And yet another story from the "Sheesh, honey, get a clue" file...

"God"-less Pledge stirs Jeffco school backlash

At a middle school in Colorado, a woman leading the Pledge of
Allegiance decided to improve it and make it more - gag - "inclusive"
by rewording it:

"Eighth-grade counselor Margo Lucero, filling in for absent principal
Kathleen Norton, changed a portion of the Pledge from "one nation under
God" to "one nation under your belief system," while on the public-
address system Wednesday morning."

Believe it or not, some people took exception to this.  Go figure. 

Ahem.  A little commotion for my niece, Meredith, who is gracing the front cover of a book on signing for babies:

Of course, the picture is not exactly what you'd call current.  It's still recognizable as Marebear, though. 

Well, I did it.  Went to the Red Hat Society website and contacted a nearby chapter that's accepting new members.

We'll see.  

One can even order personalized RHS "trading cards." 

Apparently being postmenopausal is au courant,
based upon the "red hat/purple dress" fabric available in the notions
stores, the red hat pins, the red hats, the red hat watches, the books
"The Red Hat Club," "The Red Hat Club Rides Again," "The Red Hat
Society: Fun and Friendship After 50," "The Hot Flash Club,"  "The
Hot Flash Club Strikes Again," and so on and so forth.

[smirking]  It's good to be a boomer.

People can be so dang dumb, it flummoxes me occasionally.

From the Fort Worth Star-Telegram: 

Teachers quit after off-color e-mails found

Two Carroll district high school teachers
resigned after administrators discovered that they wrote hundreds of
racy e-mails on the district's computer system.

<snip>

Often on school time, the two teachers
used their Carroll e-mail accounts to write about sexual escapades,
adventures at local bars, and encounters through an Internet dating
service.

The e-mails also critique area extracurricular competitions and rehash episodes of the TV shows Desperate Housewives and American Idol.

Under the Texas Public Information Act, the district released 407
pages of e-mails that the two teachers wrote and received from January
through March 2005.

"We had no idea we were going to find all of this," said Derek
Citty, Carroll's chief personnel officer. "Neither one of them ever
deleted anything."

It's hard to believe there are still people
so clueless they'd actually use their employee-provided (and a
governmental employee, at that) email account to send Messages of an
Unsuitable Nature.

Snagged from another blog:  GasBuddy.com - a place to locate the cheapest gas prices in (one hopes) your neck of the woods.

[glumly]  Well, the plumber came.

Broken line under the house.  Could take a cruise for what it'll cost to mend it.

Bummer. 

Greed is an ugly, ugly thing.  From the New York Daily News:

Lotto woe in win-ville:  Hosp workers sue as colleague in pool says jackpot tix is his alone

"Three hospital employees who thought they were about to split a
second-place Mega Millions jackpot worth $175,000 are suing a co-worker
who insists he bought the winning ticket for himself."

What a scuz.  He was the usual person, apparently, to buy the $3
ticket for the three of them, but when they finally won something, all
of a sudden that wasn't the winning ticket . . . it was his own private ticket.  Gee, do you suppose he has TWO sets of three-pick tickets to display?

Something tells me, that's a no.

If one takes the responsibility of purchasing a lottery-pool ticket,
one had best purchase singles for oneself, so there's no mistaking
whose ticket is whose.  Amazing how a person can turn into a
Greedy Guts when a lottery win pops up. 

It's deplorable, that's what
it is; i.e. the insurance-company-motivated tendency to release people
from the hospital the same day as surgery is performed.

My nephew, Justin, had his shoulder worked on this morning.  Dad
called and said he's fine, but in a great deal of pain.  The
anesthesiologist (sp?) is still with him, trying to alleviate it.

But as Justin's in one of those surgical clinics, home he goes this evening, no matter how he feels. 

Ludicrous!  Used to be this would keep him in the hospital at
least 3-4 days.  Now one gets the boot as soon as you're awake, it
seems.

I hate this modern world of insurance-driven medicine. 

Waiting.  I hate waiting.  I find waiting to be an abominable way to spend time.

And why is it as soon as one needs to be home, waiting for the plumber,
one instantly is filled with the desire to vacate the premises
ASAP?  Whereas most of the rest of the time it takes a bomb to
make me voluntarily leave, far preferring to stay home?

Actually, I'm waiting for TWO home-care specialists . . . the
aforementioned plumber to Do Something about the kitchen sink which
clogged up last night (again . . . it does it regularly), and the lawn
guy to cut down a rogue tree next to the house plus cut back The Bush
That Could Eat Dallas Iffen It Wanted To Only Why Would It Want To?

Wait.  Wait.  Wait.  Been waiting for hours!