, nobody will be coming to your door checking up on this. There are no homeschool police. You’re on your honor under this system, which really upsets those opposed to homeschooling. Truthfully, there are some parents who probably won’t teach their children. I do not advocate pulling your kids out of school unless you plan on teaching them. If you're not going to actually teach your children anything, then you are harming your child. It’s my hope that the information that I will provide in my blog posts will be used by you to make your child’s learning experience better.

               Secondly, you cannot have more than 4 unrelated children homeschooled under the IPI option at once. Again, there are no homeschool police, but if your school catches wind of it, I suppose somebody may come and have a visit with you. 

               Finally, by choosing the IPI, which is the simplest way to homeschool, you wash your hands of the school and they wash their hands of you. You are not eligible for any help from the school. You also don’t have to give any other information to the school. You don’t have to have your children tested. You don’t have to tell the school anything other than the fact that you will be homeschooling under the IPI option.

               In the coming weeks, as I find time to type, and truthfully, as I learn more about homeschooling myself, I will post more information up here. If you have questions, please leave them in the comments section and I will try my best to answer them. 

               I will try and go over the CPI options in my next blog post.

Relief

     I am relieved that KinDee didn’t win a board seat tonight. When the other party who we thought was also going to run chose not to run, it meant that the best KinDee would have done was be one person out of 5 fighting a losing battle against Whole Grade Sharing. Her loss tonight means that she won’t have to be running up to the school for board meetings just to be outvoted at every turn.

     You know, I have always thought about home schooling, but never pursued it. I didn’t know how to go about it. I thought it was terribly complicated. Well, it’s not. Having Valley enter into Whole Grade Sharing turned out to be the push we needed to look into home schooling seriously. Now that I’m home schooling Karen, I want to home school all three of the children that live with me. It’s not that hard. It doesn’t take as much time as I thought it would.

               I don’t have a traditional day with Karen. I home school her a few hours here, a few hours there. She doesn’t have to spend that 90 minutes per day on the bus. She can school in her pajamas. She can eat lunch while learning. If she gets tired, she can take a nap. Karen loves being home schooled. KinDee had to go to the school the other day to get Jenna out early for an eye appointment and Karen went along. Karen got to go in the school again and a few of her old friends waved at her. When Karen came home, I asked her if she missed school and she said that she did not. KinDee said that Karen was afraid that that she’d try to leave her there at the school and that Karen kept asking for reassurance that KinDee was going to be going home with her.

               God as my witness, I haven’t pumped anything into Karen’s head. She wanted to go to school in pre-school. She went for two full years. But, as she went to kindergarten, she said the kids got mean. I know she was picked on while riding the bus and she would come home crying a lot. That ended her desire to want to go to school anymore. She loves being home and being left alone. She’s not a recluse, but she doesn’t like being messed with either. She loves going to the library and going to church. She loves shopping and visiting family. She just hates how kids are at school. Yes, the world is full of bullies, but Karen doesn’t need to put up with it at this point in her life. I feel confident that she’ll be able to handle assholes when she’s older. I’ll see to it that she’s ready.

               Next is Jenna’s turn. I want her to be home schooled now, but she has asked to go at least through Christmas. Even though I don’t want to, I have told her that I will allow her that, but if the school pisses me off between now and then, I’m yanking her.

               Sean is a special case. He has an IEP and is special-ed. We fought like hell to get him that IEP last year and it’s good through this coming spring. I can pull him and home school him now, but if I read the law correctly, I have to get permission from the Iowa Department of Education. I may just let him finish this year out and just ask that his IEP not be renewed. They don’t seem to be doing a damned thing with it this year anyhow. Sean was home from school today and I was giving Karen a math lesson and Sean didn’t even know where to place commas in numbers, or how to even say numbers in the thousands. Take the number 1,348. He said it was one hundred thirty four thousand and eight. He put the comma between the 4 and the 8. The kid is in the 4^th grade!!!

