Turner & Kauper Child Care

CAMILA’S CAMPAIGN FAILED TO SEND A THANK YOU, FAILED TO SEND A RECEIPT.

I am Never voting for the yellow-topped-crepazoid from Planet Ten. Ugghhh!!!

But I am frustrated with Camela’s campaign.
I sent her a $100 campaign contribution. The largest political contribution I have ever made.
Admittedly, not very big. I am a retired family childcare provider with moderate income.

Camala’s campaign did not acknowledge my contribution. The website did not say “thank you” for the contribution. And, most importantly, the website did not offer a receipt for me to deduct the contribution.

The campaign did immediately respond thanking me for permission to share my email address and permission to send me more information and more requests for money.

Unfortunately, to the best of my knowledge, I GAVE NO SUCH PERMISSION. I am absolutely certain that I did not check a box giving permission to distribute my personal information or send emails. Quite the contrary!

Nevertheless, the $100 expenditure immediately appeared on my Citi Visa card account. The Kamala campaign website was well enough constructed to accept the contribution, but not well enough constructed to take care of the contributor.

I feel Kamala Harris is an amazing person. She is smart, strong, dedicated, and honest. She will make an excellent president.

But I now feel a tiny bit of doubt about her administrative capabilities. Is she aware that her campaign does not offer a thank you or a receipt? If she is aware, why does it happen? If she is not aware of this problem, why isn’t she aware?

Admittedly, I am a crabby old man. Perhaps I owe the Progressives of my Country an apology for complaining. On the other hand, I strongly feel that offering acknowledgment of a donation, and a receipt, is a basic obligation for anyone who is asking for money.

When I donated to SAVE for su***de prevention; when I have donated to the SW high school football team; when I donated money to Barack Obama’s campaign; I always got a big gracious “thank you”, a button for printing a receipt, and a separate email thanking me for my donation.

I am hoping that my experience is highly unusual. I am hoping that everyone else who donates to Kamala is receiving a thank you and a receipt for their donation.

And, regardless of all that, I feel certain that she will win and that she will be worthy of being our first female president. We live in exciting times! 



PRESIDENTIAL POLITICS
"As long as one woman in America can still laugh, Donald Trump's work is not finished." Funny Times newspaper, October 2024.

ME SPEAKING OUT TIMIDLY ON US FOREIGN POLICY
Feeling the need to contribute, hoping Facebook Friends will:
*** Read before you respond
*** Not yell
*** Comment and Contribute

CHINA -- no tariffs on electric vehicles or solar panels. Allow China to electrify America on the cheap. Much better to get cheap electric cars and solar panels from China *and* seriously help displaced American workers.
Let each country do what it does best.
China make electricity.
America create software and design advanced computers, chips, and pro-social AI. And feed the world.

Allow China to electrify America cheaply. Help save our planet.

MID-EAST
Long-term support Israel. I agree with Biden's peace plan.
Cease fire
Return ALL hostages
Two state solution
Ongoing, long-term security for Israel and Palestine.
Hold strong against religious hatred.

Support Ukraine. "Yes" to long range missiles. The only way to prevent wide escalation, prevent a direct war with Russia, is to stop Putin at Ukraine. If Putin wins in Ukraine, he will go on and on, grinding up one country at a time, until we are in WW III.

Must stop Putin at Ukraine to prevent much wider war.
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Read before you respond, please don't yell at me, comment and contribute.

Minnesota Public Radio just broadcast a great show on

FREE PLAY, SUPERVISION, AND PRIVACY FOR CHILDREN

Daycare licensing practices are the implacable and powerful enemies of almost everything children want and need.

Caution: The following honest criticisms and stroies of childcare licensing practices is unpleasant, may be hard to read, perhaps even unfair. I have tried to write from in person, face-to-face experience, or things I was taught in official childcare training classes, or events I heard of from known and trusted sources.

Babies are not allowed to sleep in a baby sling on the front of the caregiver‘s body listening to her heart. Not even for a minute.

A child care provider is not allowed to hold and cuddle a tiny baby who falls asleep in her arms while nursing. She is required to instantly put the baby in a crib which almost always wakes the baby up.

Babies are not allowed to fall asleep in a stroller. Taking a fussy baby for a walk so she can fall asleep is grounds for license revocation.

If a baby falls asleep in her car seat on a field trip, this is grounds for licensing revocation. Long ago, the President of the Minnesota Licensed Family Childcare Association, a great childcare provider, lost her childcare license, her career, her marriage, and her home. She had to move to Wisconsin with her children.

Babies are never allowed to sleep in a mechanical or electric swing. Even if that’s the only way that the baby can sleep at daycare, it’s absolutely forbidden. Not even if the baby's parents, one a professor of pediatric medicine and the other a professor of child development, ask for the electric baby swing.

