The Atheist Mama

So the entries for “The Début” of the FWJ are due tomorrow.

Entries from MEN & WOMEN accepted!! Men, women are a big part of your lives!! We freethinking women affect you too.

The first Jamboree will be hosted here, and we need hosts for the future.

So don’t forget, mmm ‘kay?

Public schools, according to Nicholas Jackson. He is the Executive Director of Reform America here in Columbus, Ohio.

Here’s what was published in The Columbus Dispatch today:

>Public schools immoral places for children
Monday, February 27, 2006

>In December, I submitted a resolution to the State Convention of Baptists in Ohio, urging pastors and parents to investigate the indoctrination of our young people into the homosexual agenda and to encourage concerned Christian parents to remove their children from public schools.

>At the heels of the recent 11-4 decision by the State Board of Education to censor any criticism of Darwinian evolution, it has become clear that our young people are being indoctrinated into not only a pro-homosexual, but a humanistic religion, as well. Ohio schools have become officially atheistic, godless and toxic, morally, intellectually and spiritually, to our precious children. Ohio evangelical leaders and pastors must urge parents to remove their children from Pharoah’s oppressive schools and give them a thoroughly Christian education, through either Christian schools or home education. Why send them to Sunday School, only to have their faith torn asunder Monday through Friday? It is time to let the children go. NICHOLAS A. JACKSON Executive director, Reform America Ohio coordinator, Exodus Mandate Newark

Maybe he (and his followers) should move to South Carolina or Domino-ville (thanks for the link, Dave)?

Last night, my husband, the kids, and I went to the local Humanist group’s Saturday night dinner function. Every third Saturday, they meet up at a restaurant for some socializing. We were the only one with kids. LOL! We brought some life into that group!

In one of the posts at GifS, there was some discussion about the average age of the members of atheist and humanist groups. It seems that most members are older in age (40+). Now, I’m not saying that over 40 is old, but it’s older than we (my husband and I) are.

The group last night was no exception, but it’s always a good time! I enjoy the conversation of older folk because there is a lot of wisdom and experience behind what is being said. But why is it that the younger generations aren’t attending meeting and taking part of groups like these? Are there more atheists among the older crowd? Are the younger adults too busy with kids and the responsibilities that come with having young children?

What can be done to increase the intrest of younger adults in such groups? One of the members of our local group suggested that atheist families are more drawn to groups like UU because of the community that it provides (our local chapter also provided child care during services). I’m not interested in such churches because of a few reasons. It’s called a church - It kind of goes against what I believe. The idea of attending a “service” is kind of silly to me, as an athiest. But I can understand the desire for communtiy.

The boys had a great time last night, but toward the end, they were getting a little stir crazy. It would be nice to see other familys attending such functions. I would love to continue to bring my children (as long as it’s appropriate, of course) and I would like to see other children for them to relate to in the future.

I want to point out a few posts today.
First of all, it’s “Girl Friday” over at For the Love of Bluegrass. Every Friday, Jennie dedicates her post to women. It’s always a great post, and I really look forward to reading them every week!

Also, over at God is for Suckers, Sean posts “A shout out to female atheists.” He asks for the women to weigh in on life as an atheist. There are a lot of responses, all worth a read.

So, in honor of all of us out there who are freethinkers, I propose “Freethinking Women Jamboree.”

This carnival will be held once a week, and will be posted (hosted) on Fridays (in honor of Girl Friday). Submissions will be due on Wednesday nights.

The first Jamboree will be here and will be up on Friday, March 3rd, 2006. Submissions due on March 1st.

If you are interested in hosting future Jamborees, let me know!

Oh, and here - have a badge:

><a href=”http://freethinkingwomenjamboree.blogspot.com/”><img src=”http://www.theatheistmama.com/images/fwj/fwj_badge.gif” alt=”Freethinking Women Jamboree” /></a>

Article from The Washington Post online:

>The lawsuit by the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey claims that Dubai Ports World was violating its lease by not getting consent for its pending acquisition of the current port operator, London-based Peninsular & Oriental Steam Navigation Co.

Wow. This is an interesting turn of events. I didn’t see this type of thing coming.

>The state of New Jersey filed a related federal lawsuit against the Bush administration on Thursday.

Well all right New Jersey!! My entire family is from Northern NJ, by the way.
And it gets sticky here:

>Dubai Ports World has hired a team of lawyers including former Sen. Bob Dole as it tries to save the deal.

