Apolitical and Areligious.

[The Great Aztec Joe]

Quite frankly, I am apolitical as well as areligious (I will mock any religion because there is lots to mock, but I am still a man who believes in morality and obedience to God.). Though, quite frankly, at this time I am pretending to be a strong Liberal as there are too few of them on this forum. That will probably change in the next few days.

In the case of this banking scandal, the Republicans deserve most of the blame for what has happened in the past three years (Well actually for a long time before that, but the malaise is Republican spawn and raised. By the way I usually vote conservative, but that is a result of my Daddy telling me that when it comes to politics, "When in Doubt, Vote No!")

Voting conservative is usually a NO vote on spending programs. When the spending programs come up for a vote with the public (usually those damned Bond Issues), I usually vote no, too. I have voted NO on every public school bond issue I have ever seen. That is because I am convinced that the government is the most inefficient and ineffective educator in the history of the world.

We need to turn education over to private schools where it can be far more cost effective to the state and effective overall for the students. I never had my children in public elementary school other than to introduce them to the school concept. (My daughter got thrown out of kindergarten for beating up a first grade playground bully. Speed-bagged his face. She never went back to public school again.) I hired a full time licensed teacher to teach my children because I wanted the best for them. They all went on to be honor students at the very top of their classes, including that daughter who was just like her Daddy. It is amazing how that works.

Our government banking regulation is horrible, just like public schools. We need to totally revise our system and place severe penalties for abuse of same. (I'm talking about death penalties here, just as severe as in Communist China where if you commit a serious felony, they take you out behind the courthouse and put a rifle bullet in the back of your head. Usually your head explodes.)

Population control and felony control all at the same time. Fantastic efficiency. China has its act together.

[aztec70]

Very cool, Joe. Looking forward to you posting as a conservative. Just wondering about the education of your children. On a prior board you said the your smarter than you wife quit work so that she could stay home and teach your children. Nice for them to have two teachers.

[The Great Aztec Joe]

Aug 22, 2010 6:34:46 GMT -8 aztec70 said:

Very cool, Joe. Looking forward to you posting as a conservative. Just wondering about the education of your children. On a prior board you said the your smarter than you wife quit work so that she could stay home and teach your children. Nice for them to have two teachers.

Actually, my wife was the credentialed teacher. I don't know if she is smarter than I am, but she is far better educated from a standpoint of credentials. She graduated from the University of California with top honors and a dual degree. After that she was a "Guest of the Spanish Government" (Sorta like a Rhodes Scholarship) and studied in Madrid for a year. She returned to the United States, earned her teaching credential and a Masters in Business. When I met her, I already had two children. She had one (who is presently a live at home bounce back father of three upstairs in my house.) The grandchildren are fun to play with in my old age.

I hated public schools when I was forced to go through that disgusting inefficient system. Ninety percent of my time in school was wasted, and I knew it while it was happening. I stayed in the system only to get a high school diploma, even though I totally hated school. I knew as a Freshman that I was going to enter the Navy as soon as I had my diploma. It took a diploma to get into the Navy back then. I asked the recruiter when I was in eighth grade.

I graduated in the lower half of my high school class and did not care one iota. I knew then that success in life depended upon work ethic and total knowledge attainment, and not grades in grade school.

Her family were believers in the "Send the kid to an excellent University and they will succeed" principal. Both her brothers are graduates from Dartmouth and have been very successful. Both are millionaires. Ironically, both eschew ostentation. You would never know they were rich if you were to meet them. They, like I do, wear bluejeans and tee-shirts most of the time. One brother went on to be a minister in the Church of Religious Science after he retired from IBM at the age of forty. I expect he wore a suit on Sundays. He is now nearly eighty. The other started off as a religion major and ended up running sports book in Nevada and offshore in the Caribe.
For years the odds listed in the SD Union and Evening Tribune papers were his out of Reno. For some reason known only to the newspaper they posted HIS odds and not the odds from the Las Vegas sports books.

