You know, some days are better than others.

I received a new fish stand for my birthday. we put it up yesterday, but when we got the fish in it, it leaked bad (something about being a 'free' tank with a big crack we sealed with silicon eight years ago.) We bought new silicon, fixed the leak and let it dry overnight. I filled it and arranged it all pretty this morning, only to be told by the dc ten minutes later that it had a new leak. Fish are back in the buckets, everything torn apart to fix. I can't find the silicon. We have looked everywhere (Jim just brought today's trash back in for me to go through even). So I decided to run to the store and buy more. Battery dead in the van. So I will charge it. Nope. Cord has been chewed off the charger. Jump it with another one of our six cars? Nope. all dead except hubbys which is at work thirty miles away. I would give up and just go back to bed except I am afraid I'll break it too!

Food Aditives

There is a way that seemeth righ unto man but the end is death. Proverbs.

Everytime I hear anyone talking about a great new chemical food I think about this scripture. Here is my phlosophy of health:

• God created the universe.
• God is love.
• God knows everything.
• Thus, God created for His materpiece (humans) the most nurishing, tasteful food possible.
• Due to the Fall, we have diseases and some foods may not be as healthy as the originaly were, soooo
• God gave some basic rules to follow that would keep His people as healthy as possible.

Anything humans do to "improve" this food, takes away from that food and causes problems.

The simplest example is wheat. The wheat grain is one of the best balanced vitamin packs in the world. Not only that, it is simple to prepare to eat. Just crunch it raw or toast it. If you really want to do more (raw is a little hard on my teeth), grind it, add some water, salt and yeast, let it sit for a while and bake it. Hmmm, I think I am making myself hungry!

But let humans get hold of it and "improve" it. We routinely take the germ and bran off the grain, removing more than twenty-five known nutrients. This makes the flour white and fluffy. We then bleach it to make it pure white. Isn't that so much better?

Not

The reason God put those nutriunts in there in the first place is because we need them.

The reason He didn't bleach wheat white is becasue the bleach is a poison (It is one of the chemicals used to give lab rats diabeties so they can find a cure.)

White flour makes people sick. Simple as that.

Another way man messes our food up is to put additives in it. This is usually done to prolong shlef life so the manufactur can make more money, or to increase the flavor or color so you will buy more. I have even heard accusations that they intentionaly use chemicals they know are adictive in order to increase profits.

Here is a list of twelve ingredients to avoid in order to protect your health.

Porn and Women

This article discribes how porn makes women feel. I have personaly known marriages destroyed by this all-pervasive evil. I have also known women who are still married who say they can tell the difference in their hubbys attitudes when they are doing porn. It acts like a drug and makes them mean and selfish. It is just as adictive.

This is why Wal-mart is great

There is only one boss. The customer. And he can fire everybody in the company from the chairman on down, simply by spending his money somewhere else.

- Sam Walton
American businessman and entrepreneur
Founder of WalMart

This is the basis of capitalisim. Those who understand it will suceded and those don't won't. Pretty simple really.

Socialism works like this:
There is only one boss; the government. Make them happy and you keep your job and your head.

I think I'll take the first.

(Quote found on Dr Laura's blog)

Is Birth Control Playing God?

 What is the average American couple’s attitude towards babies? “A boy for me and a girl for you and praise the Lord we are all through.” Where exactly do you find this idea in the Bible?

The fact is that nowhere in the Bible are children born to committed, God-fearing people anything but a blessing from God.

How many Christian couples even pray about how many children God wants them to have? It is clear from scripture that God can and does open and close the womb. It is also clear that God loves humans and the devil hates them. Who would be most likely to want to keep families as small as possible? Who is most likely behind the idea of small families for all? Why don’t we pray about this issue first like we do when deciding where to live, work, vacation or spend our money?