               I have taught Karen to put a comma every third spot and that the commas have names. The first one is thousand. She can identify numbers up to 999, and by knowing the comma’s name, she can identify her numbers up to 999,999. Once I teach her the next comma, Million, she’ll be able to identify numbers up to 999,999,999.

               Whole Grade Sharing has turned out to be a blessing in disguise. Valley is gone. It only exists on a tax statement anymore. It’s North Fayette Valley now and while I will eventually have to pay my property taxes to that mess of an organization, I don’t have to send my kids to it. I am sad though that my children will never graduate from the same school that my father and so many other family members graduated from. I was really looking forward to that. This will be better though. In the end, all we leave on this earth for the most part is our family. I will be my children’s teacher. Not many parents today can say that. I will be one of the lucky few who will be able to. For that, I’m very thankful.

East Buchanan Memories

I attended school at East Buchanan from Kindergarten through the fifth grade. I then went to North Linn where I completed the 11^th grade, and then went about a week and a half of my senior year before dropping out. I did get my GED in 1997 up at Calmar.

I feel like I went to school at a special time, with really neat teachers. I thought it would be fun to write down memories from those years of school. As I age, my memory clouds up more and more. If I have any of these wrong, please correct me, or add your own memories as well. I’ll try to group them together the best I can.

Kindergarten: Mrs. Cook’s class

On the first day of school, I cried. Mrs. Murray comforted me. I never really had a babysitter up to this point and never went to any kind of pre-school. I was scared.

We didn’t go every day of the week. I believe it was every other day.

Doing eye tests by using your hand to point the direction of the letter E.

Wearing those headphones in those cubicles and using a crayon on laminated paper. Mrs. Sauer (I believe that was her name) helped out.

Mrs. Cook would give you a sticker for finishing your lunch.

Monaghan reminded me of Animal Island. I nearly forgot about that.

Nap time.

I actually had a real cigar box for my pencils, etc. That wouldn’t fly today.

Marching around the room, I didn’t like being last, so I budged in line and had to sit in the corner. I was pissed.

Donald knocking over the Christmas tree and breaking my ornament.

Rory Higgins!

Andy Hansen was in our class too.

Melissa Sprague stuttered, but got much better as she got older.

Painting with those backwards shirts on.

Dancing Ducks was the workbook that I worked from. Maybe we all did?

Before the playground was paved. I don’t even remember the chain link fence being like it was a year or two later. I remember flying off of the merry go round and landing face first in the gravel and tore up my upper lip real bad. I’m surprised I can grow a mustache to this day.

Didn’t we ride on the Quasky fire trucks?

I rode bus 11. It only had 48 capacity and was shorter than the others.

At the end of the year, I remember Mrs. Cook saying that she’d watch us grow up and be proud of us. A year or so later, Jason Franck and I were playing outside the kindergarten room and hit a ball into her window. She looked out the window and scowled. I thought, “I bet she isn’t so proud of us now.”

Mrs. Cook taught us how dirty snow was by melting it and showing us all the dirt in it.

Mrs. Cook sent us home with gladiolus flowers to take to our mothers on mother’s day.

We also made a card for our mothers with an SOS pad.

I remember when Sean Monaghan came to school. He was the new kid, but had been in an accident and was recovering, and that is why he didn’t start when we did.

Lunch tickets were paper and had to be punched. Milk tickets were the same.

You actually could get a straw for your milk.

Using the parachute in gym class.

We also played cowboys and Indians in the gym with Mr. Steffen.

I’m sure I’m forgetting a lot more.

First Grade: Mrs. Bovenmeyer

The first thing we did on the first day of school was color the letter L. It was color by number if memory serves me correctly, and it got colored red.

Hey – who are all these new kids?

Ferocious Fish. Blue Tailed Horse. Runaway Monkey.

Letter People – Tall Teeth and Funny Feet.

Samantha Morris. She didn’t stay with us long. She attended North Linn with me years later.