A highest possible ranked Four Star childcare playground has no trees, no grass, no flowerbeds, no vegetables, nothing living or Green. Minnesota spends $40 million per year on Parent Aware which sets terrible and hurtful standards for daycare.

Daycare Children may not have swings. Swings are considered to be too dangerous even though they are thousands of years old.

The play yard in our daycare had more than a dozen trees, large patches of lawn, several flower gardens, and a nice vegetable garden. Mostly Planted and Tended by the children. So our playground had the lowest possible rank of zero stars.

Babies are not allowed to be in baby bouncers. Many babies love their bouncers. Good exercise, laughing, and happiness. Implacably banned by daycare licensing workers.

Preschool children are no longer allowed to go for a walk with their own feet. Going for a walk they must be tied into an eight or ten place industrial stroller with five point harnesses. Walking is too dangerous.

Daycare children are not allowed to make a "blanket fort". If the kids hang blankets over some chairs, the childcare provider can be accused of child sexual abuse. License revoked.

I was visiting a big Montessori center. The children tried to bring their nap blankets over to the indoor play climber. Free play! They were stopped and required to bring the blankets back to the cots.

Daycare children are not allowed to have a play fort, a play castle, or a play space shuttle. Not indoors or outdoors. Licensing workers consider that child sexual abuse.

"THE CHILDREN DON'T NEED MUSIC OR STORIES."
Our day care licensing worker would not allow us to employ a flat "wall-hugger" extension cord plug for our music center, to eliminate strain and help prevent fires. She said to me, almost smiling, "The children don't need music or stories."

As the MPR radio show guest correctly pointed out, a modest easing of extreme supervision is necessary for high-quality play. Licensing workers implacably oppose even the slightest amount of appropriate privacy for the children. Licensing workers, in practice, powerfully oppose free play.

Won't clean up s_ _t!
An assistant director of the Minneapolis Public Health Nurses told me on the phone (direct personal conversation), the Public Health Nurses support banning small fill-and-dump wading pools in childcare because the "black providers on the north side won't dump out or clean their pool after a child poops in the pool."

An Assistant Commissioner in the Minnesota Department of Human Services told a group of more than twenty day care parents who had invited him to a meeting,
"WHEN WE THIS MUCH SUPPORT FOR A CHILDCARE PROVIDER, THE FIRST THING WE THINK OF IS, THE PARENTS AND THE PROVIDER ARE COOPERATING TO SEXUALLY ABUSE THE CHILDREN."
Yes, really, yes. I was in the room when he said this directly to the parents faces. He was not murdered, lynched, or fired by DHS.

I have far too many more real, honest stories of horrible licensing personnel, events, and practices.

All powerful daycare licensing workers and administrators are implacably opposed to almost everything that children need or want.

There is a surprising simple technical solution which would greatly help this situation. A small change could work toward higher quality, cheaper, and more plentiful childcare in Minnesota.
Require the Minnesota Department of Human Services to Obtain a Warrant Before Issuing something called a Temporary Immediate Suspension. The TIS does endless harm and creates a terrible atmosphere of untouchable official abuse and provider terror.
Requiring a warrant would help child care providers in untold ways and cost almost nothing.

Michael Kauper, retired
M&M Family Childcare Home
Minneapolis, Minnesota

REJECTED BY THIEVES

Not only did the thieves who ransacked my car find nothing worth stealing, they felt so sorry for the old guy, they left A DONATION OF SUPPORT SOCKS.

I left my car unlocked. On this block in Kingfield, Minneapolis, thieves will go thru every unlocked vehicle nearly every night.

They rejected my Garmin GPS (which works great in mountains when my phone has no signal), both of my handicap tags, my back ache and heart burn meds, my tire gauge, and my lifetime National Park Pass!

They even rejected my treasured unabridged Niel Gaiman "Graveyard Tales" and Ben Bova's "Titan" CD's!

Amazingly, the Philistines did not even take my large collection of HP Lovecraft Society Radio Dramas, nor my BBC Dr. WHO audio cassettes.

However, feeling sorry for the old guy, who owned nothing worth stealing, the would be thieves kindly left me a new, unopened package of white athletic support socks.

SHOULD I BE GRATEFUL OR INSULTED?

The crown comes out to see the super-aurora, Eagle Lake Observatory.
May 10, 2024, about 11:00 PM.

For more aurora photos and aurora videos, see my previous two posts.

BIGGOTRY AND BIAS HURT EVERYONE

Dear MPR, 1a Radio,

I am an elderly privileged, white male, son of two privileged white parents.

The first three times I applied for a daycare license, Hennepin County told me that men cannot work in childcare.

For 50 years, I have put forth the idea that basic equality for women will never be achieved until white men are working in childcare, cleaning houses, and picking crops. Equality for women requires much more than women becoming lawyers, doctors, scientists, and corporate leaders.