Unlike my wife's parents, I believe in giving a kid a quality education in elementary school while teaching them a good work ethic, and and that usually sets them up for the rest of their life.

My youngest daughter was fully independent at age 16. She was only part time employed at Target, but owned her first car at that age, a new one that she paid cash for. Another daughter (The one kicked out of kindergarten went on to complete four years of college and then went back for a nursing degree while also serving as a missionary to New Guinea and Romania. (Obviously well balanced with a fantastic foundation education in her elementary years.) She is working with Eskimos in the wilds of Alaska.

The two adopted Korean sons also have done quite well. My youngest adopted a master at the Piano is now a math major at SDSU.

Foundation education is extremely important. Thank heavens that while I was languishing in public school in the Fifties and early Sixties, I was getting a good education on my own.

All four years of high school I had the highest SAT (Stanford Scholastic Aptitude Tests, not the college admission tests) scores in my class. My counselor kept on calling me into his office asking why I was not working hard enough to get straight A's, and I told him that I was, but the teachers were all conspiring to give me bad grades. ;^)

Obviously I was learning at the very top level of my class because of the SAT scores, so it had to be a conspiracy. Right?

[aztecwin]

What ever you do, Joe, don't switch sides. They need all the help they can get. With you assuming the role of a Conservative, they would be overwhelmed. In the interest of fairness, keep helping them out. I realize that "being in bed" with the likes of =Bob and Aztec70 must give you the "willies", but they really need help.

[The Great Aztec Joe]

It will be hard to leave the liberal camp. Fearless Leader is showing us how to pat fannies. I like Fearless Leader.

[aztec70]

Excuse me, Joe, you hired your wife to teach your kids? I must say that seems odd. I assume it was under the table, or should I say under the sheets.

Really, Joe, it would have been much more sensible for you to have quit work and taught the kids. Her education should have meant better pay than yours.

[The Great Aztec Joe]

Aug 22, 2010 17:59:47 GMT -8 aztec70 said:

Excuse me, Joe, you hired your wife to teach your kids? I must say that seems odd. I assume it was under the table, or should I say under the sheets.

Really, Joe, it would have been much more sensible for you to have quit work and taught the kids. Her education should have meant better pay than yours.

It is not that odd. I was a data communications manager with Pacific Bell. I was making good coin, far more than my wife with all of her education. At the time she was a training supervisor for Foodmaker (Lower to mid level management). Remember, she was young, and even though she had a Masters of BA, no position had opened above her for her to move up. Since all she wanted to do when she started out in college was to be a teacher, I gave her the opportunity. She could teach my two and her one in home school. That made our school the most expensive private school in San Diego when you consider the income lost versus the student teacher ratio. We were homeschooling at a time when the city and state were very hostile towards home schoolers. The sons of bitches used to call us up and threaten us. We complied with all of the requirements that the State of California specified for an independent school, so they could not touch us. We even received the honor of being called "Trouble Makers" because we were teaching others how to set up their own home schools. Because of my wife and my own efforts thousands of kids in San Diego County were out of public school and in home schools. The public schools lost millions in Federal Dollars because they were not doing a good enough job. They are doing an even worse job now.

Oh, as far as education goes. I had in excess of 13 years of college credit at the time. I just did not have a Masters of Business, though I had the units to grab one. I did not need it, as I could never see myself as a white shirt, tie and business suit type of worker. It just ain't my style. I like working in dirt and getting sweaty, but settled with Data Comms, because it paid 60,000 dollars a year. I wore bluejeans and tee-shirts to work. As long as I could dress down, it was sort of like working in dirt, so I was in pig heaven, though all of those computer spaces were airconditioned. I couldn't sweat no matter how much I tried unless I went down to the loading dock and helped them down there. I told them that any time they needed help moving heavy loads I would always help them, and they called me plenty of times. Some of the data switches in the 80's and 90's weighed in at 800 or 900 pounds. If you have the muscles, damn it, you have got to use them.