Jeff Westemeyer as well. He came to North Linn years later and his name was Jeff Pentecost. Not sure why it changed. I think he had a very troubled home life.

Cutting photos out of magazines when we’d do each letter. I remember cutting a refrigerator out for the letter F and Mrs. Bovenmeyer got a kick out of it and said that she knew I was doing my own work. I learned that fridge was short for refrigerator. I never heard it called anything else!

Nap time. Mrs. Bovenmeyer would do these goofy things where it looked like she was kissing her knees.

Hide the checker.

The coat closet after the early kids left – jeesh!

Mrs. Hagie (Is that how it was spelled?) She was our helper. Jeremy DeMuth asked her if she farted dust in the gymnasium during lunch. She wasn’t amused.

We left a note for Mrs. Hagie and went and “played hookie”. Mrs. Bovenmeyer took us to the grocery store (now Wee Willy’s) and bought us little Snicker’s bars. We took the afternoon off and played.

The whole class going to Cato Webb’s home who lived in town. He raised rabbits. He helped build my father’s root cellar and put in a chimney for us so I already knew who he was. He had a lot of rabbits!

Flying kites with Mr. Steffen. Man that was fun.

Using those turtle scooters in gym class.

Was it about this time that we played under those oak trees and used the leaves to build houses? Weren’t we supposed to be a family of moles, or some sort of critters? Oh, it was fun whatever it was. To this day I smell the oak leaves in the fall and remember that.

Film strips. Advance one frame every time you hear the beep.

All of our worksheets had purple print. That’s because they used a mimeograph machine in the office. It had a very distinctive sound as it ran. It had a round drum and sounded like a little engine when running.

Puff the Magic Dragon

The early bus leaving school with the Winthrop and Aurora kids.

Mr. Meyers as our principal, and his bald head. He retired at the end of our first grade year.

Singing the Kookaburra song with Mr. Meyers as he took us up to Winthrop in the old Ford van the school had. Only a handful of us got to ride up with him.

Was this the year that Cindy Conrad was the snowman and knocked a microphone over? Wasn’t Janet Klein Santa? Vague memories. Maybe this was second grade?

Some older kids came and put on a puppet house type show in our classroom.

Dressing up for Halloween and going to Mrs. Sullivan’s room to see if her class could identify us.

Was this the year Craig Johnson from KWWL came to visit us in the gymnasium?

Wasn’t this also the year we would go to the gym and work on telling time with those paper clocks?

Ms. Thiesen telling us a “scary” story and having it involve hearing footsteps. It was Mrs. Bovenmeyer coming to get us from class. It wasn’t very scary, but memorable.

2^nd grade: Mrs. Hogan

Jeremy DeMuth stabbed me in the arm with his pencil. Man that hurt and I could still see that lead in my arm up to a few years ago. It has since faded.

Travis Cook had a pizza party for his birthday. I couldn’t go because I had the chicken pox.

Monaghan and Greg Schmeltzer skipping around the room after the early bus left.

Sean’s mother would substitute and Sean would be a smartass to her!

Pee-Wee wrestling up at Winthrop.

Jennifer Schweitzer’s last year with our class.

Kelly Short threw me down the stairs. They were concrete and that hurt my knees pretty bad.

Either this year or back in first grade, we had a thing in the gym where we all brought green food. I remember my mother made some sort of salad that I didn’t like, but I remember Candy Meier liked it, whatever it was.

We got a new bus. I can’t remember if it was here in 2^nd grade or in third. It was bus #8. I remember being excited about it.

Mr. Zimmerman was the new principle.

Didn’t we learn cursive here in 2^nd grade?

Going upstairs to Ms. Tassler’s room for math (later Mrs. Stafford)

Ms. (or was it Mrs.) Cherry would also be a substitute.

Was this the year we went to the Grout Museum on field trip? I remember the planetarium.

I should probably remember a lot more than I do about second grade, but for some reason, I’ve forgotten a lot.

