Nanny comes calling.

Cub Scouts arm children with dangerous weapons.

One of the things that I worry about is that the governmental school system (which sometimes manages to educate) is run by morons. It seems that the worst, most incompetent, sorts make it to the top of the bureaucratic system called “the school system.” Competency is out, and politics is in.

I want to mention the case of Zachary Christie as an example. Zachary is a very bright six-year-old who attends the government school in Newark, Delaware. Zachary also recently joined the Cub Scouts and got one of those neat contraptions that the Scouts like to use where one utinsile can have a fork, a spoon, or a knife come out of it. Apparently the Cub Scouts are arming children with dangerous weapons—if you accept the position of the local school district.

Like most little boys Zachary wanted to show off his neat new tool from Cub Scouts so he took it to school to use at lunchtime. That is when the morons in the educational system stepped in with their “zero tolerance” bullshit, pronounced the eating utensil to be a dangerous weapon and had Zachary expelled from school. It gets worse. The morons filed charges against the child and he has to appear in court and faces a sentence of 45 days in reform school.

Zachary’s mother is currently home-schooling him while trying to get the expulsion overturned. I would urge her to reconsider. Get the expulsion overturned, but continue to home-school him. Don’t send him to an institution run by morons. The school is defending their actions saying, (shall we all say it together), that it is “for the best interests of the children.” George Evans, the head moron on the school board, turns into a little drama queen whining about how “no parent wants to get a phone call where they hear that their child no longer has two good seeing eyes because they was a scuffle and someone pulled out a knife.” I suggest that George “Weepy” Evans immediately confiscate all pencils and pens as well. You could poke an eye out with one of them a lot easier than the Cub Scout eating utensil.

When I was a schoolboy, admittedly before the schools went completely bonkers, we used to play mumbly peg on the school lawn. If you aren’t familiar with it, the game requires a pocketknife of one kind or another—though it can be played with larger knives as well—and we did, though that was more at the school’s summer camp.

According to the New York Times, Delaware was also the place where a school district expelled a third-grade girl for a year. Her grandmother sent a birthday cake to the school, along with a knife to cut the cake. The teacher first took the knife and cut the cake and then called the principal of the school and expelled the child. Another boy in the school system, though older, was given a pocketknife by another student and then he was suspended. His mother “has since been home-schooling him instead of sending him to reform school.” In 2007 the school also expelled a girl who used a utility knife to cut “windows out a paper house for a class project.”

I will leave the final word with Zachary, who clearly is intelligent enough to figure out the situation. He said: “I just think the other kids may tease me for being in trouble. But I think the rules are what is wrong, not me.”

If you want to sign a petition in favor of Zachary go here. I recommend it.

The rise of the light bulb fascist.

Apparently the European Union, and the bureaucratic thugs that run it, have inadvertently discovered a method of stimulating one area of the economy: prohibition.


Having learned nothing about drug and alcohol prohibition the EU has decided to ban the production and importation of conventional light bulbs. As a ritual sacrifice to the Goddess Gaia the EU technocrats have decided to phase out the conventional light bulb, in favor of the “eco friendly” but vision-unfriendly compact fluorescent bulb.

I know those bulbs are supposed to save us money, which I favor, but they don’t. I have one bulb in my room that is CFL, which is fine for watching television. But if I want to read I have to turn on the overhead light with three regular bulbs instead. In the lounge the three table lamps are CFLs as well, but all three have to be one to give any acceptable lighting in the room. I had one CFL on the back patio but dumped it entirely—dinners on the patio were impossible with the light it emitted. It was far too dark. So I’m no fan of these vision-destroying bulbs either.


But the technocrats in the EU want to “save the planet,” which usually means an assault on the property rights or freedom of individuals. And, in their wisdom they are phasing out conventional light bulbs. Der Spiegel reports on the results of the upcoming ban in Germany.

