War Rant

[sereneorange]

I am so absolutely disgusted in so many ways about this war. I am
emotionally drained from watching the news, reading the papers, and
surfing the net.
This morning on CNN there was an email from some
jackass, responding to a Cafferty question, said that the soldier that
shot the unarmed man in the mosque was not a problem. Our people are being
attacked by religious, nut-bag zealots. I understand that they Iraqi's are
not exactly following the rules of war, but we did invade their country,
right or wrong. I can only imagine all of us would do if a country invaded
the US and we had to fight to keep it under our control.
I also
understand that is must be difficult to have such a frightening job and
the people you are fighting are hiding in mosques, in homes with
civilains,...what our men and women must be going through.
Al-Jazeera spokesman, Jihad Ballout (holy crap..what a name.
Jihad?), said, "We don't show acts of killing.We've never done
it before, outside war" as the reason they didn't show the video of
Margaret Hassan being shot in the head at close range. But they have
basically had a loop playing wit h the US soldier shooting the man in the
mosque. So, I guess they will showing a killing, just not when it is
showing an Arab doing it.

When we first went to war, I was
desperately sad because I knew that we were going to have to bomb
Afghanistan, and was heartbroken that the people, especially the women
were going to have to suffer more than they already do. I had been reading
about the conditions of the Afghani women for years. I pretty much
supported the president because I assumed he was being honest and
forthcoming. As the truth began to unfold over the years, I felt betrayed.

I read more and more about how we have trained and supplied the
countries we have to end up fighting. I know I am over simplifying it, but
can't we possibly just stop giving weapons to every damned little group
that is trying to overthrow our enemy du jour? This is starting to get
old.
Connor is driving me crazy. He is not trying at all in school. He lies. He does half assed work constantly. He is still making an F in reading. This is a child with a reading vocabulary on an
11th grade level in English. He reads on grade level in Spanish. And he is
failing 5th grade reading. We have a reward system set up, but he hasn't
been rewarded lately as he has been doing sweet F.A. in school. He gives
me hopeless answers when I ask what we can do to help him. I am nauseas. I
couldn't eat breakfast this morning because I am so upset with him and now
I will be working from 9 am to 9 pm and I am fairly broke. I am gonna eat
a homeless man on the way home.

Comments

[obsidian-cat.livejournal.com]

That's pretty common behaviour for someone with above average intelligence - he's probably bored, and he may not even know why. Have you talked to his teachers? He probably needs a different approach than your average student.

You can come to my house for dinner - ground turkey was 1/2 price this week, so I've got enough turkey chili in the fridge to last til New Years!

[robcallahan.livejournal.com]

If he's that far ahead, then he's likely very insulted by the simplicity of his schoolwork. The first option that comes to my mind is, if he reads at an 11th grade level, have him taught reading at an 11th grade level, but then I don't know how flexible his school is on letting students skip ahead. Might be they won't let him. More likely none of them are smart enough to teach him, and trust me, no matter how nice they come off at parent teacher conferences, grade school teachers punish little boys for being smarter than them... in ways most subtle and crushing.

Don't ask him what his options are, cause he doesn't know. He's too young to have any concept of an education plan other than the one that is berating him daily.

Some public program for young geniuses or another might have survived the last 4 years of education cuts near you. What city do you live in?