Happy As Kings

Salon.com: Home schooling: How we do it

The article at the link is the second in a series from Salon.com

Home schooling: How we do it -- What's the curriculum for our twin 5-year-olds? Greek myths, costumed trips to the Met and Lightning McQueen

So at least for a while, the bunny chasing and melon smashing, and the trips to the Bronx Zoo and the New York Hall of Science, were free of any explicit educational intentions, beyond the universal goals of all exhausted parents of small children: to get through the day without unacceptable acts of violence, while demonstrating that the world is full of cool and exciting stuff. But as the months rolled on and the 3-year-olds in Leslie's group turned 4 -- the age when most public-school kids head off to pre-K -- their parents began to face the inevitable question: What do we do now?

First installment:  Confessions of a home-schooler -- Call us crackpots, but our kids spend their days at beaches and museums, not in school

Social worker at the door? What is the main reason for homeschooler concern about legal problems?

The past few days I have kept myself busy reading through the nine years of archives of the email list for the group, Association of HomeSchool Attorneys (AHSA).  I did this to find out the most common reasons for asking for help with legal problems concerning homeschooling, and I used the list as a sample of homeschoolers.

My reason for wanting to know what problems homeschoolers want legal help with stems from the record-keeping chapter I'm still writing for a blogged homeschool book for military families, Tossed by the Fates. 

Traditionally, one of the most common reasons given for keeping well-organized records of a child's education at home is in case the family is ever investigated for educational neglect, or finds a 'social worker at the door.' If this happens, it is said, the records will 'prove' that the parent is, indeed, providing a suitable education for the child.  Depending on state law, a well-organized record may or may not be a stand-alone defense (see your state law for exact requirements).

As I wrote that part of the chapter draft, the little editor-on-my-shoulder poked me with the sharp end of her blue pencil and asked how I knew that record keeping to stave off investigation for educational neglect really was the case.

Could not other reasons be:

• Staying on track
• A sense of order
• State requirement
• Raw material for 'high school' transcripts

From my own experience, I did not know whether preparedness for an investigation was a necessary reason to promote organized record keeping, so I went looking.

A big problem in digging up information to support my reasoning is that I have no access to prosecution records, court documents, or any database that tracks legal inquiries from homeschooling parents.  Given my lack of access, how could I collect any raw data?  My only resource was the email list for the AHSA, so that would be it.  I logged on to the list and read the messages, looking at the reasons for first inquiries.

In checking the reasons for first messages messages from new list members, it was not long before I could see the most common reason for needing assistance:  custody battles concerning children.  Yes, some members (13) initially posted with 'social worker at the door' queries, but the greatest number of requests for help came from custodial parents who were homeschooling but whose former spouse objected to the homeschooling.  So many new list members wanted help with custodial battles (as the reason for needing help was most often called) that in 2003 the AHSA list owner started a new list only for custody disputes.  Despite the new list (which attracted many list members), custody queries continued to show up on the original list.

After putting together the numbers, I went to an online graphing site, plugged in the numbers and, hey presto!, generated the charts at the end of this post.

I made one chart using the information I collected from the original AHSA list, and then I made another, adding the information from the AHSA custody list's front page.  I am not a member of the AHSA custody list, so I added up the total number of messages from the list calendar on the front page, and then divided the total by a completely-guessed-at average of five replies per original query for help.  I did not want to join yet another list and torture my eyes by reading through yet another list's archives.

• The information from the original AHSA list covers nine years:  2000 - 2009
• The information from the AHSA custody list covers six years:  2003 - 2009

A wild card in this representation of queries for help from homeschooling parents as a representative sample is that the Home School Legal Defense Association (HSLDA), the largest provider of legal assistance to homeschooling parents, does not accept custody dispute cases.  I do not know what effect this condition has on the number of people who arrive at AHSA's email list, but the HSLDA policy raises the question of whether it inflates the custody number compared to other categories.

• A caveat to that wild card is that the cases accepted by HSLDA is at their discretion, and the word on the street is that if a non-member family is approached by a local child protection agency then HSLDA will treat this as a pre-existing condition and decline to add that family to its membership.
• A caveat to the caveat is that HSLDA lawyers have stated anecdotally that they have helped non-members.  I presume the non-members only approach HSLDA when they have a legal problem.
• A caveat to asking HSLDA for help is that I do not remember any of the people who asked for help saying that HSLDA rejected their request for membership.  I was not thinking about this while I was counting, so it may have slipped by me. I am not so dedicated that I am going to read through nine years of archives again.