“A Song of degrees for Solomon. Except the LORD build the house, they labour in vain that build it: except the LORD keep the city, the watchman waketh but in vain. “It is vain for you to rise up early, to sit up late, to eat the bread of sorrows: for so he giveth his beloved sleep (You are wasting your time working to build a life if God isn’t in it. Next verse…) “Lo, children are an heritage of the LORD: and the fruit of the womb is His reward. As arrows are in the hand of a mighty man; so are children of the youth.“Happy is the man that hath his quiver full of them: they shall not be ashamed, but they shall speak with the enemies in the gate.” Psalms 127:1-5

Planning your family without God is foolishness and a waste of time. We aren’t really in control of this issue anyway. No one is guaranteed to have children or more children. Life, ultimately, is created by God, not by the will of mankind. Now, we have to do our part of course. But God is in control. It is not an accident that infertility is at epidemic proportions in this society. God is not necessarily punishing couples by not giving them children but He is punishing our society as a whole for our attitude towards children and Him.

Can you imagine the church having this attitude towards new converts that we have towards children? “We have enough people and don’t need anymore. What can we do to fix it so we don’t grow anymore?” How horrible!

The Bible says children are blessings and debt is a curse, yet we take medicines and have surgeries to avoid the blessings and apply for the curses. Something is not right here.

I wonder how long before this attitude does seep into the church about new converts. “More people would be too expensive (more Sunday school curriculum, bigger building, etc.), it would be too hard to train them, there are enough Christians in the world, etc.”

Yes, I know all the arguments.

“We can’t afford more,

it would be irresponsible,

the world is over populated,

I can’t handle more,

I don’t want to destroy my health, etc.”

Let’s look at them…

“If it is God’s will, it is His bill.” You can afford whatever God wants you to afford. If children are a gift of God and God supplies our needs, God is bound by scripture to provide for those children He gives you.

Now, everyone I have heard say they can’t afford to take a chance of having more children by asking God His opinion on the number of children they should have are living a middle class lifestyle. So their actions say that they really mean “We can’t afford our fancy house, cars, clothes, and vacations if we have more children.” This may very well be true. God doesn’t want us to worship in the predominate religion of America known as Materialism. He just might give you enough children (if you let Him) to bring you down to a level where He becomes the most important thing in your life instead of your importance being in your standard of living and image.

I am not saying everyone should have two-dozen children. I am saying we, the American church, have kicked God out of the bedroom. We don’t want to know what He thinks in this area so we don’t ask Him. We are afraid He will mess up our nice little, ordered world by telling us to do something like bring one more eternal human soul into the world than we planned on. It is almost like we think God is sitting up in heaven waiting for us to say “How many children should we have?” so that He can say “Bwahhhh (evil laughter)! Now I’ve got them. I get to ruin their lives with more babies!”

Does this bring us to “It would be irresponsible”? After all, we all look at the large family in the fast food restaurant and think “welfare mom!” Don’t tell me you never have. (I did. About eight children ago.) Our media and schools are too good at their brain washing for this to not be true. We need to get over what other people think. Easier said than done, I know.

Of course we all know that there are too many people on this planet. I mean, there have been whole books that have figured out that England will have food riots and America will have mass starvation; disease will be rampant everywhere, natural resources will skyrocket in price…oh, wait a minute. Those books were written more than forty years ago and set the date for these events to be in the 1980’s. I am writing this in 2009. I either missed all that or it never happened. In fact, the leading, none catastrophe news items this year has been “Everyone is too fat! We are all dieing of fat induced diseases like diabetes, heart disease, cancer, etc.” Natural resources (when adjusted for political meddling) are cheaper than ever in history. More people all over the planet are living better, healthier, longer lives. There is no evidence for the world being overpopulated. Just opinions.

The idea that the world is over populated stems from the idea that there is no God. If there is a God, and He is all knowing and loves human beings, why would He create a world without all the resources necessary to support all the lives that will be here in the course of history? Claiming we can not trust God to control our wombs in order to keep from running out of resources is a pretty big condemnation of God's wisdom, power, and love.Technology is increasing FASTER than the world’s population. In fact, it may be that all those new minds that have entered the world in the last hundred years are responsible for that increase. More people mean more workers, more division of labor, more prosperity for everyone!

