Define "recently", please

From a post today on The New York Times politics blog, The Caucus (emphasis mine):

Will Iowa’s conservative Christians turn out in force for Mike Huckabee? ...

Despite a negligible organization here last summer, Mr. Huckabee pulled off his second place finish in the Ames straw poll in August with help from the strong support of Iowa’s home-school families. It is unclear how many evangelical Christians in Iowa teach their children at home — some estimates are over 10,000 — but the network of families is tightly connected and highly motivated. They come together in groups and online to share curriculum information, form sports teams, and stage other activities. And many, aware that homeschooling was illegal in almost every state until recently, fear that if they relax their vigilance politically[,] teachers’ unions will push to take away their rights.

While you could hold The Times's feet to the fire for such an inane comment and wish for a little more old-time New Yorker-style fact checking, I'm fairly certain that the little gem above resulted not only from the fact that Times reporters are so darned busy sorting out just how Stewart and Colbert are going to tap dance around the writers' strike, but also from an organization that happens to be mentioned in the post's very next paragraph, an organization you would think (are meant to think) has home schoolers' best interests at heart. Heck, the organization even has the words "home school" right there up front in its name -- Home School Legal Defense Association. So you might, just might, be forgiven for thinking that they want what's best for homeschoolers.

But you'd be wrong. I'll admit that when we first started home schooling, very abruptly partway through Laura's first grade year, I had no idea of the lay of the land and which way was up, so in addition to a few particularly lousy curricula choices, I also signed up for a year with HSLDA. It took me about a year, until the subscription renewal arrived, to get my bearings and figure out that the organization has a vested interest in keeping homeschoolers fearful. Because the more afraid we are, and the more we're made aware of just how far on the edge our educational choices are, the more willing we're going to be, supposed to be, to cough up $100 each year. Do the math when HSLDA says it "is tens of thousands of families united in service together, providing a strong voice when and where needed." That strong voice is supposed to help all of the little people, those home education families with quavering voices quaking in their shoes.

And for shame trotting out that ancient NEA bugbear. The determined but ineffectual old dears have been trotting out the same anti-home education resolution annually at the big convention since 1988, and HSLDA knows it. By the way, does anyone else find it amusing, even without considering HSLDA reaction, that Mike Huckabee and the NEA get along so well?

Once I'm again, I'm reminded that Raymond Moore, the pioneering home schooler who with his wife established The Moore Foundation and who died last year, was right when he wrote his White Paper on "The Ravage of Home Education Through Exclusion By Religion" 10 years ago, all about HSLDA. The last two links include a lot to read, but are most worthwhile. Mr. Moore, who was 80 or so when he wrote his White Paper, refused to quake and quaver or put up with HSLDA nonsense.

New Hampshire, here they come. You can have 'em.

If it's January 2nd,

then tomorrow must be the Iowa caucus. And just in time for the last leg of the horrendously expensive marathon that is American politics, suze has put together a new blog, Homeschoolers For …, with the tagline, "Because there is no such thing as 'the homeschool vote' ".

Speaking of which, don't miss the lovely, talented, and funny* Mrs. G.'s nifty campaign button.


Updated to add: *And incredibly generous, too. Thanks!

Shades of gray

I've spent more time in my kitchen and out in the snow than online, but I've tried to do some catching up while waiting for batches of cookies in the oven.

I was surprised, and I gather I wasn't the only one, by the recent New York Times article, "Huckabee Draws Support of Home-School Families", not because the reporter made it sound as if most home schoolers support the Huckabee candidacy, but because he made it sound as if most American home schooling families are Republican and evangelical Christians. And as if the HSLDA speaks for most American home schoolers, and as if it should be speaking on anything other than its own method of home schooling. Which it shouldn't. But I digress.

Of course, I've also read a fair amount online about libertarian home schoolers for Ron Paul, and Mormon home schoolers for Mitt Romney. Though I haven't read much about home schoolers voting for the only candidate who is actually home schooling -- John Edwards.

For the record, I'm the only one in this household eligible to vote in next year's U.S. election; and yes, I envy my all-Canadian husband, who has one less thing to think about next year; though we may be facing a Canadian federal election, too, in which case we're probably going to vote for different parties, which throws that family unity business mentioned in The Times out the window. I'm a registered Democrat (I started off as an Independent in college but wanted to vote in the primaries when I moved back to NY), would have voted Independent in 1980 had I been old enough, have never voted Republican, and based on the current slate don't plan to start now. I'd sooner vote for Santa Claus than any of the Republican candidates. Some of the Democratic ones, too, come to think of it; and no, I'm not swayed by moneyed talk show hosts either. I also tend to think that the best and brightest stay far, far away from politics, especially the nasty and expensive business of Presidential politics, and don't blame them a bit. So what we get tends to be the wealthy middle to bottom of the barrel. I seem to remember a number of people like that from my college days, and can't say I'd want any of them taking care of my legal or health matters, let alone in the White House.

Of all the issues facing Americans, and North Americans, a candidate's thoughts on home schooling are at the very bottom of my long list. Below, say, where he or she stands on gardening. Unless that gardening is somehow related to the Farm Bill. But that would make things complicated, wouldn't it? And we can't have complicated.

Seymour Martin Lipset, 1922-2006

The political sociologist Seymour Martin Lipset died on New Year's Eve. Over his long and distinguished career, he wrote a great deal worth reading if one wants to understand the United States and its place in the world, including American Exceptionalism: A Double-Edged Sword.

But especially for Canadians, and American-Canadians, you can't do better than his Continental Divide: The Values and Institutions of the United States and Canada, published in 1989, which does a tremendous job explaining Americans to Canadians and themselves, and Canadians to Americans and themselves. In fact, with the kids beginning their studies about the American Revolution, I think it's time for me to pull those two of the shelves for a rereading.

A Rum punch

I'm just a farm gal, and an expatriate liberal one at that, but it occurs to me that the midterm elections have handed the President an awfully expedient way to save face and turn that darn cruise ship in a different direction, however slightly.