Atomictumor

We all have them - you know, those moments you’d like to erase from your parental resumé…the moments where you get a little distracted, aren’t paying attention, or suffer from just plain bad judgement. Luckily, kids are amazingly resilient (and forgiving).

Here are a few of ours (and to be fair, I’ve included stupid moments of both Bos and I):

• When October was 9 or 10 months old, and already quite mobile, Bos took her for an outing to a friend’s house. They returned home happy as clams and we all went about our normal afternoon routines. A little while later, October was sitting on my lap when she begins to have a bout of the worst watery diarrhea I’ve ever been privy to. Thinking it was perhaps a nasty case of the stomach flu, I asked Bos how she had been acting earlier in the day. Somewhere in this conversation, it comes out that Bos had neglected to mention that October had gotten into a patch of poppies at the friend’s house and had ingested an undetermined amount. After a call to poison control and Bos receiving a severe beating, all was well.

• Several years ago, we went to the Oak Ridge High School flea market. Spotz was probably two or so, and enjoying a ride in his stroller. We stopped at a booth and began looking at whatever crap had managed to catch our eyes. In order to get a closer look at the crap, we absentmindedly let go of the stroller. We never even knew he was gone. Imagine our surprise and embarrassment when a few moments later, a kind stranger returned Spotz to us after he had coasted down the hill a good 20 feet or so.

• Lugnut has generally been the more fearless of the Cemestos kids. Where the two older ones were always afraid of the vaccuum, Lug would giggle with glee every time I got it out. One day, a little less than a year ago, I was vaccuuming in some nooks and crannies while Lug was toddling around. The vaccuum itself was in an upright position, and I was using one of the hose attachments. With my back to both Lug and the vaccuum, I went about my business until I heard a strange sound coming from the vaccuum. It sounded like I had sucked something big up, even though I know I hadn’t. It wasn’t until I heard Lugnut’s piercing scream that I realized what had happened. I had vaccuumed up Lug’s little hand. In all his wonderful curiosity, he had put his hand under the vaccuum and gotten it stuck in the rotating brush mechanism. Fortunately, he walked away with just a few scrapes - and though he’s never attempted to do it again, the incident didn’t dampen his love of the vaccuum.

So, there you have it. A few of our Stupid Parent Moments…now…what are yours?

One problem I have with mixing Atomictumor.com with stuff like ACES is that some folks are going to come here looking for ACES stuff. Thats all well and good, but with ACES I’m largely trying to filter the more caustic aspects of my personality to fit a more polite audience, and here, well, I just say whatever garbage jumps into my mind.

The way I see it (and Bos, GAC, Eaves, whoever, may not agree) is that the whole point of the thing is to make sure that kids in kindergarden in Oak Ridge now will have the best start in life they can get. Its entirely selfish, because if the schools are great, my kids will have a reasonable chance of making all sorts of cash and buying me a boat. Because the schools are helping out kids with special needs and economic disadvantages, I’ll have less of a chance of a crackhead stealing the boat.�
I’ll probably call it something dumb tho, and misspell it, like “Sissyphus”, or “Admireal”.

Everybody wants that (not necessarily the Admireal, but the good school system). Nobody is going to say “Well, I’m cool with a medocre school”. However, the problem that I see is that the City Council feels safer playing the “no new taxes” card than the “make sure the schools stay good” card.

I’m not blaming council, and I don’t have a beef with them. Theres been the perception that anybody who’s for the schools is automatically against the council. Thats self defeating, limiting, and just plain stupid. The Oak Ridge City Council has done a pretty damn good job running this town. Sure, the mall things a problem, but thats more because Arnsdorff’s a dick, rather than that the council messed up.

They gave city employees raises. The library is getting better funding. Businesses and homes are popping up all over. They’re being proactive about the blight situation. A lot of things that really matter are being handled quite well, so there’s no reason to dismiss them.

However, I’m not sure everybody is as openminded as I am, which is a problem. Turns out, and I didn’t know this before, that 99% of the time somebody mentions schooling, they’ve got a grudge somewhere. People backing the city say “Well, how much money are we supposed to give the schools?” or “The school board is trying to rip us off”.

On the other hand, you have a lot of the people backing the schools who feel that the city is out to get them, they’re holding funding from the school system in order to teach the system a lesson. I’ve accused them of that myself, and who knows?�
(Word around the campfire has been that, in a small ’sunshine law friendly’ get-together, Mayor Bradshaw and Manager O’Connor told SB Chief John Smith and Superintendent Bailey not to give them a budget fight this year, because they’re just getting 3%.)
Maybe thats accurate.

With ACES, we’re hoping to get past those people who have some sort of emotional stake in this thing one way or another, and speak rationally to everybody else. Those of you who want to play sides, guess what?

Its not helping.

This is not a “get rid of the politician” issue. This is a “lets all show everybody how important the school is” issue, and based on the reaction we’ve been getting from ACES, it seems that everybody thinks it, but nobody wants to get up on the chair and say it without thowing mud in the process.

Which is the problem, because I’m a rock thrower. I’m keeping that separate from ACES, tho, and I hope you do too.

I pride myself on my independent political status.   I think one of the big problems today (not that its a recent thing) is that people tend to get together in teams, subscribing to a one-size-fits-all mentality, and not really paying much attention to what the team stands for. This kinda thinking REALLY happens in presidential elections, which is fully the reason that I think big dubya’s band of jackals got voted in (well, that, and the Democrats really promoted a dead fish as a president).

Its idiotic. Blind subservience to a political entity should be looked on as a fringe behavior in society, like these weird f—ers who picket military funerals because their spiritual leader tells them that gays are bad. If you’re going to adhere to a political party, you’d damn well best make sure that party agrees with what you’re saying.

Thing is, when push comes to shove, folks don’t agree with their parties.  Theres a lot of folks I know who root for the GOP because they stand against abortion, but have a problem because they also stand for the death penalty, and tend to be more hawkish regarding wars.  They’re the pro-life party part time.  On top of that, their social and economic programs seem to hint that they don’t care about the quality of the life, just as long as its being lived.

Then, I know a lot of people who are for the Democrats because they tend to stick up for the little guy, with regard to more assistance for the ‘economically challenged’, civil rights, gay rights, etc, but at the same time they’re the party commonly trying to take rights away (guns; free speech online, on records, in movies, in software).  Who wants to support a party so intent on telling you what not to do?

No, neither of these will work, thanks.  I haven’t seen the world in black and white terms since I was a toddler, and I’m disappointed in our country that those (well, red and blue) are the choices I’m stuck with politically.

Sure, there are third parties, but they’re laughing stocks.  People will commonly go around calling themselves libertarian, but when it comes to voting time, they pick A or B.  Why?  Because nobody wants to be on the losing team.

Which is an idiotic way to make a govenment.  If you don’t vote your values, what good is your vote.

Anyway, rant off.  This is an unfixable problem, at least until the mind control rays are finished.

Apparently websites can be sued for not being compliant with the Americans with Disabilities Act?  Who knew?

The story:

Target was sued back in February for not having ‘alt’ tags on their website, which, under a proper setup, will make Microsoft Sam start jabbering about the page, so folks with eyes worse than GACs will know what the mouse is landing on.

The article linked seems to imply that this will not only go for retail sites, like Target, but ultimately every website out there.

Coding ‘alt’ tags is good coding, sure, but I’m not really too concerned if Microsoft Sam isn’t going to read them.  Its unfortunate that technology has not improved to the point where the blind can see, and I agree that efforts should be made to include everybody, but for pete’s sake, don’t friggin sue me over it.