You will find the countries that have the biggest “population problem” are not the most densely populated countries (those would be Monaco, Hong Kong, Singapore, Gibraltar, and Vatican City. Not India, Ethiopia, China, nor any of the others you hear about when this subject is discussed.) The fact is that all the countries listed as having too many babies really have too many politicians! They are socialist and/or religious dictators. The common people in these countries equate babies with more workers and prosperity. The politicians are the ones killing each other off and blowing up food supplies. I say we have as many babies as possible and put limits on the number of politicians we allow to come to being in our countries instead!

“I can’t handle more children.” How do you know that? You may have been over stressed once while baby sitting more children, but baby sitting in no way resembles caring for your own. Many people feel too stressed at two or three children to consider having more, also. I will reveal the best kept secret of large families: It gets easier after the fourth. Yes, that's what I said. It is easier after four.

When my first child was born I had to entertain her, care for all of her physical needs, do all the house work, and cook all the meals. I was alone (at least until my husband got home from work). Stressville. Numbers two and three just added toddlers into the mix.By the time my fourth was born I had other children old enough to really help around the house. I never had to worry about entertaining the little ones. I had time to really enjoy my baby!

This is not saying I make my children slave all day. Yes, there is a lot of work to make this house run, but we have so many people working I have trouble giving them enough to do! (About an hour of chores and a total of an hour of straightening up spread out over the whole day per person working, total, in order to teach a proper work ethic.)

Babies seem to be a curse to us because we make them to be. ANY blessing can be turned into a curse if you try hard enough. We have all heard of people winning the lottery and being broke and declaring bankruptcy within five years. Humans are quite good at this.

11 ways to turn God's blessings into a curse.
1) Get mommy a career so she can resent any time her kids distract her from her "real" job.
2) Deliver your babies in a hospital. Just the atmosphere is so sterile and unnatural that it makes you want to avoid going there at all costs. And with the current c-section rate at 30+%, the very real chance of major abdominal surgury is enough to keep anyone form getting pregnant.
3) Stick your kid in daycare as soon as possible so they can't possibly bond with anyone and learn trust and security much less how to behave or work. Plus, since daycare kids have a much higher rate of ADHD and learning disabilities, this will make them even more of a pain.
4) Send your kids to government school so they can't learn your values or become more attached to you than to their peers.
5) Buy your children every latest do-dad, beginning before they are born. You want to make sure they think they have to have what everyone else does. And the fastest way to make something into a curse is to hit your pocket book.
6) Dress your children in fashionable clothing. Looking like everyone else makes them think like everyone else, encourages rebellion and will cost you thousands of dollars to boot.
7) Set them in front of the TV every waking moment. This warps the brain and molds attitudes into the image of the Hollywood snobs.
8) Never teach them to obey, use manners, or control themselves. Then you won't be able to stand being in the same room.
9) Don't teach them to work so you can be their slave.
10) Make sure you tell everyone you meet what awful kids you have and how awful parenthood is. This will reinforce the sentiment in your brain.
11) Don't love your mate. You must make sure your children have no examples of love to confuse them.

12 ways to turn a curse into a blessing.
1) Mommy determines that caring for her children IS her career, and strives to do the best job possible at it. (Could there possibly be a more important career than raising citizens for the kingdom of God?)
2) Deliver your babies at home (if health permits). Pregnancy is not an illness. The normal atmosphere of the home reduces stress (and exposure to deadly germs!) and makes the whole event more enjoyable and far less dangerous.
3) Keep your children at home with you. This promotes bonding and security in little minds.
4) Teach your children yourself. This gives you the opportunity to teach them your values as well as the added bonus of learning all the neat things you have always wanted to learn and never had the chance before.
 5) Give them very little time with their peers. You want them dependent on their family not other little kids.
6) Provide them with plenty of siblings. Far more entertaining than toys and better for them.
7) Teach them to be discerning of what things are needs, what are wants and what are desires. Supply all their needs, some of their wants and few of their desires.
8) Buy second hand or low cost clothes. Actively teach them not to follow the crowd.
9) Do not let them watch much TV. Teach them to serve others and entertain themselves instead. This actually produces better attitudes and a great deal more entertainment for you as you watch them play.
10) Teach them to obey, use manners, and control themselves. Then everyone will love being in the same room with them.
11) Give them chores to do, gradually teaching them to run a household. This gives them a work ethic they will need in adulthood and relieves your work burden. In addition, it teaches them that they are worthwhile, important members of society. (Studies show that those who do chores as children are happier and richer as adults.)
12) Make sure you tell everyone you meet what wonderful, beautiful, brilliant children you have and how wonderful parenthood is. This will reinforce it in your brain.
13) Love your mate. If you do nothing else, this will make a vast difference in their lives.

