The Dunking of The Mayor

 Our Pirate Queen

 They have taken over the City and forced the Mayor to walk the plank!

Future pirate?

Commuting Glory

As if Ladybird's flowers in the medians are not majestic wonder enough, I have watched a field of grain ripening on my way home just in the last few days - so fast, so beautiful.  It's amazing.

Poetry: Unseasonal Gift

April is Poetry Month but my poem, Unseasonal Gift, was published on Vox Poetica in March.  I am a little late linking to it on la blog.  Please read it here and tell me what you think.

Leticia!

We went to hear Leticia Van de Putte, candidate for Lieutenant Governor of Texas, speak on Sunday. She is amazing.  She really cares about education and women and children.

The Lone Star Girl helped sign up volunteers.

Leticia told the Lone Star Baby, "You're the reason I'm doing this."

April Is Child Abuse Prevention Month

April is Child Abuse Prevention Month. Here are some things you can do to help prevent child abuse:

1.  Learn about child development.  Sometimes our expectations of children are not reasonable for their age or maturity level.
2.  Make a meal or offer to babysit or do something else kind for another family.  When we help each other, we reduce the stress that families experience.
3. Vote.  Make sure your state provides adequate resources for struggling families and for protective services.
4. Use positive methods of discipline.  Corporal punishment can create a cycle in which people grow up to believe that violence is an acceptable way of dealing with some issues.
5. Monitor the media that your child consumes, especially when your child is very young.  Violent television and video games can lead to adults who respond to stress with violence.

Misogynist, Anti-Family Sports Radio Announcers Like Boomer Need To Go

I don't follow sports, myself.  I have a family to take care of and a career and the responsibilities of citizenship and all and thus have little time for such things.  I do not, however, think that my relative lack of interest disqualifies me from saying that baseball is Merely An Entertainment and some people need to get a serious grip.

Apparently, a baseball player, Daniel Murphy,  recently took the three days (not, like the 12 weeks of FMLA our nation allows some workers or the Years of parental leave that most developed nations allow or anything, but three days) of paternity leave that Major League Baseball allows in order to be there for the birth of his child, causing him to miss the season's first couple of games.

Talk radio went wild.  A bunch a nasty, anti-family misogynists whose stations should fire them are weighing in on how 24 hours should have been enough at most.  One, Boomer Esiason of the once-popular-but-soon-to-be-utterly-boycotted-by-families Boomer and Carton radio show, actually suggested that Mr. Murphy's spouse should have had a c-section so the birth would occur before the first game.

Really????? 

I am deeply shocked at this man's willingness to see a healthy woman cut open and she and her child endangered for a baseball game.  Our culture needs some serious work.