3^rd grade: Mrs. Blumenshine (Later Mrs. Bisinger).

Brushing our teeth and fluoride.

Janet Klein’s mother would substitute. She was a fun substitute teacher. I remember her spelling bees.

Read all about it.

Using those old Apple computers. Wasn’t there a program where you had to make the guy jump over something by finding the letter on the keyboard?

Was this John Bare’s first year with us? I remember him talking about Dunkerton like Rose Nylund from Golden Girls spoke of St. Olaf. You knew John came from Dunkerton!

Going to Mrs. Bovenmeyers for reading. I remember we had a tornado drill during reading and we told Mrs. Bovenmeyer that it wouldn’t scare us since the sun was out. She said that tornadoes can happen even in the sunshine. Sure enough, on the morning of April 23^rd, 2001, a tornado formed in broad daylight and damaged many homes and businesses (Jensen trucking for one) there in Independence, Iowa.

4^th Grade: Ms. Decker

Having to take showers for gym class. Boy those shower floors were slick.

They had those exercise stations around the school. I last drove by the school a few years ago and you could still see a couple of the stations, but in terrible state of repair. The signs were very faded.

There was one girl in special ed – I think her name was Rachel – she got mad and slammed her plate on a table. It shattered and was as loud as a shotgun. Pieces of it flew everywhere. Everyone got real silent and she got even more upset and cried.

The space shuttle Challenger exploded.

The Indianapolis 500 was rained out.

Hacky Sacks

Chris King and me flipping a video camera off in class.

We went to the restroom one floor about the fourth grade. Adam Hamilton tried throwing me down the stairs. After Kelly Short doing it to me, I wouldn’t let Adam do it. We about came to blows over it.

I remember picking on Donald McIntosh while waiting in line at the bottom of the steps in Ms. Decker’s class. We would kick his feet out from under him. Yes, I was one of those who added to his burdens.

Speaking of burdens, Ms. Thiesen had a lot on her plate. She got pissed off during class, cursed at us, and slammed her piano lid down – not necessarily in that order.

This was the year that we got to monkey around picking out our instruments. Elizabeth Loughren and I had trombone. Monaghan was on saxophone. Keith Weiland was on tuba or sousaphone. I can remember some of the others, but not all that well.

Was this the year that we’d go to the computer room and run those “turtle” programs, or was that the 5^th grade?

Was this the year we took the field trip to Waterloo to see the bakery and newspaper? Maybe that was the fifth grade. Whatever year it was, Adam Hamilton and I got into trouble for flipping the bird to cars on the road.

5^th Grade; Mrs. Higgins

Intramurals. I cannot remember if we did that in 4^th grade or not.

Science class with Mr. Schloss. That space game was fun. Amy Smock was out of school sick and she was our captain. We did pretty good in her absence.

Mr. Schloss taking us over to the buses to measure the windows.

Mr. Schloss teaching us the difference between the speed of sound and the speed of light. Whoever fired that starters pistol off by the school had a surprise when Mr. Gillihan came out wondering what the hell was going on.

Mr. Schloss’s blue camaro.

Mr. Schloss telling us about how our sense of taste and smell would get worse the older we got. He talked about old people drinking sour milk. He also explained why the television sounded louder in the morning after you slept even though you hadn’t touched the volume. It’s because your hearing restores itself over night.

I got into Doctor Who. I got made fun of for it, but oh well, it’s pretty popular now. Guess I was ahead of my time!

Them really dark sunglasses with the goofy designs on them.

Didn’t we do product advertising that year? I remember Lisa Jones do something about flavored hair mousse, or something along those lines.

Didn’t B.J. Bass move to Tennessee this year?

Field trip to the Old Capitol in Iowa City.

First year of band. I really enjoyed it. I remember there was a song called Trade Winds, but I cannot remember if we played that, or if it was the 6^th grade.

