GatorUptown’s Blog

My father has a unique ability to time his email forwards… On the heels of a rough day at work, I took a few minutes to catch up on emails, and found a forward from him with some pictures that managed to knock me out of my funk.

For your amusement, I present to you… the drama pets:
Read the rest of this entry »

A woman named Ana Ligia Mateo was hired as a bilingual secretary at Devonshire Elementary School in 2006. For years after, she assisted parents of Hispanic students (a group that makes up 42% of the school’s student body this year) who only spoke Spanish.

In 2008, she was told that she was not allowed to speak Spanish to parents, despite many Spanish-speaking parents relying on her fluency in the language. This, at a school whose website describes it as an “Academy of Cultural and Academic Diversity.”
Read the rest of this entry »

I posted last week about Meghan McCain’s essay blasting the U.S. military’s “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy, and her specific complaints about Pres. Obama’s lack of decisive action on the issue. The fact that the author is daughter of conservative Republican Sen. John McCain certainly adds a sense of notoriety to the subject.

I didn’t dig too much into the public disagreement between the two McCains, but I thought Sen. McCain’s recent statements about DADT warrant an examination of their opposing positions.
Read the rest of this entry »

This week in Nashville, a “Tea Party Convention” was kicked off with a riveting and impassioned speech by Tom Tancredo, former Congressman from Colorado, in which he chastised the selection of our new president and the political views that he believes Pres. Obama espouses.

Specifically, he said that “people who could not even spell the word ‘vote’, or say it in English, put a committed socialist ideologue in the White House. His name is Barack Hussein Obama.”
Read the rest of this entry »

Posting frantic blog entries about having no money, and needing to stay home and conserve funds, is nothing new to me. In fact, a quick search found two entries with the same freakin’ title: GROUNDED! and Grounded! were only a few months apart. Still, those were probably good sentiments, and I should’ve followed my own advice.

’cause damn, I’m BROKE.
Read the rest of this entry »

Dozens of British and Welsh bishops in the Catholic Church were visiting the Vatican recently, and received an unusual admonition from Pope Benedict XVI. Essentially, the Pope praised Great Britain for its attempts to ensure equal and just treatment of its citizens, just so long as that equality doesn’t step on the Catholic Church’s toes.

And in a bizarre twist, I may actually agree with His Holiness, up to a point.
Read the rest of this entry »

Admiral Mike Mullen, current Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (the collection of the top-ranking leader from each branch of the United States Armed Forces), caused quite a stir yesterday when he vocally and unequivocally voiced his support to repealing the U.S. military’s “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy. And today, he got some unexpected support.

Gen. Colin Powell, who was Chairmen of the Joint Chiefs of Staff in 1993 when the DADT policy was enacted, issued a statement today supporting “the new approach presented to the Senate Armed Services Committee this week by Secretary of Defense Gates and Admiral Mullen.”
Read the rest of this entry »

From the title, you might assume that I’m talking about Sen. John McCain, Barack Obama’s opponent in the 2008 Presidential election. Or you might think I’m talking about the senator’s wife, who was recently a very notable participant in the “NO H8″ campaign opposing Proposition 8 in California. But no, I’m actually talking about the senator’s daughter, Meghan McCain.

Turns out she’s got some surprisingly vehement support of gay rights bubbling up inside of her.
Read the rest of this entry »

I’m coming down from the most AMAZING weekend… Absolutely perfect. And instead of blogging about something cynical or sarcastic, I’m just going to rave about how great it was. Indulge me.

It all started with the snow.
Read the rest of this entry »

I noticed a job posting recently that caught my eye… It’s for a Human Resources Officer position, and includes job responsibilities (and qualifications) that are right up my alley. The job description was instantly intriguing, and I read through it word-for-word with held breath.

For the record, it’s not with my current employer.
Read the rest of this entry »