The quick and dirty breakdown of the queries for help is:

• Custody
  73 = 29%
• Social worker at the door
  13 =  5%
• Truancy
  8 = 3%
• Officials overstepping the law 
  6  = 2%
• Educational neglect, homeschooling w/o certification, officials contesting homeschooling
  4 = 1% each
• Bogus reports to child services
  1 = .3%  (that's 3/100s, not 3%)

The following charts show a representation of the number of messages, and after that is the 'on the fly' breakdown of the types of requests (I pigeonholed them as I went along, since I didn't know what to expect). 

In the charts, the categories are lumped together up until 'five queries' is reached (because that is where single issues for 'larger' numbers of queries begin).  The 'pie slices' of one, two, three and four queries are multiple subject categories, but adding them one by one would have made the chart unreadable.  A listing of the query subjects comes after the charts.  

AHSA list chart

AHSA list plus AHSA-Custody list chart

On both charts, the large light-purple segment represents custody queries.

List entries for nine years:  253 initial queries total  (not including the estimated 145 queries on the AHSA custody list)

73 queries

• Custody/divorce  35  (Aug. '03 custody list started)  38

15 queries

• General homeschool query

14 queries

• Special needs services denied by school

13 queries

• Social worker investigation

11 queries

• Complying with state-specific rules

9 queries

• Legislative

8 queries each

1. Special needs services imposed by school
2. Truancy

6 queries each

1. Officials overstepping the law
2. Unspecified request on behalf of a non-member of list

5 queries

• Foreign

4 queries each

1. Discrimination against homeschoolers
2. Educational neglect 
3. Homeschooling w/o certification is "illegal"   (CA - Eastin '02) 
4. Officials contesting homeschooling

3 queries each

1. Civil disobedience to challenge law  2 NH  1 Mass.
2. Late paperwork 
3. News stories critical of homeschooling 
4. Non-profit, establishing 
5. Public program questions

2 queries each

1. Complying with judicial ruling
2. Criminal case re: child 
3. Dual enrollment 
4. Job offer for attorney or legal assistant
5. Katrina 
6. Officials doing the paperwork shuffle

1 query each

1. Adjusting to public school
2. Age of compulsory attendance 
3. AHSA compared to HSLDA 
4. Alternative program pressured by state 
5. Bad school 
6. Child in custody 
7. Child labor laws 
8. Conflict with charter 
9. Conflict with reviewer 
10. Co-op obligations 
11. Daytime curfew 
12. Documenting transcripts 
13. Expert witness needed 
14. Family Defence Center 
15. FERPA 
16. Foster parenting 
17. Harassment via bogus reports to child services 
18. Homeless in shelter 
19. Homeschool group incorporation 
20. Homeschool group and IRS 
21. Homeschooling info requested as periphral to a loss of income lawsuit (if you have time to hmschl, you have time to work) 
22. Home School Legal .com 
23. HSLDA overstepping  (asked for all names from a state; that listing included non-member names) 
24. IDEA 
25. Immunizations 
26. Legality of compulsory education laws 
27. Military 
28. Minimum age for home alone 
29. Mixup of names in letter of intent 
30. Muslim lawyer needed 
31. Who is NHELD 
32. Obtaining child's 'permanent record' from school 
33. Obtaining standardized test 
34. Precedent 
35. Pvt. School liability for adjunct homeschoolers 
36. Pvt. Tutor option legal? 
37. Re-entering public school 
38. Religious conflict in Alabama (Jewish family) 
39. Religious exemption 
40. Religious school 
41. Reporting educational neglect 
42. Reporter query 
43. Research 
44. State residency during visit 
45. Social security payments 
46. Scholarship 
47. Supreme Court appeal 
48. Therapist request 
49. Websites with inaccurate hmschl information 
50. Working parent schedule

Bizarro gets homeschooling wrong, too

Bizarro is the latest syndicated comic strip to tackle 'homeschooling.'  Bizarro gets it as wrong as just about all the others I've seen, and some I hadn't until I searched just now. Using mass-schooling as a template for humor about homeschooling is klunky and inauthentic, maybe like using the culture of India as a template for Indians-in-teepees cartoons.