I think a major cause of the rise in child abuse in the last couple of decades is that so many of us were raised in two child homes, then squirreled away into classrooms filled with people our own age. We have never really been around small children and have no idea how to treat them or what to expect. Many parents don't know you can expect to tell a two year old to do something and they will do it if you have taught them how.I can see the difference between my oldest daughter and me, already, even though she is not yet a mother.

When they first handed her to me in the hospital, I said "Hey! I'm a mommy…. Now what?" I didn't have a clue what to do with this new little person. Subsequently I made many mistakes due entirely to the fact that I didn't know anything about little kids. My oldest, however, already knows how to hold a baby, play with a toddler, and comfort a preschooler. She knows what to expect from different children of different ages. She is going to be a far better mommy than I ever was.

“I don’t want to destroy my health.” God designed our bodies to have many babies. In fact, science is beginning to prove that the natural break from monthly cycles provided to our bodies by pregnancy and nursing is very healthy (as healthy as working to make a church grow is to the congregation) and a cancer and osteoporosis preventative!

One doctor observed (about fifty years ago when large families were more common) that all of his patients that had large families were strong healthy women. Those with small families were weak and sickly. He didn't know which came first, the strength or the children, but he leaned towards children causing mothers to be stronger. There may now be proof of this.

It seems when a woman is pregnant, the baby leaves some of its cells behind after birth. These cells go to different places in her body and aid healing. Also, every baby you have lowers your risk of cancer by 7%. That is the way God designed us.

Besides, big families are FUN. There is always someone to play with and you are never lonely. I don't know what my hubby and I ever did for entertainment before children. Now we just enjoy sitting around and watching them play:-)

Note: This following chart was written during the time my hubby and I were deciding whether we would have more than two or three children. This is the actual list I made myself to help me decide.

Small Families Can go to Disneyland, out to eat, go on vacation and other places more often.Have newer clothes and more toys.Have one room per child.Provide solitude.Can more easily afford college

Big Families Always have someone who wants to "play with me." Learn to share, cooperate, get along and work with a team.Teach older children how to care for those younger and weaker than themselves. Younger children usually have nieces and nephews just the right age to learn on.Are never lonely. Can more easily influence society.

We now have eight. A large family provides for my children companionship, servitude in the New Testament model, teamwork, and socialization (the right kind because I know what their playmates (siblings) have been taught).

A small family provides things and events.

"Having five children in six years is the besttraining in the world for Speaker of the House."Nancy Pelosi

Lo, children are an heritage of the LORD: and the fruit of the womb is his reward. As arrows are in the hand of a mighty man; so are children of the youth. Happy is the man that hath his quiver full of them: they shall not be ashamed, but they shall speak with the enemies in the gate. Psalms 127:3-5

Let’s run some math; if the average Christian family has two children just like the sinners, then in an imaginary neighborhood with ten families, nine unsaved and one Christian, we would end up with eighteen sinners and two Christians in the next generation. If they each found someone just like themselves to marry and had two children, by the third generations we would have thirty-six sinners and four Christians- still a nine to one ratio. Now, if the Christian family decides to let God control their family size and they have the historically normal seven children who find mates of like belief and have seven children each, by the third generation we have forty-nine new Christian adults to thirty-six sinners. Research says that it takes thrity-four Christians to win one sinner to God; so in the first neighborhood we have yet to have enough Christians to win one sinner while in the second we have one convert. By the fourth generation we would have 343 christians (not counting our convert) to seventy-two sinners; a ratio of 4.8 christians per sinner, or enough Christians to lead at least ten sinners to God. the numbers just get bigger as you go along.

