Some People are too Ignorant to Vote

I realize there are a lot of people who disagree with my politics. I disagree with theirs. There are also a lot of people who I feel are being misled and who I feel are misleading. These people are at least trying to be informed. They have a right to vote.

Some people are extremely ignorant when there is no need to be.

I also know the case can be made for some people on both sides. I am posting a clip I found that shows people who are too ignorant to vote. I believe if you looked, you could find these people on both sides. (In other words, this post is not about any specific politics, it is about ignorance.)

This clip is of an interview someone did where they asked Obama supporters if they agreed with McCain’s policies—except they claimed the policies are Obama’s. Sure enough, these ignorant supporters agreed with all the policies since they believed the policies were policies of their own candidate. Evidently, there was one McCain supporter they interviewed who was ignorant of those policies too. (That part of the interview wasn’t on the clip I found.) I can understand a certain amount of ignorance on some specific topics, but what really showed these people’s ignorance was that each of them didn’t even know who the vice presidential candidates are!

Technically, I Suppose, Free Speech Doesn’t Need to Make Sense.

I’m all for free speech. I’m also happy to give others the right to put stickers and signs on their cars… Then I saw this. I was lucky to have my camera with me.


(I did edit the picture, but only enough to smudge the license number.)

Could someone please tell me what his is supposed to mean? I don’t know if it is for or against religion. I have read it several times and find it incomprehensible.

Someone feels strongly enough about her (it was a woman who got out of the car) message to attach permanently an enormous sign to the back of her car.

This message is mind-boggling. Usually when someone writes something difficult to understand, you can at least get the gist of what it is. I taught public school for three years. I have read thousands of students’ essays and paragraphs. I have never seen one as idiotic—and I have seen some really bad ones.

I wonder how many accidents have been caused by people reading this and becoming so confused they forget to follow safe driving practices.

Who Would Buy This Garbage?

Would you buy this?

That seems to me like a reasonable question. This is a piece of junk. It is ugly. But that isn’t why I submit it as the work of someone who isn’t playing with a full deck. Before I get to my reason, I will tell you where this comes from and show you a picture of it. Sorry the picture isn’t so great; I had a very limited time to take it.

My niece goes to preschool. Her school is doing fundraising in the traditional style: offer parents and relatives high-priced junk and guilt them into buying it.

This picture comes from the catalogue of garbage--I mean items--to choose from. My wife actually spotted it; I glanced through the catalogue and found little of interest and nothing reasonably priced. My wife looked a little closer because she falls for the if-you-don’t-buy-something-you-clearly-don’t-love-the-preschooler-and-by-extention-all-kids guilt trip. (In other words, my wife is so loving, she will buy junk if it will support someone she loves.) Fortunately, my sister-in-law told my wife not to worry about it.


Someone was paid good money to develop this hideous thing. Somehow in whatever process is used to market products, no one seems to have looked at the writing. Likewise, I wonder why the company who set up the catalogue didn’t laugh and reject this item because of the writing.

We learn early in elementary school to capitalize the first letter of a sentence. Later, we learn to capitalize the main words of a title.

Who teaches people to keep the first word lower-case and then capitalize all the other words?

I’m not sure the line break is in the best place, either. I also think the sentence is odd. However, these last two things are opinions. It is the bad capitalization that earns this product a place on this blog.

At least they put a period at the end of the sentence. (I am assuming they did intend it to be a sentence.)

Less Than a Dollar

I saw this sign in a Department of Health building in Olympia, Washington. Take a look:


Do you see the problem?

How much per pound do potatoes and cantaloupe cost?

Ninety-nine cents?

Look closely.

You would think someone working for a State agency would know the difference between a dollar sign and a cents sign. Sure, enough, the person who made this sign knows there is a difference. Clearly, this person does not know how to apply the difference.

One of my earliest school memories where I remember actual words said comes from second grade. I had learned in one lesson about the cents sign. In a math lesson later—I specifically remember what happened—I wrote out an answer with a dollar sign and a decimal point. I then remembered the cents sign. I erased the dollar sign and wrote a cents sign after the number (the answer was less than a dollar). However, I left the decimal point. My teacher saw what I had done and told me about the error. I didn’t understand her, but she told me I would in a few years. I remembered the exchange, and did understand what the teacher was talking about a couple years later.

I made the mistake in second grade. I would assume anyone making a chart like this would not make the mistake. Or, a least, a co-worker would point it out before it had been up long enough for people to see it.

I would also like to know what someone was thinking with the exclamation points. Did they say, “I want to show how inflated the price is, so if one exclamation is good, four should be great!!!!”

You are Not One of Us

I really don’t want this to be a political blog. Honestly. Yet the politicians—who you would think should know better—keep making themselves look stupid.

Here is a picture of an actual political sign I found along the side of the road. If the candidate did not come up with it on his own, he must have at least approved it.


“I M 1 of U”!?