>Dole, husband of Sen. Elizabeth Dole, R-N.C., said he won’t lobby Congress and will limit his involvement to discussions with Bush administration officials and efforts to “help the American people understand the real facts.”

>”I have not nor will I `lobby’ members of Congress on this issue, not even at home,” Dole said in a statement issued late Thursday, after the North Carolina Democratic Party called for Elizabeth Dole to recuse herself from debate about the deal.

>Sen. Elizabeth Dole is among those challenging the deal. Her spokeswoman Lindsay Taylor Mabry said she didn’t know how long the senator had known of her husband’s role in the deal.

I’d hate to be at their dinner table at night!!

I wrote about “The Valley of Wolves: Iraq” quite a while ago but a someone commented on it just last night.

>I have seen the movie and it has not change my mind regarding anti-americanism as I was already anti-american. All you have to do is watch the independed daily news everyday to see what Americans are doing around the world.
>It is also hard to understand you Americans as most of your Hollywood movies are anti-arab, anti-muslim movies. When complain about it you talk about freedom of speach/press etc. One movie is anti-american you forget all about free speach and freedom of press. wakey wakey…isn’t this double standards…I recommend the movie all to see what really is happening in Iraq as we speak.

You know, it’s not that I don’t think that the movie should have been made at all, or that the American actors shouldn’t have been allowed to star in the movie. My problem is with the fact that American actors would want to star in such a movie when we are engaged in a war. Why would they want to fuel hatred of Americans? I guess “money” would be the answer. I would never want to take their right away to star in the movie though.

As for our Hollywood movies - I’m sure you’re right. I don’t really have an answer for that, other than I haven’t been to a movie in quite a while. :-)

I came across the link to Baghdad Burning while reading a post at De Magno Opere tonight. I’ve never visited this blog before. It’s the blog of an Iraqi woman living in Baghdad. She’s an amazing writer. What she has to say about the conflict in Baghdad right now is a must read.

Since the attack on the shrine in Iraq that we heard about yesterday, I’ve been getting pretty nervous. I read this article this morning and now I’m down right terrified. That’s just one of the scary articles out there this morning.

I’ve written about my father before. He called me yesterday. I’m so worried…. I don’t know what to do. I wish there was something that I could do. I feel very helpless. It’s like watching a child cross the street and you see a car coming, but your stuck on something and you just can’t break free. It’s a terrible feeling.

You know, I haven’t said much on this topic here because I don’t really know what to say. I’ve been feeling pretty speechless. I don’t understand how this man can tell us one day that we are at war and that he needs to spy on U.S. citizens for our own protection, and then the next day tell us that he is giving U.A.E. control of our ports. How in the hell can he tell us that he was out of the loop on this deal and then threaten his very first veto if legislation tries to delay it? How can he have so much disrespect for the people of the United States, and Congress??? WTF?

Why? Because President Bush is completely out of control. This man needs to be stopped.

Sounds like someone is going to be making some serious money on this deal. Maybe something else is going on and this is a diversion.

Anyway, I would normally like to articles but I know you have all seen them, and I’ve just read to many. So I’m just putting some thoughts out there.

It’s “The Hot Issue” on The Columbus Dispatch online. What do you think? Go give your opinion.

From The Columbus Dispatch online - 2/23/06

Ok, brace yourself. This is absolutely disgusting, disturbing, and just sad. This man was arrested in my town, at the movie theater right down the road.

[Link]
>A disturbing case was discovered Tuesday about a Central Ohio man who allegedly told police he likes to drink the urine of adolescent boys.

>Alan Patton, 54, is in jail after allegedly telling Gahanna police that he enjoys drinking urine.

>Detective Ron Fithen interviewed Patton after he was arrested while leaving a movie theater last weekend.

>”Listening to his describe it, it’s like listening to a crack or cocaine addict. He’s addicted to children’s urine,” Fithen said.

I heard this on the radio this morning and I was stunned. This man was convicted of rape 13 years ago.
So obviously this guy needs to be locked up - somewhere. But where? Is drinking urine against the law (I can’t believe I just typed that)? Should he be in jail? Would a state hospital be a better place?

It’s up at The Education Wonks

Check it out - lots of great posts. It’s always interesting to see other points of view on the state of education.

>The Supreme Court ruled unanimously Tuesday that a small congregation in New Mexico may use hallucinogenic tea as part of a four-hour ritual intended to connect with God.

Read more here.

I knew we should have stayed in New Mexico with my in-laws!!

Another day in February to celebrate science - Round Earth Day.