God and the US

1. God controlled the destiny of nations in the Old Testament, punishing them for sin and promising rewards for obedience.


2. God is the same yesterday, today, and forever.


3. No New Convenant squripture cancels God's intent to control nations (Paul said "Obey those that have the rule over you because God put them in power.").


Conclusion: God has been and is controlling the destiny of today's nations including the USA

Sub-conclusion: If we wish to prosper as a nation, we must strive for righteousness

The Marriage Relationship

How would you feel if your spouse said “I love you very much but I don’t have time to talk to you everyday. Not even for fifteen minutes.”? Not very loved, I am sure. How long would your marriage last under these circumstances?

Marriage is a symbol of our relation with God. How often do you talk to your Spiritual Hubby? Is it really too much to ask to give fifteen minutes of your time everyday? How do you expect to build a relationship with Him if you don’t?

Many say they are too busy for daily Bible reading and prayer. But how many hours do you spend in front of the TV everyday? Most Americans spend three to eight hours communing with the “Boob Tube” and none with God.

If you are in control of your own schedule (don’t slave for someone else) would fifteen minutes less work per day really make that much difference in how much you accomplish? Would fifteen minutes less sleep per day really make a difference in how rested you feel over all? And surly missing 15 minutes of TV time won’t kill you.

It doesn’t matter what comes out of your mouth. How you choose to spend your time will tell what is important to you.

In the same way, sex is important to a marriage. Women, the average sex act takes about 12 minutes. Surely you can afford that much time to give hubby what he needs. And, yes, men have a physical need for sex, much as we women have a physical need for our husbands to talk to us.

Sex (orgasim in men and cuddling in women) produces a hormone called Oxytocin. This hormone strenthens the heart physically and emotionally. It is known as the bonding hormone and is responsible for the overwhelming feeling of love a mother feels to her newborn baby. Everytime hubby has sex with his wife, his heart is knit to her in the same way. Women, denying hubby sex is much like shooting yourself in the foot. You are weakening his bond to you.

The Government and Fire

My studies of history have led me to believe that fire is the perfect analogy for government.


We need fire. It warms our homes, cooks our food, even powers our cars (gas motors work by small explosions inside the engine, the force of which pushes the pistons which turns the cranks which turn the wheels). We can’t live without fire.


However,


That fire must be kept as small as possible and must be kept VERY controlled. You only start fire in places specially designed for it (fireplace, campfire ring, heater box on the furnace, burner on the stove, etc.) These places are very small and getting smaller. We used to need a fireplace the size of a small bathroom to heat a home. Today we heat a bigger house with a fire that is only 1’ x ½’.


You also don’t feed a fire all the fuel it wants, because, you know what? It will never get full! In fact, if you tried to give fire everything it wanted, it would destroy you.


Whenever possible, you use anything but fire to do what ever job you need done. For example, you could cut the wood to build a house with a fire, but a saw would do a much more accurate and less wasteful job of it.


We need government. Government is necessary to punish criminals, protect us from other countries, and for some basic safety regulations. I would add, also, to protect us from large companies that would otherwise become “governments” themselves. Without government, we have chaos and, eventually, tyranny.


However,


Government must be kept as small as possible and must be kept VERY controlled. You only use government in certain, limited situations. And as technology increases, I am not sure but our need for government lessons, just as our need for fire.


Government’s “fuel” is power. The more power we give it the bigger it grows. History tells us that there comes a point when government gets so big it becomes a wild fire (like we have in our mountains here every summer). It begins killing and destroying indiscriminately. I only have to say a few words to get you started seeing what I mean:



Hitler. Stalin. Pol Pot. Australian Aborigines. American Indians. Cambodia. Mau Se Tung. Boer War. Death March. Trail of Tears. The French Revolution.


And these examples are just from the last two hundred years.


History is full of many, many more examples of government run amuck.


Governments ALWAYS wants more power to “fix” things. It NEVER has enough. But when a government gets too much power, people begin to disappear, die and suffer. This applies to any government in the world.


Government should only be used for those things that truly can not be done any other way, even if we think government could do it better. Remember, it may be faster to cut a piece of wood with fire, but a saw won’t burn you.