You, Randy Neatherlin, are not one of us.

The sign might seem like a new, original, and even clever idea at first glance, but when you think about it, this is a really boneheaded move.

Does this guy really think he’ll get more votes by looking like a high school flunky?

Please don’t get me wrong. There is a place for the short-cut writing used on this political poster. The place for it is text-messaging on the phone when you are in a hurry.

Is it really that hard to include an extra five letters?

Do you think someone will see the sign and say, “Oh, I see this guy can write in a short format; he is clearly the best person for the job.”? Do you think someone would say, “I, too, always write that way when I have no need to.”?

I taught school for three years. I was constantly fighting (figuratively) students to write well and write correctly. I taught them that things like grammar, syntax, punctuation, and spelling actually matter. Then idiots like this guy toss in a stunt like this and these young people see it and actually believe that is, if not the way is supposed to be, then at least not wrong.

I also find the capitalization strange. This sign is capitalized as if it were a title—doubtless they thought it would be easier to read that way. It strikes me as false. Someone who was writing a quick text message would not go to the trouble of capitalizing some letters and not others.

No sir, you are not one of us. I find this to be an incredibly huge lack of good judgment. A guy who thinks this poster is a clever idea is not worth voting for. If I decide his opponent is not worth voting for either, I simply won’t vote for that office. (Let’s face it, in Washington State if you don’t live in Seattle or King County, your vote never really matters anyway—not that that stops me from voting.)

Why Schools are Seen as Biased

I had no intention of making my first post political. I still don’t. This is put forth not as politics—I’ll let others do that—it is put forth as an example of stupidity. I would be writing this same post if the same action were taken for the other side. Someone who surely has at least a Master’s degree decided to go and make him or herself look like an idiot. No, it is worse: this person makes every educator in the state look like biased and stupid. As you read this, don’t take it from a political standpoint; read it from a logical standpoint.

I read a news article a few days ago about the Virginia Education Association sending out an e-mail telling teachers to wear blue to show support for Barack Obama.

Here is a link to an article about this:

Here is a link to a PDF file that contains the e-mail in question:

I have three years public school teaching experience in Washington State. I have taken an Ed Law class for my certificate, and another as part of a Master’s degree in teaching.

I heard some people suggest that this is illegal. I want to stress that (at least for Washington State and I believe everywhere) this is not illegal.

This is stupid.

Teachers do not leave their constitutional rights at the door when they enter a school building. They can support whatever political position they want to. Teachers can even wear political pins in class, as long as they are reasonable in size and there is no un-due attention drawn thereto. So if teachers want to wear a certain color to support a particular individual, they can. However, teachers cannot use school materials, supplies, or time to promote any political point. Also, the best teachers avoid anything that could be seen as promoting any specific political point. Why would a good teacher want to potentially turn away a student that may not agree with them? As a teacher, I was always extra careful about anything with politics.

In saying the school district did nothing illegal, I am also assuming the students were not told ahead of time or on that day that all these teachers in blue were supporting Senator Obama. Also, the articles I read have made it clear that the teachers were to encourage students to register to vote, but not encourage them to any particular person.

With the assumptions made above, I am taking the teacher’s union at its word. I will leave it to political blogs to judge intent. Even assuming the union is not trying to influence students a certain way, the action is idiotic.

Now, to why this is so stupid.

Schools in general are seen as liberal, teachers as well. I could go on about the reasons for the perception, but that goes beyond my point. I have seen first hand that this perception is not true for individuals any more than other places. It is true that Democrats tend to promise more to teachers than Republicans, so the various unions tend (to use a mild word for it) to support Democrats.

I have worked with many teachers who support all sorts of different political positions. However, the perception that most teachers are liberal is also believed by teachers. When I did my student teaching, my mentor teacher was a Republican. She didn’t tell anyone and I didn’t know it for most of my time with her. She was afraid other teachers would look down on her. She is not unique. Most teachers avoid talking about politics until they are very comfortable with the people with whom they are speaking.

I can imagine how exposed a teacher would feel if everyone else wore blue and that teacher did not. Suddenly that teacher would be very obvious. The teacher would be singled out and everyone would know that teacher was different. Some teachers would probably wear the blue to avoid trouble. It is stupid to set up a day where teachers suddenly have to be pitted against each other or go against their beliefs to keep the peace.

It is also stupid for the union to encourage this wearing of blue because the reason for it will always get to the public. If the person responsible did not know it would become public, that person does not deserve a grade school diploma, not to mention making policy for a teacher’s union. What was the person thinking? Can you imagine the brainstorming session? “Alright, let’s come up with something that will make the public think we are even more liberal than they already think we are, and thereby we can possibly put any bond and levy votes at risk.”

I was shocked when I read about this policy. I know people who would think up such idiotic stunts, but I would expect someone with common sense to stop the idea before it was implemented.

Plus, wouldn’t a bunch of people in blue look like Smurfs?