Hardware stores and home-improvement chains in Germany are seeing massive increases in the sales of the traditional bulbs. Obi reports a 27 percent growth in sales over the same period a year ago. Hornbach has seen its frosted-glass light bulb sales increase by 40-112 percent. When it comes to 100-watt bulbs, Max Bahr has seen an 80 percent jump in sales, while the figure has been 150 percent for its competitor Praktiker.
"It's unbelievable what is happening," says Werner Wiesner, the head of Megaman, a manufacturer of energy-saving bulbs. Wiesner recounts a story of how one of his field representatives recently saw a man in a hardware store with a shopping cart full of light bulbs of all types worth more than €200 ($285). "That's enough for the next 20 years."

It should be noted that Weiser favors EU action to ban his competition. No surprise there. Most large businesses are run by greedy individuals who prefer political redistribution of wealth to having to earn it in a competitive market. The problem, as they see it, with competitive markets is that consumers can’t be trusted to buy what you’re selling. Weisner thought the best way to force consumers to buy his product would be to impose a $7 tax on each regular light bulb sold in the market.

One marketing company reports that between January and April sales of regular light bulbs have jumped 20 percent. Sales of the “earth-saving” CFL bulbs shrank by 2 percent.

Spiegel notes that the normal bulbs are despised by the Greens because they give off most their energy in heat. True, that was one aspect of them I liked—at least when I was living in Berlin. Much of the year the weather is a bit cool and not only did the light bulbs allowed me to see well, but they helped heat up my apartment. (It was small enough that a few bulbs could do that.) The heat was a fringe benefit. When it was summer the benefit was less (though the last summer I spent in Berlin was rather chilly) but summer light is longer so I used the bulbs less anyway.

Bascially the EU bureaucrats have ignored the consumers completely. And the consumers are fighting back by stocking up on the bulbs. Spiegel notes that large numbers of people complain about the so-called “eco friendly” bulbs saying that the light “is colder and weaker and the high frequency flickering can cause headaches. Others have complained that the new bulbs are sold with fraudulent promises. The environmentalists promise these bulbs “las much longer than traditional bulbs” but Spiegel reports that tests found that half the bulbs “gave up the ghost after 6,000 hours of use—or much earlier than the manufacturers had promised.” (That corresponds with my experience of the CFLs I used, until now I just assumed I had a bad batch.)


Spiegel quotes lighting designer Ingo Maurer telling his custoers: “We recommend protests against the ban, civil disobedience and the timely hoarding of lighting implements.” One prominent art gallery, Hamburger Kuntshalle, has purchased 600 traditional bulbs so they can light their exhibits properly.

One MP, from my favored German political party, the Free Democrats, called the ban “light bulb socialism.” I would disagree. Socialism is state-ownership of the means of production. What many people confuse with socialism today is nothing more than raw fascism. Just ask Obama, he should know.

I suggest that when the ban is completed there will be a whole new industry created as a result: light bulb smuggling. Apparently politicians are just too damn stupid to ever learn from history, so they repeat it, over and over.

Outrage is the proper response.

I don't normally turn the blog over to others to run. And generally I do all the posting. Today I will make an exception. Lia Grippo runs a private sort of school. She is being put out of business. I will let her explain how this happened.

By Lia Grippo

My name is Lia Grippo. I am an early childhood educator with 20 years of experience. For the past 11 years, a large part of my work here in Santa Barbara has been taking young children into local wild spaces where we forage, track animals, climb trees, build forts, etc. For the last two years I have been running a small school that meets at my home 3 days a week and in the woods 2 days per week — safely.

I have two sons, age 7 and 4. My 7-year-old has been climbing to heights since he was a baby. My husband and I mentored this skill early on first by staying close while pretending to watch something else, and later by having some simple guidelines. For climbing trees, our guidelines include teaching children to know how to tell a dead branch from a living one, and then teaching them never to climb on dead branches or any limb “thinner than your arm.” We never help a child to climb up but are willing to help as much as necessary on the climb down.

