I guess that's the one good thing about my original parent abandoning me. I don't have to worry about taking care of her when she needs it.

(My grandfather adopted me, and I was his primary care-giver for the last few years of his life, along with my beloved cousin whom he also co-reared. So though I sound like a flippant lil bitch, I took care of the one who cared enough to take care of me. And it was hard and it was scary.)

Ayup, Jesse. I mean, I've got a sibling. (My mom had 5 when it came to her dad, but even then there were constraints for various sibs where it was decided they not have to make direct decisions.) But brother's got a family of his own, and if there is hard stuff, I'm probably in a better position to do the heavy lifting.

But I need to talk to my brother about this. We've touched on it, vaguely. Cause, you know, it's scary. And the parents. Uhg. We briefly touched on it during the Peru trip, but that was with the assumption dad might fall off a cliff (and for 30 minutes, my mom thought he had!) and so a different game plan entirely.

Have either of you seen The Savages? I haven't, but I'd like to.

Liv just pulled off a running tackle on Owen. I swear, I didn't know whether to correct her or cheer her on.

Damn, this parenting stuff is HARD.

Anyone heard of this case in California, where a group of homeschool folks have sued the UC?

PZ Sez:

Mike Dunford has a series of articles on a recent California court decision — in brief, Christian homeschoolers tried to sue California universities to force them to accept courses taught with Christianist literalist creationist textbooks as legitimate, college-level science credit, and they lost. They lost hard.

The whole series of articles is fascinating, but I'll just quote one bit:

The second instance of paranoiac tendencies is a bit more troublesome. The Plaintiffs appear to believe that not being Christian is evidence that you are biased against Christians. They submitted a list of actions and beliefs that they allege demonstrate that UC disapproved of their religion. One of the items that they included as evidence of the official state bias against them is that:

(5) "The senior reviewer is Buddhist, and the reviewer who handled religious school science courses and drafted most policies is Jewish..."

Asserting that non-Christian religious beliefs is evidence of hostility toward Christianity is quite simply wrong-headed. It relies on the assumption that everyone has the same hostile attitude toward other religious beliefs that they seem to consistently exhibit. It also relies on the assumption that they can only receive a fair hearing from like-minded people. The judge handled that last bit quite well:

Additionally, allegation (5) cannot support a hostility claim. UC is under no duty to employ only those individuals whose religious beliefs coincide with Plaintiffs.

Heh. Also, duh.

From Summary Judgment in the California Creationist Case: The Lawyers for the Creationists Argue Like Creationists (Part 2 of 3)

Part One: [link]

eta: More from PZ:

But that's not what the judge in this case ruled on; rather, Behe's defense of these books was that it was "abusive" to ask students to subscribe to an idea like evolution with which they disagree. Setting aside the obvious point that the whole point of education is to introduce students to a multitude of ideas with which they may or may not agree, the judge pointed out that the books which Behe approved flatly state that Christians must accept creationist conclusions—unlike our biology books, which don't demand any religious litmus test of their readers—and were therefore perfect examples of exactly the problem he was complaining about.

but I guess it's flattering?

I was carded at a grocery store buying beer on Sat. This was WITH MAC! seriously? I told the checkout baby that she was sweet, I might have said "bless you" also.

Hahahahahah! I had a high school counselor think I was an 8th grade student. Seriously? WTF!? Less flattering and more me thinking, "Wow. you don't know kids AT ALL."

I did a bunch of research on where foods originated and how the traveled along the Silk Road.

New World Foods rock. So do Near East and Far East Foods. Poor European Rock Clappers.

Nope, java. What's the concept?

Man, now I'm dreading my regular weekend calls. OK, so the brother one, we speak candidly anyway, but from what I've seen, the 4 of us ought to sit down and bawl and hash out.

I realize we have more time. But I'm also realizing (by this and other things) we need to do it sooner rather than later.

My brother, sister, and I are on the same page about one thing, at least--we realllllly hope our dad kicks it before our mom does. Because if he's first, SHE can deal with all the ridiculous crap he's collected (he's a stamp collector, so it's not stuff we can just throw away, but it's not stuff we really want to spend time going through either). If she goes first, he's going to hole up in the house and it'll be piles and stacks and those scary things you see on TV...

Yeah, the unspoken in our family is similar (see how I didn't say it?) It's not the stuff in our case, it's the personality, sort of. He'll be harder. Mom'd move in and find her own place. Dad, nsm. And if his decline is slow, he'll resent it. He really wants to go off a cliff. And I say that only half-humorously.

I figure my sister will kill my parents within short order (they're both retired, and she's living at home) so I won't have to deal with the otherwise inevitable...I mean...I don't live in the same country! What do I do? That's fair, I mean?

Vegetables are roasting. They smell quite tasty so far.

Watching an episode of Mission: Impossible where one of the team is mistakenly kidnapped to be exchanged for three bad guys. The response of the team under the guise of the US military? "We're charging these three bad guys we already have here as accessories to the kidnapping, finding them guilty, and assassinating them in the morning. Booyah."