Happy Notes from Ms. Thiesen

Catching Mr. Schloss’s fly ball on the last day of school bare handed. Afterwards, Amy Smock gave me hell for “bragging”.

Other memories:

Jay Bonefas, Jason Franck, and I rode Connie Oliphant’s bus.

Cindy Conrad and Sean Monaghan rode Nan’s bus #12

Travis Cook rode bus #6. Some older fellow drove it and had a reputation of being hell on the bus and it breaking down a lot.

Sue Walhart was also a bus driver, but I cannot remember who rode her bus. When I did Pee Wee wrestling, it was her bus that I rode to Winthrop.

There used to be a basketball game every year where the Iowa Hawkeye football players would come and play basketball against some of our teachers. I remember Mr. Schloss always got in on it. It would be held in the evenings and I went to one or two of them.

The janitor who rode the three wheeled bicycle. Donny was it? I remember they did a mural on the wall or something like that and his bicycle was painted on it.

Jennifer Jensen’s father came and showed us ventriloquism. He told us how to say certain words like peanut butter like “kteenut dutter” and how that would fool the ear.

Amy Smock’s parents brought horses to the playground in Quasky.

The morning a fire destroyed the home just south of the Winthrop school. One of the kids went to school and was a grade or two behind us. I heard they had to get out of the house with just the clothes on their backs, and it wasn’t much.

Corey McMurrin skipping school.

One April Fool’s Day, someone took a “For Sale” sign from a home and placed it in the school yard there in Winthrop.

Bobby Steffen (I think that was his last name???) Hee Haw!

Who was that world traveler guy who would come to school and show us film of his travels across the globe?

Didn’t Santa and his elves visit us in the school gymnasium at Quasky?

Bus #5 was my favorite substitute bus. It was probably one of the oldest buses, and it would backfire when it shifted!

Woody would run the bus route sometimes.

Stopping at the railroad tracks in Winthrop with the bus per state law.

Connie Oliphant running over Hepker’s dog with the bus!

Lopata’s fire. We stopped to get the kids and the fire department was there putting the fire out. I can’t remember if the kids went to school that day or not.

Sliding on the ice in the wintertime at Quasky.

I used to play jump rope with the girls there in Quasky. I guess you could say that I liked being around girls early on!

The playground at Quasky also had an extra merry go round on the north side of the school that was a good spot to go to if you wanted to get away from other kids, but don’t stray too far or you’d get in trouble.

I mentioned Samantha Morris and Jeff Westemeyer, but Penny Power and Mike Schrock were other East Buchanan kids who wound up at North Linn. Tonya King was in our class for awhile, but was held back a year. I went to school with her and Chris King’s cousins, Deryl, Sheldon, and Tricia at North Linn. I also had Chad Manson’s father as my gym teacher and football coach at North Linn.

I’ve got a lot of things that I’m sure I am forgetting. I spent 45 minutes each morning and each evening just on the bus ride. I have a lot of memories from that too, but very few would remember those like I do. This list is not meant to be all inclusive. I just thought it would be fun to tiptoe through a few of the memories that I can rattle off of the top of my brain on a beautiful Wednesday afternoon.

 

 

Satan’s New Trick

Satan is always coming up with new ways to condemn man’s soul to Hell. He’s been perfecting his craft for as long as he’s been in charge of this earth.

It seems Satan has a new trick up his sleeve which is working wonders for him right now. He has mixed love and sin together and perverted them in a way only Satan himself could engineer. God condemned homosexuality. It’s right there in the bible. Moses condemned it as well, but it can be said that Moses was just speaking what God told him. Either way, homosexuality has always been considered a sin.

Satan’s new trick involves making the act of homosexuality out to be an act of love and those who oppose it as love’s enemy. Who doesn’t love “love”? He’s succeeding too. It’s becoming more and more acceptable to live in outright sin and it has become very unacceptable to speak out against living in sin. That is Satan’s handiwork for you.

