My Mother, she told me no end,
“If you got a tooth, you got a friend”
I was young then, and careless,
My toothbrush was hairless,
I never had much time to spend.

Oh I showed them the toothpaste all right,
I flashed it about late at night,
But up-and-down brushin’
And pokin’ and fussin’
Didn’t seem worth the time… I could bite!

If I’d known I was paving the way,
To cavities, caps and decay,
The murder of fiIlin’s
Injections and drillin’s
I’d have thrown all me sherbet away.

So I lay in the old dentist’s chair,
And I gaze up his nose in despair,
And his drill it do whine,
In these molars of mine,
“Two amalgum,” he’ll say, “for in there.”

How I laughed at my Mother’s false teeth,
As they foamed in the waters beneath,
But now comes the reckonin’
It’s me they are beckonin’
Oh, I wish I’d looked after me teeth.

Both of my brats have had fillings, this is a fact I have to say I struggle with and it is not for the lack of getting them to brush their teeth but apprently that more and more of our food is full of hidden sugars.
I do cook a lot of meals from scratch and the fruit bowl is always available to them and sweets and biscuits are treats but still they know what it means to be drilled.

The feast of St Valentine is a Christian corruption of the Roman pagan festival of Lupercalia, where, as part of a fertility rite, men would smear themselves with blood, dress up in animal skins and run around the city whipping young women with cords made of goatskin.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lupercalia

The celebration during the Late Republic and Empire

The Lupercalia festival was in honor of the She-Wolf who suckled the infant orphans, Romulus and Remus, the founders of Rome. Explaining the name of the festival, Lupercalia, which translates out into “Wolf Festival.” The festival was celebrated near the cave of Lupercal on the Palatine (where Rome was founded, see Livy, Book I), to expiate and purify new life in the Spring. The Lupercal cave, which had fallen into a state of decay, was rebuilt by Augustus; the celebration of the festival had been maintained, as we know from the famous occurrence of it in 44 BC. A highly decorated cavern 50 feet below Augustus’ palace in the correct approximate location was discovered by archeologists in October 2007, that may prove to be the Lupercal cave when analyzed.

The religious ceremonies were directed by the Luperci, the “brothers of the wolf (lupus)”, a corporation of priests of Faunus, dressed only in a goatskin, whose institution is attributed either to the Arcadian Evander, or to Romulus and Remus. The Luperci were divided into two collegia, called Quinctiliani (or Quinctiales) and Fabiani, from the gens Quinctilia (or Quinctia) viz. gens Fabia; at the head of each of these colleges was a magister. In 44 BC. a third college, Luperci Julii, was instituted in honor of Julius Caesar, the first magister of which was Mark Antony. In imperial times the members were usually of equestrian standing.

The festival began with the sacrifice by the Luperci (or the flamen dialis) of two male goats and a dog. Next two patrician young Luperci were led to the altar, to be anointed on their foreheads with the sacrificial blood, which was wiped off the bloody knife with wool soaked in milk, after which they were expected to smile and laugh; the smearing of the forehead with blood probably refers to human sacrifice originally practised at the festival.

The sacrificial feast followed, after which the Luperci cut thongs from the skins of the victims, which were called Februa, dressed themselves in the skins of the sacrificed goats, in imitation of Lupercus, and ran round the walls of the old Palatine city, the line of which was marked with stones, with the thongs in their hands in two bands, striking the people who crowded near. Girls and young women would line up on their route to receive lashes from these whips. This was supposed to ensure fertility, prevent sterility in women and ease the pains of childbirth. This tradition itself may survive (Christianised, and shifted to Spring) in certain ritual Easter Monday whippings.

Oddly enough when I sat down to dinner with my brats my son start to tell me about Lupercalia, that is until the pasta fell of my fork which had paused half way to my mouth as I sat agog listening to him and he and his sister fell about laughing at me.

Well nice to see he is getting an ‘intresting’ education despite being in a catholic school.

Can children be atheists ?

My youngest got confronted and hassled about her not believing in “God” by one of her classmates and the classmate said that god could make her belief in God and my daughter said God could not.

The classmate counter that God could do anything and again my daughter said God can not, the classmate then listed all the things God has done saying God can do anything and there were no other Gods.

My daughter retorted that the class mate was wrong that her God could not make a 4 cornered triangle and could not make her believe in him.

This she relayed to me with a smug grin on her way home

Needless to day after this exchange on the schoolyard the teacher had a stressful afternoon with the class the majority of whom are meant to be making their first holy communion in a few months.

I do, worse then hello kitty tech is pink tech, esp generic tech pinkified to make it susposedly female friendly.

The latest offender is this item

Ok I know it is a product that part of the money from it goes to fund breastcancer awareness and research
but really, come one it is the ‘bling’ that just pushes me over the edge tbh.
Nice of them to be positioned on the ‘right’ side of the clip just encase a female gets confused while pluging it in her self as the tech savy male in her life might refuse to.

/headdesk.

If you really want one you can get them here

http://www.engadget.com/2008/01/08/national-breast-cancer-foundation-cat5-cable-in-pink-with-cry/

The Court of Criminal Appeal has ruled that a Central Criminal Court judge erred in principle when he imposed a non-custodial sentence on a man found guilty of raping a mother of three in her own home in 2005.