In today's comic, a homeschooling mom is asking her kids for their lunch money.  The son replies that his father stole it.  The boxed caption is about homeschooling going terribly awry.

I suppose in some cartoonish way, the strip is funny because almost all cartoon dads are bumblers, and many cartoon moms are hens that peck.  I'm assuming that in the Bizarro world, the mom ties up the finances with her apron strings, and the dad has to shake down the kids for pocket change.

But what mom, in any situation, gives her children 'lunch money' at breakfast only to take back the same bills or coins at lunch?  Even in a cartoon world, charging one's own children for their meals at home does not make much sense unless there is a back-story, maybe about teens who clear out the 'fridge as fast as Mom can unload the groceries.  Stone Soup or Zits might be able to pull it off.  Even then, dispensing cash and re-collecting it is too much work for Mom.  Occam's lunchtime this ain't -- it's not as if Mom's making a buck here.  Grokking humor shouldn't require so much contortion.

Dan Piraro (the man behind the comic) seems to think deeply about what's 'behind' concepts, as indicated by his blog.  But he missed the boat on the homeschooling strip.  What would be bizarrely humorous (making a sharp point), is if:

• The caption were, "Homeschooling becomes more like public school." 
• The caption were, "Socialization comes to homeschooling"
• Mom asked, "Where's your lunch?" and the boy replied, "Dad stole it."

Trying to apply the petty crime of the public school lunch money shakedown to a family is this cartoon's fatal flaw.  A work-at-home dad stealing a delicious lunch could be funny, but that would take a series-long set up for readers to immediate get that dad snitched the kids' food, and why.

And to those who are shaking their heads and saying, "lighten up, it's just a comic," no, it's not.  To quote the cartoonist's remarks at his blog on the subject of a topic apparently dear to his own heart, atheism, "As the funky DJ might say, 'Let's break it down, now.'"

Newspaper comics (like other social artifacts) are a distillation of 'what everyone knows' which is why they are successful in a newspaper whose aim is 'everyone.  This is especially important for a 'random subject cartoon' such as Bizarro because it doesn't have a running situation.  Bizarro seems to depends on what everyone presumes is common knowledge, but with a twist.  'Everyone' is expected to get this particular joke because 'everyone' knows that homeschooling is wacked out in the first place, and family members are always at odds with each other in the second. Therefore, of course, the bumbling cartoon dad will be bossed around by his sharp-tongued wife.  Think Hägar and Helga. 

In this Bizarro case, the dad is so whipped he has to steal pocket-change from his children.  The reason for the pocket change is flawed, but in the 2 seconds it takes to read the comic, the newspaper readers around the country nod in agreement about the dysfunctional homeschool family and another little brick seems to be laid in the wall.

Homeschooling is as fair a cartoon target as any other set of human interactions.  I just wish the cartoonists would get the relationships right.  Too bad for cartooning that Bill Waterson has such high professional standards.

What is the priority for HSLDA? Homeschooling or politics?

I've already commented on the inappropriate connection the National Guard has with the Home School Legal Defense Association (HSLDA):  National Guard and HSLDA.  The connection seems to go farther than just a military ignorance of 'how' homeschooling 'works' (thoroughly decentralized, with with HSLDA representing all homeschoolers as much as the editors of Parenting magazine represent all parents). 

HSLDA and the U.S. Military

Recent events and respected publications are bringing to light the unprecedented depth of change the theopolitical agenda has created in our government. Homeschooling is always included in assessments of these actions because it is an intrinsic part of the theopolical agenda. Therefore, as homeschooling families we need to recognize our involvement and the inevitable confusion it raises in the public's mind. We need to prepare ourselves to answer some very difficult questions.

I continue to hope that the HSLDA connection to official military websites is one of ignorance, and not a result of anti-pluralist servicemembers purposely skirting long-standing military policies of official neutrality concerning religious beliefs.  However, as information accumulates about overt anti-pluralist activities in the armed services and the government, my hope is fading.