>Although most elementary school children know that the earth is spherical, some do not. Round Earth Day is a good day to make sure that all kids are up to speed. And for those smart-aleck students who roll their eyes, Round Earth Day is a good time to remind everyone that once upon a time most if not all cultures on the planet believed (rather strongly) that the Earth was flat. Adults believed it! And it is a good day to remind them that even today, people in some areas on Earth that have been relatively unreached by modern technology and knowledge still retain a belief in a flat earth.

Visit the link above to get some ideas on how to celebrate.

Dinner tonight:
Meatloaf Balls, peas, and onion rings.

Two posts have been getting a lot of attention and there is a lot of info in the comments of both. So I thought I’d take some of the key information being posted in the comments and put it all together here.

First of all, in my original post on Teenscreen, I quoted information from two sources: CCHR and PsychSearch.net.
Ron brought to my attention that both of these organizations have ties to Scientology (Ken Kramer is the founder of PsychSearch.net and a Scientologist and Jan Eastgate is the president of CCHR and has been described as an arm of the Church of Scientology). So this is good info to have, and as Debbie said, we need to keep this in mind.

Debbie has done a lot of seaching around on the subject of Teenscreen too, and found some interesting stuff.

>…virtually all of the gun-related massacres that have made headlines over the past decade have had one thing in common: They were perpetrated by people taking Prozac, Zoloft, Luvox, Paxil or a related antidepressant drug.

>These drugs can cause Akathisia, mental and physical agitation that sparks self-destructive, violent behavior. They can also induce dissociative reactions, making those who take the drugs INSENSITIVE to the consequences of their behavior.

Debbie also found that:
[Link]
>The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force found no evidence that screening for suicide risk reduces suicide attempts or mortality. They report that there is limited evidence on the accuracy of screening tools to identify suicide risk in the primary care setting, including tools to identify those at high risk. The USPSTF found insufficient evidence that treatment of those at high risk reduces suicide attempts or mortality. The USPSTF found no studies that directly address the harms of screening and treatment for suicide risk. As a result, the USPSTF could not determine the balance of benefits and harms of screening for suicide risk in the primary care setting.

She also suggested a BUREAUCRACYANDBULLSHITSCREEN. I have to agree!! LOL!

vjack said “…that screening children for psychological and emotional problems in school is a smart move. […] parents can do this at home, but the sad truth is that many will not. If it is done correctly (and it often isn’t), such a screening program could be an extremely effective way of making sure that needy children receive the care they require.”

Excellent points!! I responded and told him that it was my opinion that it’s proof that the quality of the public education system is poor because of the fact that teachers alone can’t pick out someone who may be suffering from a mental illness. Not to mention the parents… But that’s a whole different discussion.

Dave provided us with a link to the Columbus Public School news (for those of us in Ohio). Thanks Dave!!

I’m sure I missed a few things. But the bottom line is that there is a problem with education in the United States. I can tell you that when I vote this year, the number one thing that I will look for in a candidate is this: What can he/she do for my children and their future?

I just sent this to The Columbus Dispatch. I have to say, I’m actually sick to my stomach right now. I don’t know if they’ll publish it, and I don’t care. I’m putting it here, and I feel like I’ve had my say. Besides, it’s pretty long. They ask for the LsTE to be 200 words and less. I just couldn’t cut it down any more (it’s at 547 words).

I sent a trackback to The Panda’s Thumb because I mentioned RBH’s “Dover Trap.”

To the Editor:

I’m becoming very disappointed in Ohio. We fell in love with Ohio two years ago and and took quite a risk to up-root our family and move to Columbus. It’s a beautiful state and pride just pours out of Ohioans. It really seemed like the perfect place to raise our children.

I am admittedly not always on top of what’s going on in the public education system here in Ohio. I have two small children, one of which will be entering the school system in the fall. It was the mess that the Ohio State Board of Education made of the “Critical Analysis of Evolution” lesson plan that forced me to tune in. Luckily, the board members pulled Ohio out of the “Dover Trap” that they created. But I fear that the Intelligent Design agenda is still very present and our science classrooms are not in the clear yet.

Then we have Bob Taft setting new standards for education. I understand the idea behind Taft’s Ohio Core Initiative. It’s a great idea, in theory, but as the article “Bare Minimum” (in The Columbus Dispatch on January 29, 2006) pointed out, there are schools in Ohio who can’t even afford text books. We need to fix what is broken before we start requiring our teenagers to take algebra II and physics to graduate from high school.