Real equality across the spectrum requires that everyone, regardless of gender or gender preference, share in the difficult basic work of survival. Cooking and cleaning, raising and preparing food, all aspects of childcare.

My first job as a teenager was working on a vegetable truck farm. $.85 an hour, six days a week, from 6:30 AM until 5:30 PM.

As a childcare provider attending regional and national Childcare conferences, I was often the only man present who was not an owner, manager, or corporate executive, but who actually changed diapers and sang songs to the children.

Bigotry and bias come in all forms, and they hurt everyone. Even people born into white privilege.

Michael Kauper
M & M family childcare
Minneapolis, Minnesot

Sent from Yahoo Mail for iPhone

MPR—- STOP GIVING BAD ECLIPSE ADVICE

Only “Science Friday” has given correct advice on MPR or NPR. (That I’ve heard)

IF you travel to the Center Line, to see glorious Totality:

*** Before Totality, wear your eclipse glasses when you look at the Sun.

*** During Totality, YOU MUST TAKE THE ECLIPSE GLASSES OFF. OFF!!!!!!

*** After Totality, put your glasses back on when you look at the Sun.

If you DO NOT TRAVEL to the centerline, wear your eclipse glasses to watch the entire Partial Eclipse.

If you are among the fortunate ones who get to see the Total Eclipse in person, please, please, take your glasses OFF during the brief 4+ minutes of Totality.

In Minnesota we only see a Partial Eclipse, the Sun’s dangerous face continously visible. Wear your eclipse glasses when you are looking at the Sun. No direct Sun viewing in Minnesota without eclipse glasses.

Michael Kauper
Minneapolis, MN

Sent from Yahoo Mail for iPhone

DISCOMFORT, DARK THOUGHTS, AND A TERRIBLE PUN. If you are a sensitive person, just skip this post. 

I have often heard of constipation after anesthesia, but have never before experienced it. My first of two five hour surgeries two days ago has enlightened me or maybe endarkened me!

I’m in the hospital having spinal fusion surgery. I’m also following with joy, excitement and disappointment the failing Odysseus lunar probe. Most of you must know by now, after landing, Odysseus fell over.

Out of what I believe to be misplaced delicacy none of my extensive pre-surgery literature or personal consultations mentioned constipation. The side effects of the extremeconstipation are severe nausea and a blinding headache. Continuous and unrelenting for over 48 hours now…

Each time I use the toilet, I’m required to be spotted or supervised by hospital staff. Ideally, I stand up on my own and make my way into the bathroom with the safety of a walker. The nurse or nursing assisted hovers, but does not help unless necessary.

(here comes the horrible pun. It’s not too late to quit reading.)

As the kind and supportive nursing assistant watches me lower myself successfully onto the toilet, she says “good landing“.

At that moment the worst pun I’ve ever encountered crossed my mind: it was a Moon landing.

I haven’t fallen over yet! 


“EVERY S***M IS SACRED,
EVERY S***M IS GREAT,
IF A S***M IS WASTED,
GOD GETS QUITE IRATE.

EVERY S***M IS WANTED,
EVERY S***M IS GOOD,
EVERY S***M IS WANTED
IN YOUR NEIGHBORHOOD.”

Take comfort in the 1983 Monty Puthon movie “The Meaning of Life”. The beloved “Galaxy Song” begins with
“Whenever life gets you down, Mrs. Brown
And life seems hard or tough…”

“Every s***m is sacred” is a classic song and dance number near the beginning of the movie.

Do we take comfort from this brilliant satire or feel terrible over how stuck we seem to be in the same horrific cruelties. Both?

LUNAR LANDER: ATARI 1979 COMPUTER GAME

During the 1980’s (and beyond) a great many tiny home personal computers had a challenging land-on-the-Moon computer simulation. Atari, Apple 2, Commodore 64, PC’s, all featured a basic simple game, where the player had to apply the right amount of thrust to land on the moon before running out of fuel.

The older kids in my Home-based Family Childcare Business loved the lunar lander game. They all gathered round, yelled and screamed advice, supporting the child whose turn it was to “stick the landing”! Computer games can be highly social.

The simulation was scientifically accurate, and very very hard to win! I was quite good at video games back then. I rarely successfully landed on the Moon.

If the lunar lander pilot is too cautious, applying too much breaking thrust, they run out of fuel, and the lander crashes. If the lunar lander pilot conserves fuel, applying less braking thrust, then they hit the surface of the moon too hard and are destroyed.

At science-fiction conventions hundreds of thousands of people played the lunar lander game on tiny personal computers in the Science Room of science fiction conventions all across America and around the world.

Landing on the moon has always been hard. And hundreds of thousands of people have attempted it. A few have succeeded!

GOOD LUCK ODYSSEUS!

Michael Kauper
Minneapolis Minnesota