A few weeks ago my school met at a local beach. The beach is sandwiched between the ocean and some steep hills and bluffs. The hills sit in the sand, not above the water. My 7-year-old and his 6-year-old friend – an equally competent as a climber and also the son of my dearest friend and school teaching assistant — climbed to the top of one of these hills. As they climbed they chatted, and moved at a steady pace, which meant to me that they were not at the edge of their abilities, which would have been evidenced by their silence or by announcements of fear, tense body language, or frequent stops in search of how to proceed next. In imitation of the older boys, the younger children began to climb the hill as well.

I stopped them by saying, “That’s high enough,” when I saw they had reached the point where they would not be able to come down by themselves if they were to continue. The three younger ones (ages 4, 5, & 5) stopped and began to climb down. By this time, a group of people had gathered to watch. My 4-year-old son slid a little down the hill on his bottom. I was right below him to catch him should he continue to slide. But with the combination of the sliding and, I believe, a frightened group of strangers staring up at him, he became too afraid to come down the rest of the way. So I climbed up and coached him down, staying just beneath him. He calmed down to the point where we were laughing and joking as we made our way down.

As we neared the bottom, I noticed there was a lifeguard beneath me on the hill about 3-4 feet off the ground. When we reached him he asked if I wanted to pass my son off to him and I did and he put him down on the ground. Then the lifeguard told me he would take the trail around the side of the hill to get the other boys down and I agreed, not because I thought those boys couldn’t make it down on their own — I was certain they could — but because of the fear of the folks watching. We went around to meet the kids as they came down the trail. The lifeguard seemed annoyed and said, “Don’t do that again,” before walking off.

During all of this the police were called. The police officer took a statement from me and left. As the parents arrived at the end of our morning, I told each one the story and each of them said, “I’m so sorry that happened to you. Why are people so afraid these days?”

A few days later the agency that licenses my school came to my door to begin an investigation. This included calling all of the parents at the school, who were all in complete support of me and thought the incident was blown completely out of proportion. Each parent called me afterward to lend support and to share their outrage at this agency.

At the end of this process, the agency has revoked my license saying that I endangered the children by “exposing them to the natural hazard of the hill and the ocean front,” and by allowing them to climb, made worse by the fact that I allowed them to climb in beach attire, and my son was naked. (As result of ditching his freezing wet pair of jeans.)

The families have surrounded me with support and outrage and are willing to help pay attorney’s fees to appeal this process.

A couple of nights ago, my 7-year-old said to me, “Mama, I know why those people were afraid. They couldn’t climb that hill themselves.”

I could use whatever support, resources, or ideas, folks might have to offer. Especially helpful would be an attorney who had had experience with this sort of situation or someone who works in California’s Community Care Licensing Division who may be able to offer advice.

Thank you, Lia

Punishing decent parenting in the name of prohibition.

I consider it a tragedy when any young person dies. And the death of 16-year-old Joseph Loudon, in Orinda, CA, is no exception. The facts are that Loudon attended a house party with other teens. There was drinking, as there often is at such things. He allegedly drank too much and collapsed unconscious. He died in hospital.

We do not yet know that alcohol played a part in his death. It may well have. But until autopsy results are released it is all conjecture. But, for the sake of this argument, let us assume that Loudon was drinking.

Police, of course, want to arrest someone for supplying alcohol. So the 18-year-old who threw the party was arrested. The local news report called Loudon a “victim” implying someone else was the victimizer. If alcohol had a role to play then Loudon died at his own hand. Apparently in cases like this everyone wants someone other than the person who chose to drink to be responsible.

If there were a roof party, say three floors up. And someone provided tablecloths that some moron used to form a parachute, and that someone then jumped off the roof, dying as a result, would we arrest the provider of tablecloths? Would we consider making tablecloths a crime because someone used them in an irresponsible way? Loudon chose to drink, and he chose to drink irresponsibly. He did not think he was choosing to die but he chose to drink in a manner that likely caused his death.