Some of the recent articles and editorials in The Columbus Dispatch have alerted me to the Teenscreen program. I understand that this program is old news in Ohio, but it’s new news to this mother and I’m shocked that more than 60 Ohio schools are straining our children as they pass through the education system. Is there a “failure-to-conform disorder” listed on their labeling checklist? I’m betting that it would be the number one diagnosis. This program is completely unnecessary and is a huge waste of our money! Yes, there are teenagers suffering from mental illness, and there are teenagers out there who are depressed and some may even be suicidal (but according to statistics, it’s a rare occurrence). Parents need to be responsible for their children! The Teenscreen program is a farce and I would challenge parents to really look into the program that our schools are trying to filter our children through.

There is a lot to be proud of when it comes to Ohio’s education, but according to the National Education Association: Ohio public education spending per student has been declining; class sizes are among the largest in the nation; 76% of Ohio’s schools have at least one inadequate building feature, and 83% have at least one unsatisfactory environmental condition; finally, 45% of 8th grade students are in schools where a lack of parental involvement is reported to be a problem. These problems are real, they are big, and they are in desperate need of fixing.

The issues mentioned above are only a few of the problems that Ohio schools are facing. The Gahanna Jefferson School District’s motto is “Where Students Come First.” The rest of the state should adopt this motto and then prove it.

Cassandra Cox

A couple of the editorials in today’s Columbus Dispatch informed me of Teenscreen, or the effort to strain our children as they pass through the mess that we call public education.
I had heard about this program briefly, a month or two ago, but I didn’t really pick up on what it was all about. So this morning I set out to educate myself on the subject.

First, let’s start with what this program is all about. The Teenscreen website sums it up this way:

>The goal of the Columbia University TeenScreen Program is to ensure that all parents are offered the opportunity for their teens to receive a voluntary mental health check-up. The program’s primary objective is to help young people and their parents through the early identification of mental health problems, such as depression.

[emphasis mine]

So that’s nice. They’re offering a computerized psych evaluation to students for free. It’s voluntary. How thoughtful. So I continued reading and researching and I came across an article on PsychSearch.net. The article does a great job of breaking the program down.
Here is how step one goes:

>TeenScreen lures kids as young as 9 years old into doing the suicide survey by offering them free movie passes, food coupons, “I completed TeenScreen” stress balls and pizza parties, if they consent to the procedure.

After the child agrees to go through the screening they send this form home to the parents. If you read the form, you can see that it says:

>The purpose of this letter is that your child has agreed to participate and now we need to obtain your consent to allow participation in the screening process.

Ummm… What. The. Fuck???

>TeenScreen Project Coordinator, Kathleen Cigich, was quoted as saying: “We found early on, though, that sending out letters directly to parents is prohibitively time consuming and gets a low response rate. We thought, why not go to students themselves and offer a $5 video store coupon to anyone who brings back a parental consent form within a two-day turnaround period. It works. Our response rate is extremely high.”

Another strategy is to send home a “passive consent” form, knowing that many parents are just too busy to be bothered. Hmmm, if they are giving the children gifts for participating, I wonder if this form is even making it to the parents? Probably not…

The article on PsychNet.com also gives a list of questions that may be asked during the “test.”

>* Has there been a time when nothing was fun for you and you just weren’t interested in anything?

>* Has there been a time when you felt you couldn’t do anything well or that you weren’t as good-looking or as smart as other people?

>* How often did your parents get annoyed or upset with you because of the way you were feeling or acting?

>* Have you often felt very nervous when you’ve had to do things in front of people?

>* Have you often worried a lot before you were going to play a sport or game or do some other activity?

>* Have you tried to kill yourself in the last year?

>* Are you still thinking of killing yourself?

>* Have you thought seriously about killing yourself?

>* Have you often thought about killing yourself??

>* Have you ever tried to kill yourself?

They then send the results off to a “clinician” who comes up with a diagnosis. Check out the “labeling checklist.”Go to this article and read more of what they have to say. It’s great stuff.

Now, I don’t know about any of you, but they would have put me in a padded room, along with the rest of my friends, if they had put me through this little program. I would have been heavily medicated and possibly tied to the floor. I know that not all teenagers have a hard time in life, but most of the teenagers I knew did.

According to the article I found at Citizens Commission on Human Rights, Teenscreen is handing out diagnoses like these:

developmental-arithmetic disorder - for the child who doesn’t like doing math assignments;

oppositional-defiant disorder - for those children who like to argue with their parents;

noncompliance-with-treatment disorder - for those who are critical of a diagnosis similar to the two above.

