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8A
♦ SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 3, 2007
Chambliss talks about Peach Care, water and war
Sen. Saxby Chambliss called
the other date to update me
and you on a num
ber of issues currently ricochet
ing around Washington, including
continued federal funding for the
State Children’s
Insurance
Program, known
in Georgia as
Peach Care. The
program autho
rizes states to
provide health
care coverage
to “targeted
low-i n c o m e
children” who
are not eligible
WlliK i- '
Dick Yarbrough
Columnist
yarb24op@bellsouth.net
for Medicaid and who are unin
sured. Chambliss calls Georgia’s
Peach Care the “model” program
among state efforts.
Under Peach Care children
receive health benefits including
dental care and vision care with a
maximum premium of S7O for two
or more children over six years
of age. With some 284,000 chil
dren enrolled, Georgia ranks fifth
nationally in size.
Only California, New York,
Florida and Texas all larger
states have enrolled more chil-
Public school follies: Forget math - lon go with Yoga Ed instead
The surgeon general
really needs to slap
a health warning on
The New York Times. My
blood pressure increases a
few points every time I read
it. This
week, - the
newspa
per of
record
pimped
the Next
Great
American
Education
Fad: In
school
yoga class
es.
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HHp
Michelle Malkin
Columnist
malkin@comcast.net
According to the piece,
“Less Homework, More
Yoga, From a Principal Who
Hates Stress,” the head of
Needham High School in the
Boston suburbs is pushing
“stress reduction” through
better stretching and
breathing. Principal Paul
Richards, who last earned
nationwide mockery when
he ditched publishing the
honor roll, is part-Oprah,
part-Deepak Chopra, part-
Richard Simmons and all
edu-babble.
“It’s not that I’m trying
to turn the culture upside
down,” he’s quoted telling
the Times. “It’s very impor
tant to protect the part of
the culture that leads to all
the achievement,” he said.
“It’s more about bringing
the culture to a healthier
place.”
And here I thought high
school principals should
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'ln our brief conversation, Chambliss sounded
like a man who thoroughly enjoys his job as
Georgia's senior senator. He didn't say so, but I
suspect he wouldn't mind another six years at it
if you give him the opportunity next year."
dren. To qualify, a family of four
must have a maximum income of
$48,527, or 225 percent above the
poverty level. The federal govern
ment provides roughly 73 percent
of the dollars, the state puts in the
rest.
Now comes the tug-of-war
between the White House and
Congress, Republicans and
Democrats, liberals and conserva
tives and special interest groups of
all stripes using needy children as
pawns. The White House recent
ly vetoed a Democratic bill that
would have expanded the program
by $35 billion. Congress has so far
failed to override the veto.
Liberal media and the Democratic
leadership accuse Republicans of
being “against children.” “That’s
absurd,” Chambliss says, “I’ve
never voted not to cover children.
make schooling, not “bring
ing the culture to a health
ier place,” their top priority.
Silly me. Welcome to your
new Nanny State night
mare.
Yoga classes are now a
requirement for Needham
high school seniors. To
further ease the supposed
burden on overworked stu
dents, Richards has “asked
teachers to schedule home
work-free weekends and
holidays.” Just what we
need to turn around those
one in 10 schools that are
now considered “dropout
factories,” huh? Can’t cut
it in the classroom? Bend
like a bridge, take five deep,
slow breaths, and all will be
dandy.
Why stop at yoga? Tantric
chanting, here we come.
And, hey, Kabbalah has done
wonders for Madonna. Let’s
add hypnotism and acupunc
ture classes while we’re at it.
Hot stone massages? Bonsai
tree-clipping? No Relaxation
Technique Left Behind!
Some point to a number
of tragic student suicides to
justify larding up the school
day with Tree Poses and
Sun Salutations. But the
school officials themselves
admit the deaths were not
related to stress. No matter.
Richards is using them to
forge ahead with “a move
ment to push back against an
ethos of super-achievement
at affluent suburban high
schools amid the extreme
competition over college
admissions.” It appears
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What I am opposed to is the effort
to expand the program to adults
1 and raise the eligibility to over 400
percent of the poverty level,” or an
annual income of roughly SBO,OOO.
With state officials hammering
him on one side for money for
Peach Care and liberal lawmakers
on the other side blatantly trying
to make political hay of the issue,
does the senator feel caught in the
middle? “I can’t worry about that,”
he says. “I just want to be sure the
program is not discontinued, and I
don’t think it will be.”
