Happy belated Birthday to the National Guard:

Guard celebrates 371 years – or 19 generations of lifers
What is a few years younger than the Mayflower Compact (1620); a lot older than the Declaration of Independence (1776) and U.S. Constitution (1787); predates the U.S. Army, Navy and Marine Corps by 139 years; and is 311 years older than the Air Force?

Answer: The National Guard.

Known originally as the militia, the National Guard turns 371 years young Dec. 13.

Thanks to each and every member for their service to the country.

Sometimes, people find themselves in hot water simply for the way they word a memo. That may be exactly what happened to this principal in a New York High School:

Last month, Principal Bennett Lieberman sent off a stern memo to teachers.

“If you are not passing more than 65 percent of your students in a class, then you are not designing your expectations to meet their abilities, and you are setting your students up for failure, which, in turn, limits your success as a professional.”

Was he ordering teachers to dumb down their classes?

The memo continued:

“Most of our students come from the lowest third percentile in academic achievement, have difficult home lives, and struggle with life in general. They DO NOT have a similar upbringing nor a similar school experience to our experiences growing up.”

The School Board is requesting he clarify these statements but in my opinion just about anything he says now will only make the matter worse. Sometimes silence really is golden.

If you missed this post at Captains Quarters yesterday, it is a must read.

HC: We’ve got to enlist the American people the way we did in a previous generation for the Apollo program. As a little girl, I remember being thrilled about that, and feeling there was something I could do. [Shrugs] My fifth-grade teacher said it was to study math and science, but it gave me an idea of actually contributing to my country.
Hillary Clinton was born in 1947. Assuming she started the first grade as a six-year-old as most kids do, she would have been in the fifth grade in 1957-1958. The Mercury program didn’t start until 1961, and Apollo started in 1966. John Kennedy didn’t even make his speech about going to the moon until she was a teenager, not a “little girl”.

The shine appears to be slowly coming off the penny.

*Apologies for posting this piece..I know I mentioned no Clinton pieces until at least after Christmas, but it was too important not to post. Mrs. Clinton seems to have a tendency to not be capable of telling us the truth on even the smallest issues…what would she do as POTUS?*

In a portion of a post by James Lileks, a simple act of kindness..the kind which I think you remember and tell your grandkids:

I don’t remember precisely how the conversation began, or who spoke first, but he said he was going to plug my meter, and I noted that I’d been warned in time, and gosh: that’s nice of you. I mean, when I saw someone about to feed my meter, the brain balked at processing the data and the conclusion, because such random acts of generosity seem absurd to expect, let alone witness. As it turned out: he was a reader of the sites, and recognized the vehicle from the Bleat. Seeing it outside StarTribune HQ, he figured it was mine, saw that I was down to 9 minutes, and wanted to chip in.

Wow. So, Kevin: I meant it when I said that was the nicest thing anyone had offered to do all day. Because it was, and I was pretty sure it wouldn’t be equaled. It wasn’t. It’s not the cost, but the thought, and the idea that someone would fill my meter because he recognized my car and liked the work – well, as the old Ren and Stimpy cartoon said, it filled my heart with blood.

It really does come down to that simple phrase “It’s the thought that counts,” doesn’t it?

Have a terrific weekend all!