Some might ask where the parents of the party host were. That is a valid question. Perhaps they didn’t know a party was happening. Perhaps they did. And if they did then they had no choose but to disappear irresponsibly. The law punishes responsible parents who monitor drinking for teens. Our neo-prohibitionist view of alcohol basically says that no one under the age of 21 is legally allowed to drink, with or without parental supervision. This makes the United States relatively unique.

As I have mentioned before I attended a Beer Festival (even though I don’t drink) at a high school overseas. All the students were drinking and were drinking with their parents and teachers. The very idea of making that a crime was ludicrous to these people. But America, with its moralistic Puritanism, bans such activity. Of course, like all prohibitionist policies it doesn’t work. It doesn’t prevent drinking it just turns teens into criminals for doing so.

Worse, it turns adults who supervise such activity into criminals as well.

Consider something that happened a few days ago in Cornwall, Connecticut. Ralph Dzenutis. As the father of a high school student he wanted a small party for friends of his son after the prom. He didn’t realize that word would spread and some 200 students showed up. He tried to keep control. Some students showed up drunk. Dzenutis did his best to make sure anyone driving wasn’t drunk. But three students passed out and Dzenutis was arrested because he was an adult on the premises.

Dzenutis is considered a model parent. He is a volunteer in the local fire department. He is a Little League coach. Dzenutis said: “I am a parent who was trying to do the right thing. I don’t condone the drinking at these parties, and I didn’t buy alcohol for these kids. But I knew the kids would be drinking, so I wanted them in a safe, supervised place. ‘Just Say No’ isn’t a position, a responsible place to be. It’s just negativity and ignorance. The kids were entitled to a party in a protected place.”

Of course the local police turned this into a major police exercise. At first they seemed reasonable. They allowed Dzenutis to walk around his property telling everyone to leave. Those who had too much to drink were given phones to call their parents to come pick them up. A few who had drunk too much Dzenutis would lead up to the police who offered to help them. (When police go to help, duck and cover.)

Next thing you know bands of cops with barking, snarling sniffer dogs appear on the scene. Terrified teens ran into the woods afraid of the police—which is a wise first reaction these days. One report says that the parents of these kids “complain that the barking dogs and the beeping thermal-imaging equipment frightened many of the teenagers, causing them to run deeper into the woods, crashing into trees and knocking their knees against stone walls.”

Dzenutis says that the police “came on like storm troopers, and the dogs are really vicious until their handlers quiet them down.” He said, “a lot of kids were scared, and we were worried some would get hurt. The police rounded the kids up with their dogs.” Even teens that were not drinking were forbidden by the police to drive home. They were forced to call their parents for a ride.

The local school, a creature of the state, threatened students who attended the party with suspension from all sporting activities. One parent told the local paper something sensible—far too sensible for politicians to listen to:

"I've known Ralph Dzenutis for 13 years, and I know exactly why he held that party. He knew what he was like at the age, what I was like at that age, he knew the kids would drink, so he held the party at his house to protect them. "When I was that age and a party got out of hand, the police came and they were your friends. 'OK, kids, the party's over. Go home.' They cleared the place and everybody was happy. The cops were our friends. But now we've got state police trolling the hallways at the high school, searching for whatever. Showing up at parties with police dogs. We've completely lost the sense of allowing kids to learn by making their own mistakes. And we've made the kids afraid of the cops. Kids don't consider the police their friends anymore."

Cornwall Selectman K.C. Baird defended Dzenutis as well and said the police overreacted. “I’ve always told my kids that I know you’re going to drink, just don’t mix it with driving. Just call me any time of night, and I’ll come get you. That’s all that Ralph was trying to do at his party, and bringing the law down on him, or on the kids, isn’t going to curtail drinking.”

No, it won’t curtail drinking. What it will do is punish parents who do try to supervise and protect teens who are drinking. It pushes them away. If they can’t stop the drinking entirely their only option is to get in the car and leave the teens unsupervised, with no adult there to restrain what is happening, with no adult their to teach responsibility. And when no adults are there things get worse, as the situation with Joseph Loudon demonstrates.