They say, “What’s your blog about?” I say, “Nothing.”
You get all the wacky commenters
-- COD
...typically annoyingly good...
--Carlotta, UK home educator
...a rational, prolific, powerful web communicator...
--Tamara K. Fuller, Founders College Education, Inc.
... gives me hope that my wife and I can raise our two cambia to be upstanding citizens through educating them at home.
--Cavalor Epthith, Editor-in-Chief, The Dis Brimstone-Daily Pitchfork
Disclaimer: This is a personal website. The opinions expressed here are the author's own. Comments are not moderated and are published as a public service. All comments are the responsibility of the commenter. HERP&ES assumes no responsibility for the accuracy of said comments.
Published in the State of North Carolina. Copyright 2002-2009.
Filed on March 27, 2011 at 10:51 am under by dcobranchi
HB 253 would allow HEKs to play public school sports. I believe I can support passage as enough states have shown that this can work without imposing restrictions on the homeschooling community in general.
I do have one problem with the bill as written:
Assessment of academic progress. – A home schooled student shall demonstrate any required academic eligibility in all subjects taken in the home schooled program by a method of evaluation agreed upon by the parent and the school principal.
I’m not sure that doesn’t just grant the principal veto power. What if the parent and the principal can’t agree? What if the principal requires that the HEK pass the EOC (end of class) tests?
Filed on March 1, 2011 at 7:27 am under by dcobranchi
I’m in WV all this week for DuPont. While I’m here I’m going to go out with the Realtor to look at houses. Yes, we’re really moving to Parkersburg, WV in June.
Filed on February 22, 2011 at 6:51 am under by dcobranchi
This profile of the religious leader who inspires the Quiverfull folks is among the most depressing pieces I’ve read in a long time. Women must submit to their husbands. Even their husbands’ physical abuse?
And, BTW, the “church” has a popular homeschooling curriculum.
Sometimes I wish there really were a Hell so that folks who do this to women could be consigned there.
Filed on February 7, 2011 at 7:33 am under by dcobranchi
It was a tie. The Doritos one where the guy licks his friends’ fingers and his pants was just gross. And some ad that launched a baby into a window was sick. I don’t even remember what product was being advertised but if I did, I’d never purchase that product or service. Simulated child abuse? Really?
I thought the “House” promo spoof of the old Mean Joe Green ad was hilarious. Yeah, it’s been done before. But House tossing the kid his cane was too funny.
Filed on January 29, 2011 at 11:50 am under by dcobranchi
I just don’t see too many atheists taking the Vatican up on this offer:
VATICAN CITY — The Vatican announced a new initiative aimed at promoting dialogue between theists and atheists to be launched with a two-day event this March in Paris.
The Vatican’s Pontifical Council for Culture will sponsor a series of seminars on the theme of “Religion, Light and Common Reason,” at various locations in the city, including Paris-Sorbonne University.
The events will conclude with a party for youth in the courtyard of the Cathedral of Notre Dame, followed by prayer and meditation inside the cathedral.
The initiative, called “Courtyard of the Gentiles,” takes its name from a section of the ancient Temple of Jerusalem accessible to non-Jews, which Pope Benedict XVI has used as a metaphor for dialogue between Catholics and non-believers.
“I believe that the church should also today open a sort of `courtyard of the gentiles’ where men can in some way hook on to God, without knowing Him and before having gained access to His mystery,” Benedict said in Dec. 2009.
The pope has made turning back the tide of Western secularism one of the major campaigns of his papacy. The Vatican last year established the Pontifical Council for the New Evangelization to focus especially on promoting Christianity in Europe.
Filed on January 27, 2011 at 6:49 am under by dcobranchi
Could you please explain to the homeschooling community how an article that is entirely about a mother who falsified records in order to send her kids to a better public school is related to homeschooling?
Filed on January 20, 2011 at 7:36 am under by dcobranchi
Google is running their annual contest in which students can submit doodles based on the Google logo. This year’s theme is “What I’d like to do someday…”
The deadline for submission is 3/16. And, yes, HEKs are eligible this year.
A now-retracted British study that linked autism to childhood vaccines was an “elaborate fraud” that has done long-lasting damage to public health, a leading medical publication reported Wednesday.
An investigation published by the British medical journal BMJ concludes the study’s author, Dr. Andrew Wakefield, misrepresented or altered the medical histories of all 12 of the patients whose cases formed the basis of the 1998 study — and that there was “no doubt” Wakefield was responsible.
I’m sure that all of the anti-vaxxers will now relax and get their kids vaccinated. Riiiiight.
Today’s EPOD covers my neck of the woods. The barely visible road near the right edge of the photo is I-95. My house would be just off the right side off the picture.
It is possible that watching Fox News makes you stupid. But it might also be that stupid, uninformed people like to watch Fox News because it echoes back at them what they already “know.”
Filed on November 29, 2010 at 10:28 pm under by dcobranchi
Now she wants to do the trains and buses what she’s done to air travel.
But public anger is likely to be heightened today after Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano revealed tightened security could also be introduced on trains and boats.
She said : ‘I think the tighter we get on aviation, we have to also be thinking now about going on to mass transit or to trains or maritime.
Filed on November 14, 2010 at 5:33 pm under by dcobranchi
I have to fly out of Newark International on Thursday. They have those damn backscatter x-ray machines. If I’m tapped to be scanned, I hope I have the guts to follow this guy’s example.
The TSA is an out of control organization. Americans need to stand up to the fascists!