Well, even though the gay community will tell you it’s a bunch of shit, it is possible to love the person, but hate the sin. Jesus never once told anyone to continue to live in sin. Not once. He always forgave the person, and even then, only when they sought forgiveness, and told them to sin no more.

My, how the times have changed. That’s okay. This world is but a test. God put us here in this filthy place to see if we choose good or evil. We have a choice here. When I go before God someday, I will be judged based upon my abhorrence  or acceptance of sin. I am a sinner too. I don’t ask anyone to overlook my sin or to accept my continued sinning without remorse. I ask for prayers to help me overcome. These people living in these homosexual relationships aren’t even remorseful. Many of them probably aren’t even Christians, while there are some who are, and they are trying to change the church to where it accepts sin too. Oh, Satan is a wily one.

Where does it end? I have heard those who embrace this new reality say that by allowing homosexuals to openly marry and live in sin, that nothing changes for me. Maybe that’s true.

If my neighbor beats his dog to death, nothing changes for me either, yet that’s illegal.

If two women want to marry the same man, they cannot. I believe this will be the next frontier in marriage, but that’s for a different time and place to discuss.

There were societies where people practiced human sacrifice. Those being sacrificed were more than willing. We don’t allow that. Even in cases where one elderly spouse asks the other spouse to put them out of their misery, we charge the surviving spouse with murder. That’s a fact Jack. If we use the same argument as we do for accepting gay marriage; “It doesn’t mean that you have to kill your spouse if asked” & “It doesn’t affect you if Biff kills his cancer ridden wife Glenda – it’s a personal matter”. Then why are we prosecuting these people who put their spouses out of their misery then? I’ll tell you why.

This country was founded on Judeo-Christian principles. We are throwing them away and entering into a dangerous lifestyle, not much different than the Roman Empire before Christianity. The one difference is that even in the old Roman Empire, they believed in a higher power. Man is making themselves out to be God in this new order of things, and the government is doing the same.

Have hope though. God said it would get really bad before he returned. They are right, you aren’t required to go out and marry someone from the same sex. But remember, despite what the proponents of this sinful lifestyle would tell you, you do not have to embrace it. You are not in error when you shun sin. Satan wants to make you out to be the enemy and he is doing just that. Hold fast to the faith. People will reject you as they rejected Jesus. It was fortold in the bible. And despite what people tell you, it is possible to love the person but hate the sin.

When you look at how the Muslim world feels about us, just remember this. Most of the Muslim world lives by the Koran. If only we Christians would live by the bible in the same manner. When the Muslims call us the “Great Satan”, this is what they are referring to. They see us as a society that promotes sinfulness and forgets about God. Homosexuality is not tolerated in the Muslim world.

It’s my understanding that the Muslims would rather tolerate a Jew or Christian than an Athiest or Agnostic. Muslims have less respect for someone who denies God than a person who sees God differently than them. Satan is using us as his tool to wipe God from this earth. Satan is full of tricks and is good at his craft. God is better and in the end, will overcome and reclaim this earth. I anxiously await His return.

More Obama Hogwash

            Carney, who in recent weeks has studiously avoided mentioning Snowden by name, let loose from the White House podium on Monday, criticizing the former contractor for the countries he had potentially chosen for refuge.

            "Mr. Snowden's claim that he is focused on supporting transparency, freedom of the press and protection of individual rights and democracy is belied by the protectors he has potentially chosen - China, Russia, Ecuador, as we've seen," Carney said.

"His failures to criticize these regimes suggests that his true motive throughout has been to injure the national security of the United States, not to advance Internet freedom and free speech."

           

            What a bunch of hogwash! This is no different than Obama calling the Boston Bombers “cowards”.  The administration wants to make Snowden look like a liar by pointing out the lack of free speech and press in the countries he chose to seek refuge from the United States.