• Mother Jones:  Gog, Magog and George Bush (2009)
• GQ:  Onward Christian Soldiers 
• GQ:  2003 SecDef Worldwide intel report cover sheets
• The Atlantic:  The Rumsfeld Briefings: Decoding The Classification Phrases  (2009) [my note:  "norforn" is nothing new, and is perfectly appropriate; "humint" is another longstanding term]
• The Star (Toronto):  Was Bush on a mission from God? (2009)
• Daily Kos:  MRFF Lawsuit Alleges Mandatory Christianity in US Military (2007)
• With God On Our Side:  One man's war against an evangelical coup in America's military by Michael Weinstein and Davin Seay  (2006)
• The Family by Jeff Sharlet (2008)

National Guard and HSLDA

This past week while I was looking for information for a mom asking an enlistment question on a homeschool email list, I came across a National Guard page with a link to HSLDA’s site.  Not only does the link go to the HSLDA website, but the National Guard page tells online readers that the requirements for homeschooled grads who want to apply to the National Guard for enlistment are listed at the HSLDA page.

   

  

 

 

I was surprised by this revelation because it is highly unusual for a military service to use a civilian organization to disseminate its official information.  Of course, a civilian organization might copy the information and display it, but the primary source should be the military service itself.  For the service to provide a URL to an external site, alongside the logo of the site’s business goes against Army regulations because of the appearance of endorsement.  The National Guard site has an asterisked disclaimer about endorsement, but that is outweighed by the inclusion of the HSLDA logo, and that HSLDA’s site is hosting the requirements.

Army Regulation 210–22, Private Organizations on Department of the Army Installations

 

Chapter 4

Participation in Activities of POs Operating on Army Installations

4–2. Limitations on Army personnel

a. In an official capacity, Army employees (military or civilian) will remain neutral in dealing with POs. The accommodation of one organization over another will be avoided, and there will be no preferential treatment or even the appearance of favoritism.

(1) Private organizations will receive no special treatment because they promote Army goals or support the military community.

(2) What the Army permits one organization to do, it must be ready to permit other similar types of POs to do.

(4) Army employees will not use their titles, offices, or positions in connection with their personal PO participation or to officially endorse an organization or its activities. …

(5) Giving the appearance that membership in certain organizations is officially sanctioned by the Government will be avoided. Officer professional development (ODP), noncommissioned officer professional development or other official settings will not be used as occasions for promoting any specific PO or its products.

I’m presuming that the condition of “operating on an Army installation” could be expanded to links on an Army website (since the regulation also applies to the National Guard), and that linking to an external website on which the National Guard’s requirements are listed, does give the appearance that the civilian website officially represents the National Guard.

In 2005, a U.S. Army recruiting page at goarmy.com featured a page for homeschoolers in which the URL ended with /hslda.  Many homeschoolers wrote to complain and the URL was changed to /homeschool.  The /hslda URL still redirects to the /homeschool page.   http://www.goarmy/hslda

The official sanction of HSLDA by the National Guard is further underlined by the content of the requirements.

 

National Guard Homeschool Path to Honor: Eligibility Requirements

Eligibility: To be eligible for the National Guard Homeschool Path to Honor, all applicants must be non-prior service (NPS) Army Home Study Diploma (AHSCH) (sic)  juniors, seniors, and graduates or the equivalent would include AHSCH students with a valid GED as well as currently enrolled college students with a AHSCH diploma. In addition, a qualified AHSCH graduate will possess ONE or more of the following (a., b., or c., as applicable):  …

 

c.       A homeschool diploma and transcript from the parent(s) or guardian(s) accompanied by a third party verification memorandum. Only one third party verification memorandum is necessary. The following are only examples of third party verification: …

 

2.  A memorandum from the Homeschool Legal Defense Association (if the family is a member in good standing) verifying that the homeschool graduate's program was in compliance with the State's compulsory attendance law.

 

f.  Homeschool graduates include only those students who graduated at age 19 or younger. Those who received homeschool diplomas at age 20 or older must submit supporting documents for review and a determination for an exception to policy. Such an exception can be obtained from the Homeschool Legal Defense Association (service available for members in good standing).

 

From start to almost finish, this document is flawed.

• Army Home Study Diploma (AHSCH)

 

How did the HSLDA writer ever determine that the letters AHSCH stand for “Army Home Study Diploma?”  If that were the case, the letters would be AHSD.  That is, they would be if any such thing as an “Army Home Study Diploma” existed, which it doesn’t.  The letters AHSCH stand for “alternate high school credential holder.”  (page 21, Commonwealth of Kentucky Department of Military Affairs,  Strategic Plan FY 2004 - 2008 )    

 

On one level, it is petty to point out that AHSCH does not stand for “Army Home Study Diploma.”  The writer did not check the meaning of the acronym, and appears to have invented a meaning.  This would not be a fatal flaw if it were not that the National Guard is using this piece of writing to advise homeschooled grads about the eligibility requirements.  That is unacceptable, especially when the organization hosting the requirements wants to set itself up as the decider of who has or has not earned a high school diploma.

