While serving her first term on the Washington Elementary School board in Arizona, Tamillia Valenzuela made national news. She describes herself as a “neurodivergent Queer Black Latina,” but that isn’t what brought her to the attention of the media. Recently she stated that the board should consider “where our values lie.” She went on to state how “disheartened” and “opposed” she was to discover that the district had an ongoing contract with Arizona Christian University that enabled their student teachers to be placed in the district’s schools for field experience. The contract opened up opportunities for recruitment and hiring.

Is Angela Reading a security threat to the United States? According to Lt. Col. Christopher Schilling the leadership of nearby Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst believes, “[T]he current situation involving Mrs. Reading’s actions has caused safety concerns for many families. The Joint Base leadership takes this situation very seriously and from the beginning have had the Security Forces working with multiple state and local law enforcement agencies to monitor the situation to ensure the continued safety of the entire community.” What has Angela Reading, a previously law-abiding wife, mother, and member of the school board, done to require such scrutiny from the military and local law enforcement?

When I first heard of the New York Times editorial by American fashion designer Heather Kaye, I thought it would be another looney liberal expression of a misguided desire for authoritarian government control. Her opinion piece is titled, “China Helped Raise My American Kids, and They Turned Out Fine.” I figured the title told me all I needed to know and nearly stopped reading. Then I recalled the old adage, never judge a book by its’ cover, or in this case an article by its title. After reading the piece, I still believe Kaye is misguided—but she made some good points.

I like to spend money at places that appreciate my business. Often these are shops where I know the owner or, businesses that I hear of through my network of family and friends. Since I’m a conservative Christian, my friends tend to move in those circles. Redirecting my meager funds to support like-minded companies has been a slow-growing, but natural, part of my economic philosophy for years. However, I’m not the only one that has moved in this direction. The idea of a conservative Christian parallel economy has grown in influence over recent years. This has led to a surge of interest in creating a more distinct economic structure that reflects the values of this movement.

Cracker Jack announced last week the 126-year-old company will be packaging special-edition Cracker Jill snacks to support American female athletes through the Women’s Sports Foundation — and reworked the old song “Take Me Out to the Ballgame” to include lyrics about female athletes.

Girls love sports as much as boys — softball, soccer, basketball, volleyball, wrestling, swimming, tennis, golf, etc. And they probably like to nibble on the all-American treat of caramel popcorn and peanuts — and find the prize inside.

But it took more than a century for them to earn a spot in the world of athletics, a struggle outlined in vivid detail during an excellent St. Helens Club presentation Wednesday in Chehalis by Corene Jones-Litteer titled “Overcoming Hurdles: Women in Sports.”

I’m old enough that I should know better. Many pundits declared a Republican red wave would sweep the nation on November eighth. I allowed myself to be caught up in their pre-election enthusiasm. I thought we had good candidates and that the issues were on our side. I continue to believe that defunding the police, cashless bail, and open borders are bad ideas. I felt certain that people would see that and vote in a massive way for change. More people did vote and an assortment of America First candidates did win but, more progressives were also elected.

For years I’ve said that school tax dollars should flow through the student to the school the child attends. Allow the family to choose a public or private school that meets their needs. I believe most families would continue to choose their local public school but, the competition would force all schools to improve. This concept is gaining ground however, the teachers’ unions and their political supporters vigorously fight against the change. I found evidence for this in a pair of recent news articles.

Recently an FBI whistleblower reported that the agency has lowered the priority of child sex abuse cases. This was done to allow the agency to focus on the January 6th probe and cases of domestic extremism and white supremacy. This shift of priorities would be disturbing enough but, we should not forget the recent cases that the FBI has chosen to ignore. These include the protests around and attempted assassination of Justice Kavanaugh, the Hunter Biden laptop, the political intrigue of FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, and the mishandling of classified documents on Hillary Clinton’s email server. Beyond that, there are allegations that FBI Director James Comey, Agent Peter Strzok, and Lisa Page had engaged in political misconduct regarding the Russia probe and the Trump administration. None of this has had a thorough investigation.

Since I’m certain to disagree with them, I don’t usually listen to speeches by Democrat politicians. If I need to, I can always find the text online. However, on the first of September President Biden walked out of Independence Hall in Philadelphia and, flanked by Marine guards, delivered what was called, Remarks on the Continued Battle for the Soul of the Nation. When the president speaks about a fight for the very essence of our country I thought I should listen. I wish I had stuck with my practice and looked it up later.

I’ve been pondering this meme.

My oldest son forwarded this one to me and it has got me thinking. Most social media memes aren’t worth the time it takes to create them but, occasionally there is one that stands out.

Many think that Christmas, not Easter, is the most important holy day of the Christian year and many of them don’t know the story of Barabbas.

Yesterday, my phone rang and a mechanical voice informed me, “Due to unusual activity, your social security account had been frozen and you will not receive future deposits. To correct this issue stay on the line and speak with a representative.” I slammed the phone down.

YouTube had restricted access to a video called, The Ten Commandments: What you should know. That’s what the article by Dennis Prager, the creator of the video declared.

I did some checking. He’s right. Don’t misunderstand me; you can still watch the video unless you’ve activated the YouTube restricted mode. The restricted mode prevents the viewing of pornography, violence, and obscenity.

The Public Theater of New York City recently decided that it would be a good idea to stage Shakespeare’s play “Julius Caesar” in a modern setting. In this version of the play the dictator, Julius Caesar, looks a lot like Donald Trump and, of course, in act three he’s murdered in order to save the country.

I’ll start this off by stating that Donald Trump was not my first choice for president. Early in the primary season I believe there were seventeen Republicans running for the office. Trump would not have been in my top ten. I’m a conservative. During most of the primary I had no idea what Donald Trump was, other than a better choice than Hillary Clinton or Bernie Sanders.

I continue to get emails from politicized organizations.

I’ve tried to use a website called Meetup to find writing groups in and around my area. It never worked well. I found networking with other authors led me to far more people than the website, but I never deleted my membership with Meetup.

Yesterday NaNoWriMo.org, the organization behind the event felt, compelled to send me an email in which they stated, “Because of this core organizational value, we join the many voices standing against the presidential executive order that bans refugees and people from seven Muslim-majority countries from entering the United States.”

Why is National Novel Writing Month involving itself in issues of immigration, foreign policy, and national security?