There are those that say America is different.


It is and it isn’t.


Republics have existed before (We are NOT a democracy. We are a republic. Big difference.) Our government was based on the early Israelite nation, Athens, Rome, and the English parliament. What is unique about our government is that (when it was first set up) ALL laws applied to ALL citizens (Slaves were not considered citizens and the Civil War and following legislation righted that wrong.)


The original design of our government was that the president had to obey the same laws as the poorest bum on the street. This was unique in history, with the exception of Israel. In every other attempt at representative government the rules only applied to one group. Only the rich could vote, for example. We applied the laws to everyone (Yes, I know only land owning men could vote at first. Since land was free for the taking, though, that meant that any adult male could vote. This gave one vote per household instead of our very unfair one vote for some homes and four or five for others).


Simply put, our president did not have the right to yell “Off with their heads!” and have it obeyed. This is why America was different.


America is the same as any other country because its government is made up of fallible human beings. This means our government is just as susceptible to tyranny as any other in history has been. It is just as dangerous to have the fire in your furnace get out of control as it is for your campfire. Maybe more so.


Something that happened recently scares me. Our congress passed a law aimed at one group of people. Granted that group only consisted of about thirty people and those were the ones who had received bonuses. But it still scares me. This means our congress has reached the point that it has discovered it can openly and directly control the behavior of groups by its legislation.


Oh, they have actually been controlling us for years. Tax deductions for using solar power, for example, are manipulations. But until now they have at least attempted to veil their intentions to control in “politically correct” terms. I mean, for example, the “Fairness Doctrine” that was in effect during the Clinton administration and was attempted again recently is an attempt to silence the “enemy.” But they veil it in terms of “fairness” (It would only be a true “fairness” doctrine if it forced TV stations, newspapers and the biggest magazines in the country to give equal time to conservatives while it was forcing talk radio to give equal time to liberals.)


But this recent legislation disturbs me.


Actually the whole bailout is based on un-equal representation and bad economics, as well as un-American ideas, but that is a different post.


The fact is that this administration is actively labeling anyone who disagrees with them as terrorists, setting the stage for removal of our freedoms of speech, assembly, and religion.


This is the beginning of the wild fire.

In Honor of Breast Cancer Awareness Month

This is the month we take to remind ourselves of the possibility of breast cancer and to raise money to find a cure for the disease. I have heard numbers as high as “one in three women will get breast cancer.” I know the overall cancer rates are this high.

So to share the information I have gathered in my studies and hopefully to help some woman out there to avoid ever needing a cure for breast cancer (or other cancers either)…

To Prevent Cancer (especially of the reproductive organs such as breasts, ovaries, uterus)

• Never have an abortion. Women who have abortions after the age of eighteen have a 50% increased risk of cancer of the breasts. Abortions before eighteen raise your risk by 100%. This is because when you get pregnant your body immediately begins to change your breasts to prepare for breastfeeding. It doesn’t know what to do with those changed cells after an abortion so they become cancerous. Miscarriages don’t raise the risk because most miscarriages are caused by inadequate estrogen in the first place which prevents the natural changes from starting. (These numbers were found by a PRO abortion researcher who had lost several relatives to breast cancer. She was floored, to say the least.)

• Never take birth control pills or use any other hormonal birth control (the patch, shot, IUD, etc.). The active ingredients in hormonal birth controls are estrogen and progesterone. Excessive amounts of either (you know, more than God placed in your body naturally) cause the body (and especially the breasts) to begin the changes towards pregnancy but, since there is no baby, the cells become cancerous. Those who have taken birth control (especially after age forty) are at significantly increased risk.

• Have lots of babies. Every baby you give birth to lowers your overall cancer risk by 7%. This is because God designed us to have babies. It is not natural to have the more than 400 periods that modern women have in their lifetime. Periods are what wears a woman’s body out, not pregnancy (of course, a pregnancy when your diet is poor will stress you, but the only reason for an American to have a poor diet is lack of education).

• Breastfeed your babies for as long as possible. Every accumulated year you breastfeed reduces your chance of cancer by 2%. Once again, following God’s design instead of man’s gives you greater health.

