What a rollercoaster this week has been.... both with family and with politics. Stacy (daughter-in-law) has been having labor pains all week. The doctor kept saying he'd just see her on Monday at her scheduled appointment. Yeah right. Three hours ago Jeremy finally just took her in to the hospital. She is in having the baby as I write this. Yeah! Grandchild #8. We are waiting for the call to see when we can go see the baby. We have their two boys and the other grandparents took the two girls. Teamwork.
Anne and Maddi are in Missouri at Anne's sister's wedding and Jason (our son) is lost without them. He came over for dinner last night. My brother (who is home on leave from Iraq) and his fiance Jackie also came over for dinner. It was nice. My brother was telling me about his flight home. He said that whenever the soldiers go through the airport at Dallas, Texas they always receive a soldier's welcome. People line the halls and cheer.... still... and older couples befriend individual soldiers. Some of these wealthier older couples give the soldiers rides from one end of the airport to the other. One such couple befriended my brother after hearing that the soldiers were going to have to go on stand-by and most likely spend the night. This means one less day at home. The older couple that befriended him gave him and one of his other soldiers a ride then followed them to the ticket counter to make sure they got a flight. The guy at the counter said the flights were full. The older man (whom they all knew and referred to as "colonel") asked them to check other flights. There were two left on another airline but they were quite expensive. The colonel said, "it's on me" and insisted on paying for it. His wife agreed. The soldiers insisted they were fine, but he would not have it. After the tickets were purchased and the colonel was gone, the guy behind the counter said that "the colonel" had probably done that 200 times since the war started. Texas hospitality and caring peole still exist and honor our soldiers.
Bob and Jackie are headed to Cascade for the weekend and his sons will come home next weekend so they can spend time with him before he heads back to Iraq. I always hate it when he leaves. Jason is watching Mandy's boys today so her and Russ can go on a date. We're all anxiously waiting to hear about grandchild #8. They hadn't decided on a name yet/still. Tucker (their oldest boy) just informed me that he wants to name him Optimus Jetfire. Hmmmmm. And then there's the snow......
Day before yesterday I woke up planning on going to BSU to testify before the Board of Education then go see my daughter-in-law and I was shocked to walk outside and find two inches of snow on the ground and icy roads. It took me an hour and a half to get to BSU and I was late. The meeting was in the Simplot Ballroom and I was expecting the same kind of long lines I had experienced at the Capitol except that I had signed up on-line two days ahead. Instead I walked in to this huge room full of people in suits with tables and laptops in front of them. It was all very formal, more like a conference, and a fancy table with pastries, fruit, juices, etc. lined one side of the large room. A huge screen was up and Dr. Kustra was presenting his annual report and budget to the Board. I wondered why other people weren't there to speak to the board that's suppose to govern K-20 education in our state. In particular, I wondered why certain groups weren't there to make their voice heard.
Dr. Kustra (BSU president) had some very interesting figures and commentary. He showed, for example, that although BSU has the largest number of students, they received the least amount of funding per student of all the main colleges in the state. UofI received the most. He said the funding base/formula needed to be changed. I also had to smile when he chided the board for always upping their expectations (they wanted to see an improvement in BSU's graduation rate) yet reducing their funding. Gee.... that sounds familiar. Finally, the best exchange of the day was between Kustra and Luna. Luna asked about the incoming college freshmen as far as being prepared for college. Dr. Kustra said that 70% of them had a 3.0 g.p.a. or above. This isn't what Luna has been telling the media or public, so he started stammering. He said he'd been told that up to 50% of them needed remediation. Dr. Kustra said he could double check the figures, but that with a 3.0 g.p.a. he didn't see how that would be. You could tell Kustra was irritated. Luna was going to use the comment as a political media moment, but it backfired on him. What? Another Luna lie?! Shocking!
Speaking of that.... I have been hounding the media to follow up on K12 (an on-line provider that stands to profit big time from these on-line courses Luna is mandating) and their connections to political campaign monies as well as Albertsons. Finally.... this morning, the papers broke the story. It was even worse than I had heard or imagined. I had not realized the extent of Albertson's connection to K12. I knew Luna and Otter received campaign money from them and that stood to benefit from the classes being mandated, but that's all. I also knew that K12 had been calling our superintendent at our school sometimes 10 times a day to get them signed up for services. He refused, but other schools have not, fearing the new mandates.
I wonder now if legislators will still bury their heads in the sand and pass through such tainted and damaging legislation. It has given me some more wind in my sails again. I was fading a little from exhaustion. Constantly researching, giving speeches, and keeping people informed. I was starting to think no one was listening and all of our efforts (the people's efforts) were in vain. They may still be, but at least a lot of stuff is coming out to the public. With things unraveling, we can only hope that they get better. Gas prices are supposed to be up to $4.00 a gallon by Memorial Day. My students have been watching global affairs and events around our nation ever since we read Animal Farm. They're developing more of a global perspective. Now they come to class and inform me of things that are happening. It's so awesome. This week they told me that they noticed the "young people" of Egypt were a large part of the revolution. They also told me about students in Wisconsin who were picketing and protesting along side their teachers. Others discussed the impact of revolutions in other countries on things like our gas prices.
My Young Politicians group is scheduled to meet with our Senior Citizens group to help them with their center. They have big plans for the center and welcome the students help and involvement. I'm very excited for both groups. They have also been asked to present their views on Education Reform (what they think it should look like) to the president of IBCEE an organizations of businesses that support education reform in Idaho. They (IBCEE) have been huge Luna supporters so that should be interesting.
Just got the call..... baby Bradley is here!!!!! 7Lbs. and 19.5 inches!!! Most importantly, mom and baby are doing fine! The boys want to go to the hospital to see their brother but they're not allowing little visitors. They will have to wait till he comes home. I am so thankful Monday is a holiday. It'll give us extra time to help with little Bradley's homecoming. I was thinking about doing a lawnchair protest on the Capitol steps Monday, but we'll have to see how the new grandbaby is doing instead! Another little blessing in our life. :)
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