The above disorders and 350 other “mental disorders” are listed in the American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders.

>In Ohio, under the governor’s Executive Budget for 2006 and 2007, the Department of Mental Health has specifically earmarked $70,000 for TeenScreen for each of those years, reports investigator Sue Weibert.

Go to this article to read more. Another excellent source of information.

I’ve been trying to find information on where Teenscreen is conducting their screening, but I found this:

>4. Where are all the schools that use TeenScreen?
It’s all a big secret. According to TeenScreen’s director Leslie McGuire, they are fearful there will be an uprising against mental health screening, therefore TeenScreen refuses to divulge their locations. They use a canned e-mail message: “We get a lot of requests from people who are interested in locating and speaking directly with local TeenScreen sites and this can become a burden on them. We are not authorized to give out our sites contact information unless we have requested their permission to do so.”

So, what do you think? Are you homeschooling yet?? There is soooo much more on this subject, but I only have so much time. I’m probably late to this party, but oh man, am I glad that I’m here.

I wonder what a child who says that they don’t believe in God would be diagnosed with.

I was looking around on the FSM forums and found a thread entitled “Separate Science Fairs for home schoolers (often religious).” It was written in response to the article in The Wallstreet Journal online: “The Politically Incorrect Science Fair.”

>Separate science fairs are cropping up to cater to the growing number of home schoolers — about 7% more each year between 1999 and 2003, according to the most recent figures from the Department of Education — and some entrants have gone on to regional and national fairs. Home schoolers, often from religious backgrounds, have sometimes undertaken projects dealing with intelligent design, the theory that some natural processes are so complex they must have stemmed from an intelligent or supernatural cause.

Read the article. The beginning covers the students from public schools, and then end gets to homeschooled children. It’s very interesting to see the difference in the types of projects being done by public school and homeschool students. It’s sad, in my opinion. This article makes homeschooled children look ignorant, when compared to other students. But then, the students that they have written about in the article are all from religious backgrounds (I’m not making a statement here, just an observation).

>In central California, creationism advocate Russ McGlenn is visiting home-schoolers and offering science-fair-project ideas like “Why do we have pimples? Did God goof?”

Ugh… This is a science fair project??

Note: When I say “public school” above, I am actually referring to students who are not being homeschooled. I realize that some students may be from private schools as well.

So I finally got my battery in the camera charged, so now I can show you the cake that I made for Heliocentrism Day. :-)

The hardest part was trying to figure out what all of the planets should be.
Oh, and to get black frosting, don’t use vanilla. Ugh…

Edited to add:

I thought I would post the details of the cake for you. Also, you can learn from my mistakes!!

I used a Dark Fudge Chocolate Cake (I just looked for something really dark) and made it in a 10″ cake pan.

Frosting -
I used vanilla. Mistake. I should have used the white frosting so that I could get a true black color. But anyway, I used the vanilla (2 containers, which was way too much - I could have gotten away with one easily) and managed to find black food coloring. I used the entire little bottle of food coloring. Yikes… It ended up this very dark brown, and actually almost a coppery/silverish color.

I spread the frosting on very thin and used a long spreader to try and make it as smooth as I could.

I purchased a tube of white icing for the orbit paths. That was not easy… I don’t suggest the tubes. Make white icing and put it in a piping bag instead. It would be much easier to squeeze.

Sun - The white icing from the tube mixed with orange and yellow food coloring. I didn’t have red, but that would have been even better.

Mercury - Frosting with a little bit of food coloring to make it light grey. I honestly don’t remember how I ended up with the color…

Venus - Just plain vanilla frosting.

Earth - A blueberry smeared with vanilla frosting.

Mars - LOL!! I cut a small circle from a piece of pepperoni!!

Jupiter - Yes Colin, that is a pancake. I cut a circle out of a pancake and I even put a little bit of the frosting from the sun on it for the “red spot.”

Saturn - Mustard. Yup, Gulden’s Mustard with a strip of icing over it for the rings. Make sure you scrape that off before eating!!

Saturn - Frosting with food coloring.

Uranus - Frosting with food coloring.

Pluto - I cut a tiny circle out of a whole wheat tortilla. A regular flour tortilla would have been better for color, but it’s so small that it doesn’t really matter…

I scraped the planets off before we ate it. If I had more food coloring available, I would have been able to make the ones that weren’t really edible (with the cake anyway) so that I didn’t have to scrape it off.

The boys loved it!! Of course, they didn’t really understand. When I was telling my oldest that we lived on the blueberry, he told me I was silly. LOL!!