Of course add the standard “high fiber, low fat diet plus plenty of exercise” that will reduce your risk of all cancers.

Cancer is not part of God’s original creation. It is the result of the Fall. When we live as close as possible to God’s original design (exercise a lot, eat natural foods, have lots of sex with our spouse and lots of babies feeding them the way God designed) we greatly increase our chances of avoiding many of the diseases of modern society and significantly increase our quality of life.

The Beautiful Tree

I just finished reading this book. I am both excited and frustrated.

Tooley, the author, is an education researcher in third world nations (after being a school teacher in Africa for awhile). He would go into a country, ask the education officials about private schools for the poor. In EVERY SINGLE COUNTRY they told him that was an oxymoron; there was no such thing. By definition, the poor could not afford education, thus the need for public school. Besides, poor parents didn’t think education was important, didn’t really care about their children, wouldn’t know a good education if they saw it.

In every country, he would politely thank the officials (government office holders, public school principles, public school teachers) and walk out into the poorest slums in the countries and find dozens of private schools for the poor.

IN EVERY COUNTRY!

Even in China where private school was illegal.

He would ask the parents why they were sending their children to the private schools when there was a public school available. They would tell him that because the owner of the school would loose money if the parents were not happy, they monitored their teachers closely and would fire them if they didn’t perform up to snuff. Because the private school teachers could be fired, they worked harder to provide a pleasant atmosphere and to teach as much as possible. This is a “market control mechanism” that is simply not available in public school.

How did the parents know if the education was “good enough”? They would look at the children’s workbooks and see if the were written in regularly, pop in for surprise visits, and quiz their children and the public schooled neighbor children and children from other private schools to see who knew more.

Tooley had samples of students form public and private schools from the same neighborhoods tested for academic and IQ levels. He discovered the privately educated students skunked the public schooled ones (who had the same or higher IQs), just like the parents said.

This book excited me because it confirmed that parents really know what is best for their children and do love them world round. It provided some very commonsense free-market solutions to poverty through targeting these poor parents and their schools. The poor don’t need our charity. They need low cost loans and opportunities (Well, maybe a few carefully targeted school vouchers).

He even suggested these solutions could be applied to the US and England. And there is no reason his ideas wouldn’t work to solve our own education problems.

The book frustrated me for two reasons: I have read the same words coming from our education officials that he heard from those in Africa and India. Even when he would drag them out to the schools, they refused to believe parents weren’t too stupid and unloving (not their words, of course. They were too politically aware to make that mistake, but that is what they obviously meant) to supervise their own children’s education.

How in the world do we break the iron grip of those who think they are helping us but are really strangling us???? How do we defeat this monopoly that controls our country? (What is taught in the classroom today is believed in the government tomorrow). Obviously this attitude is part of being in the education industry no matter where you live. How do you defeat a universal?

Secondly, my- well, anger for lack of a better word- at the “poor” in America for tolerating the status quo has greatly increased. I have to admit that, though I have before stated that Americans are all rich enough to afford private education of some kind if they want it, I have had this nagging question of “when are you truly too poor to really afford it?” Now I have my answer.

These parents who were spending 5-10% or their income ($2-5 each month) on each child’s education were living in one or two room shacks with dirt floors and no running water. In one community, the poor lived on platforms with four posts and a tin roof set in the middle of a swamp/sewer. These people didn’t always have money for FOOD. Yet they could manage to educate their children.

Now how does the fat bottomed, American poor sitting on their plush couches on their wall to wall carpet in front of their wide screen, cable connected TV with their washers, dryers, microwaves and dishwashers humming in the background compare (I include myself in this discription, by the way)? (add a whiney voice in here) “I just can’t afford private school or homeschool.” (Never mind homeschool curriculum is available online for free)

We Americans are a bunch of SPOILED BRATS!!!

American parents, quit being so selfish! Make the sacrifices to give your children the education God calls you to give them.

You have no justification before the Throne for not doing so.





(Oh, I HIGHLY recommend the book! Your view of education and a lot of other issues will be changed for ever.)