            I’m sure Snowden would have loved to have chosen a country with more freedom of press and speech, but he is in the position of having the United States government coming after him, so he has limited choices on which countries he can go to that will protect him from long arm of the United States government. Ecuador is certainly better than China, Russia, Cuba, Iran, or North Korea. I still wonder why his Iceland plans fell through…..

            It seems he picked the best countries he could have considering his options. Do you know who would have LOVED to have sheltered Snowden? North Korea. Think of the propaganda they could have generated! Cuba might have sheltered him as well, or even Iran. Why do you think he wants to go to Central America? It’s because he wants the freest country who would shelter him from the United States. Ecuador fits that bill. We have this opinion that the United States is the greatest country on the planet. A lot of other countries like to think they have the greatest too.

            While the United States is one of the more free countries when it comes to intellectual freedom, many other countries are more free when it comes to life in general. Take seat belt laws for example. There are places on this planet who allow you to choose to be a dummy or not. You get fined here for it.

            That may be a piss poor example, but I have spoken to a lot of people in my years driving semi, many who came to America from abroad. Many of them felt they had more personal freedoms back home, but felt America is where the money was at. Many of them told me that the American Dream comes with giving up a lot of personal freedom.

            I did speak to one guy who escaped here from Romania in the 1980’s while it was still under communist rule. He said that he moved to North Dakota to get as far away from centralized government as he possibly could. He told me that he was disturbed by a lot of things happening in the country and that we were moving towards a police state like he lived in. He certainly was an expert on knowing how a police state operated having actually lived and escaped from one. He said the big difference was that we are constantly told that we’re free when we aren’t, so we don’t fight back against our oppressors whereas in Romania, you had no illusion of freedom. I spoke to this guy back in 1998. I wonder how he feels now, especially after 9/11 and the Patriot Act?

            If you get right down to it, the only true freedom you have here in this country is the freedom to think what you want to think, although you are not free to act upon those thoughts and beliefs (George Reynolds vs. United States 98 U.S. (8 Otto.) 145 (1878)), and to write your beliefs down and put them out into the public (again with limitations). That’s about it. Other than that, you don’t really have any other freedoms that other people the majority of other countries in the world lack. There are some countries that are terrible like North Korea, but the majority of countries (Australia, Canada, India, Mexico, etc. etc.) have about the same freedoms for their people that we have. Some other countries may have more.

            Let’s look at “evil” Iran for a moment. Surely they don’t have the same intellectual freedoms we have here, but are we much better? We both have corrupt governments. They have elections, we have elections. Their choice of candidates is limited, as is ours. We claim that their elections are corrupt and back here to home a slew of dead Illinoisans voted for Kennedy in 1960. However, being a Christian in Iran has its serious drawbacks. If Snowden wanted to continue celebrating Christmas out in the open, I can see why he skipped Iran. If you’re a Muslim, things aren’t too bad for you there. They follow religious law. You know where the boundaries are and if you cross them, you know what punishment to expect.

             Here, the laws are convoluted and even the attorneys don’t know how things might turn out. A lot of it will depend on whether or not the judge and/or jury liked the tie you wore to court on a particular day. Here in America, it also depends on what the definition of “is” is. The Supreme Court has a long history of letting certain things slide while banning other things and splitting hairs over it. Even their own rulings leave lawyers and judges scratching their heads. Is it any wonder Snowden doesn’t trust our court system here! Snowden went to the best country he could find while staying out of the grasp of the United States of America. What the hell did you expect him to do?

            Here I’ve gotten off track, but the point is, to have our administration say this sort of crap is to politically spin this in a very sophomoric way. What they need to do is just break down and cry; throw their tantrum; and go back to the drawing board to prevent this from happening in the future.

For the record, I’m not saying I agree or disagree with what Mr. Snowden has done. I’m just saying that I understand why he has chosen to go the route he is going in order to find asylum. The government’s take on it is laughable. They know exactly why he’s going the path he is, and it just pisses them off that he’s getting away with it. That’s all. Why doesn’t Carney just stand up there and admit it without all this extra political spin bullshit?