Filed on November 7, 2010 at 12:26 pm under by dcobranchi
Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty wants to be president. Among the many mental midgets that the GOP will field in ’12, Pawlenty will be fighting it out with Palin for the “Least likely to be mistaken for a sentient being” award. QOTD:
“I like people being in charge of government, not the federal government,” Pawlenty said.
Filed on November 4, 2010 at 6:37 pm under by dcobranchi
If this fake doctor chiropractor weren’t misleading people with some very bad and dangerous pseudoscience, her website might almost be funny. But she is and it’s not and some kids will get sick and maybe die because their parents listened to vaccine advice from a fake doctor chiropractor.
A soft-spoken 14-year-old’s nose piercing has landed her a suspension from school and forced her into the middle of a fight over her First Amendment right to exercise her religion.
Ariana Iacono says she just wants to be a normal teenager at Clayton High School, about 15 miles southeast of Raleigh. She has been suspended since last week because her nose ring violates the Johnston County school system’s dress code.
Iacono and her mother, Nikki, belong to the Church of Body Modification, a small group unfamiliar to rural North Carolina, but one with a clergy, a statement of beliefs and a formal process for accepting new members.
The morons in the district office are threatening to send her to juvi school. The nose stud is so tiny it’s almost invisible. There is no way in hell that her having it interferes with the school’s mission. This is a power play, pure and simple. The authoritarians in the district office think they ought to be able to decide which religions are and which are not “legitimate.” They’re wrong and they’ll lose in court. And, in the process, waste tens of thousands of tax dollars.
Make sure to click over to the story for a photo of the offending stud. And I’m not sure that some of the comments aren’t good examples of Poe’s Law.
A teacher at J.W. Coon Elementary School has been suspended with pay after being accused of breaking the arm of a 5-year-old student, Cumberland County Schools officials said this morning.
Jackie Bennett, 57, of the 6500 block Pacific Avenue in Fayetteville, is charged with assault inflicting serious bodily injury and child abuse inflicting serious injury, said Debbie Tanna, a Cumberland County Sheriff’s Office’s spokeswoman.
Bennett is an exceptional children’s teacher, said Theresa Perry, schools spokeswoman.
Bennett told investigators he was trying to use a “therapeutic hold” on the girl Tuesday when she was injured, Tanna said.
“A therapeutic hold refers to the technique used by school employees to restrain a child for a limited time in an attempt to calm the child and to prevent them from harming themselves or others,” Perry said in an e-mail.
But just remember, schools are the safest place for students to be.
“That’s one of the things that I think characterizes the left,” states Crouse. “They don’t want there to be any authorities [or] boundaries or any demands on their own opinions.
“They want to be able to go in any direction they want to go, and for their word and their stances [and] their opinions to be the final thing — and they’ve set up their own intellect as the ultimate authority rather than the Word of God, rather than the principles of conservatism.”
I guess liberalism = everything but Christianity. Cool. We have lots more folks on our side.
Filed on August 12, 2010 at 3:56 pm under by dcobranchi
The next time I’m taking all of my remote controls on a canoe trip, I’ll make sure to stick them all in this “Heat Seal Poly Bag for Remote Controls.”
It is baggy and semicircular on one end. Put in what you need to pack, and blow with hot wind, it will shrink along the item and dovetail well. Simple to operate, waterproof, dustproof, antifouling, good appearance, dampproof, it is a super easy to use packing product.
Filed on August 6, 2010 at 5:22 pm under by dcobranchi
We finally tried the much-hyped candy. I love chocolate covered pretzels. These new M&M’s are almost but not quite entirely unlike chocolate-covered pretzels (with apologies to Douglas Adams). Very little chocolate flavor and even less pretzel.
Filed on July 30, 2010 at 7:23 pm under by dcobranchi
I need some help. The girls (and I) want to learn ASL. None of us has any kind of experience with the language, so we’re going to at least try to learn it via some kind of program. Does anyone have any experience in this area? Suggestions? Warnings? Wild guffaws?
Filed on July 27, 2010 at 7:18 pm under by dcobranchi
Target recently donated $150k to reactionary GOPer Tom Emmer, who is running for MN governor. I am personally going to boycott Target until they repent by donating a like sum to the DFL.
I haven’t posted anything homeschooling-related in about forever, but I couldn’t pass up this re-tread from the 1990s. A couple of quotes:
If you have time to commit, then homeschooling may be an alternative to traditional education venues. The time you spend homeschooling does not have to follow traditional models (8-5, five weekdays), but it does require at least the same amount of time.
The best homeschooling parents are former teachers
Filed on July 7, 2010 at 7:13 pm under by dcobranchi
Under the category of increasing revenues to the federal gov’t, our “betters” are getting set to implement a fee that I bet will generate zero dollars in the next year:
There’s even a new fee if you’d like formally to renounce your U.S. citizenship — it costs nothing now, but the price tag will be $450 starting Tuesday.
formally renouncing U.S. citizenship before a U.S. diplomatic or consular officer outside the United States (sec. 349 (a) (5) INA);
formally renouncing U.S. citizenship within the U.S. (but only under strict, narrow statutory conditions) (Sec. 349 (a) (6) INA);
So, let’s say I’m overseas and decide that I want to be the new “Man Without a Country.” I go to the nearest consulate, make an appointment to see an officer, and announce that “I, Daryl Cobranchi, a natural born citizen of the United States formally renounce my US citizenship.” How is the officer going to respond? Will he say, “Thank you very much, Mr. Cobranchi. Will you be paying by Visa or Amex?” And if I refused to pay, would he force me to stay a citizen? Bizarre.