Adam Keane from Barnageeha, Daragh, Co Clare, had his sentence increase from three to ten years today following an appeal from the DPP.

The appeal court said today in its 28-page written judgment that the appeal of the leniency of the sentence by the DPP was well founded.
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It said that the well-established principle that a custodial sentence be handed down for the offence of rape should have been followed.

The judgment also found that Mr Justice Paul Carney did not attach sufficient weight to the location and circumstances in which the rape took place.

Mary Shannon was raped as she slept in her own bed in May 2005, her three children also in the house at the time.

Originally he was found guilty of the rape but given a suspended sentence but did not even get home to the small town in which him and his victim lived with out breaking the conditions of his probation, by flicking a cigarette at his victim and making a “triumphalist gesture” at her. The judge did place any restriction on him in regurds to distancing himself from Mary Shannon.

No wonder there is such a low level of reporting to the garda / police in this country.
Out of all the sexual assulats and rapes the rape crises centers deal with less then 10% will
file a report, and out of that 10% only 5% will be taken to court, so that is .05% and the convictions rates are in Ireland some of the worse in Europe.

http://www.thenation.com/doc/20071224/ehrenreich

wow just wow,

This article just total sums up what is so wrong with the disney princess franise and why I don’t’ want my daughter being a part of it.

http://www.paulkidby.com/news/index.html

AN EMBUGGERANCE
Folks,

PS I would just like to draw attention to everyone reading the above that this should
be interpreted as ‘I am not dead’. I will, of course, be dead at some future point, as
will everybody else. For me, this maybe further off than you think – it’s too soon to tell.
I know it’s a very human thing to say “Is there anything I can do”, but in this case I
would only entertain offers from very high-end experts in brain chemistry.

yesterday boards.ie was fun and play,
and now it’s gone so grey and gehy,
oh cant it be like yesterday ?

Suddenly, it’s not half the lulz it used to be,
There’s all this PC shadow hanging over me.
Oh, yesterday ended suddenly.

Why they had to go make the site googible, they woldn’t say.
I think thats were it went wrong, now I long for yesterday.

Yesterday, before the lolcat came play.
Now I feel the need for private forum to hide away.
Oh, I believe in boards.ie as it was yesterday.

This was posted in a parents support group and honestly it explains it so well.
I have been through this exact same thing with my son, but thankfully ‘tray fall’ days have becomes less frequent.

FYI– about students with Autism/ Asperger’s
by Lenore Gould (1996), Carbon-Lehigh Right to Education Task Force,
Schnecksville, PA
Distributed by Autism Services Center, Huntington, WV, by kind permission of the author

Those of us who have daily contact with children with autism sometimes have trouble explaining to regular education teachers or administrators the “hooks” of autism; especially the kinds of support they need. You’re always trying to explain the basics, “no, moving the pencil sharpener’s location in the classroom is not what upset him. You have to understand that…” Then I came up with this analogy. Perhaps it will help others to visualize the support needed.

Try to imagine the child balancing a large serving tray on one upturned hand. Every distress for that child is like a liquid-filled glass you are putting on this tray. The “distress glasses” are unique to each kid; but generally include things like auditory or visual over-stimulation, social interaction, “surprises” or unexpected changes in the schedule, lack of clear leadership, the number of people in the room; whatever is sensitive for that child. (Don’t forget the ability to read the body English and anxiety of the adults around them!) The size and weight of the “glass” for that child varies. Some things are merely shot glass size, while others can be a 2-liter jug. At some point the tray is going to start to wobble– the liquid will start spilling out of the glasses on the tray. The cues that this is happening will vary from kid to kid: just as the cause and size of a “glass” varies kid to kid, but will generally include regressive behavior, avoidance or shutting down, giggling or minor acting out to get attention.

Hopefully, someone will help the kid rebalance the tray, or remove some glasses. Perhaps taking a break, or allowing time to refocus or process will work; again, techniques are unique to each kid. If there’s no intervention, the addition of one more “glass” will topple the tray to the floor. The cause is not the most recent “glass” you added, but the fact that the tray was full or too heavy (the latter is why the child seems so unpredictable to some people.) Our efforts should be that the kid learns to hold a bigger tray, or to do minor correction of the tray’s balance somewhat independently, but they will always carry that wobbling tray. Ignoring cues can be disastrous, from classroom disruptions to a major regression. When an autistic kid’s tray comes crashing to the floor, it is always a major event.

That’s why, if I hear my son got highly upset over a moved pencil sharpener and acted out, I do not want to hear that he has to learn to accept change. The sharpener is immaterial, if I learn that day he’d dealt with a substitute teacher, a fire drill just as Reading was starting, dead calculator batteries halfway through math, a crashed computer in the middle of English, a late bus so that he missed part of home room and some fluorescent lights in the class are half out- his tray was already fill.

All of the distresses are unavoidable and he’d dealt with them without a hitch; but each was another glass on his tray.

Autistic kids need someone around who is familiar with them; to sense how full the tray is getting and read the cues, so there’s intervention before that wobbling tray topples to the floor. that is why the type of support for these kids is critical, not just a “hot body” nearby– but the “right hot body” whom they can trust will help balance and who knows the “hooks”.