 

• Third-party verification by HSLDA of a graduate’s diploma.

This language comes from the 2003 and 2005 versions of HSLDA’s proposed “Home School Non-discrimination Act”   I wrote about that at The Military Homeschooler website, and the December 2005 newsletter from the Wisconsin Parents Association, included a short examination of the question of “third-party verification” for homeschooled children.

Federal Homeschooling Legislation Raises Increasing Problems

For one thing, such a law [Home School Non-Discrimination Act of 2005] would generate business for HSLDA and increase their membership. But such certification will not work. Any organization certifying homeschoolers cannot maintain its credibility if it simply certifies anyone who requests it. But if the organization is not going to certify everyone, it will have to set some criteria for who is a bona fide homeschooler, which means they will be defining homeschooling and deciding who qualifies as a homeschooler.

• Exception to policy for graduates over the age of 20 granted by HSLDA

First off, for this exception to be granted, the recruit’s family must be HSLDA members.  Again, we have the violation of AR 210- 22.

(5) Giving the appearance that membership in certain organizations is officially sanctioned by the Government will be avoided.

No, the requirements do not say that the recruit must apply to HSLDA for the exemption, but no other organization is named.  This is not the appearance that HSLDA membership is officially sanction, this is all but a de facto requirement of HSLDA membership.

In looking around the HSLDA website, I found a page stating that HSLDA employees helped draft National Guard policy. 

National Guard opens doors to homeschoolers.  (see highlighted portion of image)

A civilian from a private organization outside the military service drafting policy for that service goes beyond unusual.  That situation would seem to break public law.  Persons who volunteer to help a military service are not to be placed in a position of making policy.

 

Title 10, Armed Forces, Subtitle A General Military Law Part I—Organization and General Military Powers, Part II Personnel, Chapter 81 Civilian employees,  § 1588. Authority to accept certain voluntary services

(b) Requirements and Limitations.
(3) With respect to a person providing voluntary services accepted under subsection
(a), the Secretary concerned may not—
(A) place the person in a policy-making position; …

The drafting of policy by non-DoD personnel is unacceptable.

The National Guard entry requirements for homeschoolers must be re-written without preference given to HSLDA, and the requirements must not be primarily hosted at an off-site page from the National Guard site.

Contact information.

Attn: freelancers and reporters who want to write about homeschooling

I've read many, many op/eds, news reports, blog posts and letters to the editor about homeschooling.  After years of doing this, fielding the same old questions has lost any charm it ever had, and the latest from USA Today (and blogged at Home Education Magazine) only made me sigh at the sloppy thinking.

Since the general public embraces the practice of testing people to see if they are qualified to work at a job, or hold a position of influence, I've put together what is perhaps the first test for non-homeschool writers who want to write about homeschooling.  If you cannot complete this crossword, a puzzle that contains only a few of the items I totted up in a list of possible clues and answers, do not write about homeschooling:  you don't know enough.  If you honor the system that most usually gets the kudos for educating children (schools), and if you fail this test, you won't write your article yet.

Click on the images to make them big enough to see.

[update:  the clue I put in to 6 across was something like, "Supreme court ruling that states that the child is not a creature of the state."  I have no clue why it said "No clue."]

When I've got more spare time, I may just look into really complicated puzzles.  That should be fun.

The answers are at one of my other blogs:  Repatria.

Alan Watts: Work as play

The Serious Need for Play

From Scientific American:

• The Serious Need for Play
  
  Free, imaginative play is crucial for normal social, emotional and cognitive development. It makes us better adjusted, smarter and less stressed

The upper-crust schools at home

Hessisches Landesmuseum

Dana commented on an article about QED -- Quality Education by Design. The company provides tutors to families, and the misnomer, 'homeschooling' is applied.  I realize that, as Helen notes:

I think this argument may very well be just an academic exercise at this point. I fear the autonomy we enjoyed while homeschooling our kids may be a thing of the past, as homeschools are driven toward acting more and more like schools.