Chambliss says a continuing res
olution can maintain the program
for at least another 18 months
until the differences can be worked
out. “And they will be,” he pre
dicts.
Chambliss is not quite as opti
mistic about the state’s water cri-
there are now more than
40 other high schools and
middle schools that embrace
the “Stressed Out Students”
agenda. There’s another
yoga curriculum popular in
California, Yoga Ed., that
has trained 10,000 teachers
in more than 100 schools
nationwide.
And guess what else I dis
covered after trying to find
out whether yoga was com
ing to a school near me? We
are paying for this nonsense.
The Yoga Ed. program, cre
ated by Hollywood spouse/
socialite Tara Guber, was
funded with taxpayer grants
from the U.S. Department
of Agriculture and the fed
eral Carol M. White Physical
Education Program.
Bit by bit, the dumbed
down cult of mediocrity, secu
lar extremism and multicul
tural madness has infected
American public education.
Instead of concentrating on
the basics and then teaching
children to manage and con
quer their “stress” through
internal discipline, we’re
removing every last source
of possible damage to their
egos.
Math test scores have
plummeted. Solution:
Remove the U.S. from inter
national competitions.
Students are failing.
Solution: Hide the honor
rolls so the under-achievers
don’t feel bad.
Elementary pupils don’t
like drills and spelling tests.
Solution: Fuzzy math and
inventive spelling.
OPINION
Families can’t manage
their time. Solution: Less
homework, more yoga.
“A lot of these kids,” lec
tures Richards, “are being
held hostage to the culture.”
No kidding. When The New
York Times invited one of
Richards’ students to recom
mend stress-reduction tech
niques, he ended with this
suggestion:
“Watch a short clip on
You Tube (as long as you are
not addicted). The amazing
and often funny feats on
the site are inspiring and
often leave you feeling, ‘Hey
I want to do that!’ This is
a great attitude to have
towards your work.”
Watch feats of stupidity
on You Tube. Yeah, that’ll do
wonders for American stu
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sis.
After our conversation, he was
headed to the White House to hand
deliver a note from the Georgia con
gressional delegation expressing
its unanimous view that the Corps
of Engineers must stop releasing
billions of gallons of water from
Georgia’s lakes for the mussels in
Florida.
He had high praise for Gov.
Sonny Perdue’s efforts to curb
water usage, in the state and to
pressure the Corps of Engineers to
release less water but also recog
nized the strong opposition from
the governors of Alabama and
Florida to Perdue’s efforts.
“Somehow we are going to have
to get the governors together here
in Washington to work things
out, including how much water is
available and how much everyone
needs,” he says. That effort is now
underway.
Chambliss says a good short
term solution would be to get the
corps to rewrite its outdated water
control manuals, which provide
guidelines and usage allocations.
He feels rewritten guidelines
could mean more water for Georgia
without harming the ecosystem
downstream. The long-term solu
dent achievement.
The only ones who need
stress reduction right now
are parents fed up with this
runaway idiocy. If you think
educrats are going to recover
their senses any time soon,
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tion, he says, is the construction of
more reservoirs. But that’s years
away and will cost billions of dol
lars.
I asked him about the war in
Iraq. Chambliss says the rhetoric
in Washington is more subdued
these days because “we are win
ning. The tide has shifted in Iraq.
Things are improving and the
Democrats know it.” As a result,
he predicts that you should see
“significant” troop withdrawals by
the end of 2008, as Iraqis take
more control over the governance
of their country.
There were a number of other
issues I wanted to ask him about,
but the White House was wait
ing. In our brief conversation,
Chambliss sounded like a man
who thoroughly enjoys his job as
Georgia’s senior senator. He didn’t
say so, but I suspect he wouldn’t
mind another six years at it if
you give him the opportunity next
year.
After listening to what he has to
put up with in Washington, he can
have it.
You can reach Dick Yarbrough at
yarb24oo@bellsouth.net, P.O. Box
725373, Atlanta, Georgia 31139, or
Web site: www.dickyarbrough.com.
well, you know, don’t hold
your breath.
Michelle Malkin is
author of Unhinged:
Exposing Liberals Gone
Wild. Her e-mail address is
malkinblog@gmail.com.
478-988-9193
55414