 

Canal in Bruges, Belgium

Some people may point out that insisting on correct terminology makes homeschool advocates look ... I don't know ... defensive, or doggedly fringey, but it is by clearly stating who, what, when, etc., that we keep miscommunication from clouding discussions.

 

View from the Atomium

Tutors are a long-standing mode of education, so I don't see why marketers don't capitalize on the cachet of private at-home tutoring instead of hopping on the coattails of homeschooling, but maybe that's just me.

 

Butte de Lion, Waterloo, Belgium

The other items that caught my eye are the opinions that homeschooling parents teach only "hippie spawn" (yes, I see the tongue in the cheek), and that they are unable to manage a "last minute field trip to the Louvre in Paris." (and darling, saying "the Louvre in Paris" is like saying, "the Tower of London in London") My eye was caught because I managed to fit in the Louvre for the younger three kids, and my military brats were far from "hippie spawn." And we homeschooled only in Europe. (see my tongue?)

 

View from atop Munich's city hall

In any case, it's amusing, in a faux-shepherdess way, that rock band managers and catalog founders seek to invoke the cachet of a trend practiced by the less well-heeled, but don't seem to quite pull off the authentic article -- at least not in the articles heralding the new availability of high class homeschooling.

(Some parents apparently take the homeschooling concept so seriously that they insist that their children wear uniforms with school logos on them while studying at home.)

 

(I looked up from reading something aloud to see that looking at me.  I suppose our uniform could have been sweatshirts, and our logo was Christopher Robin marching off to the Hundred Acre Wood.)

That last quotation above is why I don't believe even half of what I read in magazines and newspapers, and even some books.  I've read so much misinformation about homeschooling that now when I read any article (homeschooling, or not), one of my first thoughts is how much of the article is skewed, and why.

Joy Behar disses homeschoolers -- but who cares?

I don't watch daytime tv, so The Viewis something I've never seen.  In looking at the YouTube segment, I recognize Whoopi Goldberg and Barbara Walters, but the other two women are unknown to me.  I now know Joy Behar's name because of comments on homeschooling email lists. 

The reason Ms. Behar is now in the laundry list of homeschool-related information is because of a comment she made on The View.  The topic the women were talking about was how Barack and Michelle Obama ought to have their daughters schooled during Mr. Obama's tenure as President, and the effects of either having the girls attend public school like Amy Carter did, or to attend private school like Chelsea Clinton.  Ms. Behar said that if it were her children living in the White House, she'd create a small private school like Jackie Kennedy did for Caroline, or to use Ms. Behar's description "Make a Little House on the Prairie. ... Yes.  In the White House"  OK.  Whatever.  It was after that comment that Elisabeth Hasselbeck (? -- I had to look up the participants) mentioned homeschooling, and then Ms. Behar (possibly going for the easy joke?) said that "a lot of them are demented when they're homeschooled"  (at timestamp 7:11, for those who want exact context)

The reason why I ask "who cares?" in the title is that later in the discussion (ca. 9:07) Ms. Behar calls President Lyndon B. Johnson's daughters "the bird sisters" and says she doesn't think they went to public school.   Because I'm not familiar with Ms. Behar's style, I don't know if she always goes for the joke, or if she can't remember that the two "bird" names were mother and daughter (Lady Bird and Lynda Bird), or that Lynda (Bird) had already graduated, and her younger sister Luci (Baines) was still in high school. 

• If Ms. Behar always jokes, then big whoop about the homeschool wisecrack -- perhaps jokes are her job on the show?
• If Ms. Behar can't remember presidential 'big trivia' from her 20s, then her opinions can be sidestepped.  Who could forget the Johnson daughters' names -- especially since the whole family had the initials LBJ.  That's like someone forgetting how many minutes were missing from the Nixon White House tapes**, or the name of Bill Clinton's most famous White House girlfriend++. 

In any case, after Ms. Behar's wisecrack, Ms. Hasselbeck gives a spirited defense of homeschooling and her homeschooled friends.  And thank her for that.  Ms. Walters is against homeschooling for the Obama girls because living in the White House is already an isolating experience, and I think she has a legitimate point.

Given the total discussion, I'd prefer to focus on Ms. Hasselbeck's comments rather than Ms. Behar's.

** 18 1/2

++ Oh, come on.  I don't really have to spell out that one, do I?