Nice news to get in the emotional wasteland otherwise known as "Sunday Night"

A month or so ago I applied to our local Folk Music Society for a scholarship to continue my guitar lessons, and what do you know? I just received a phone call telling me that they are awarding me the scholarship! I'm pretty happy.

God help us.

From The Huffington Post:

"The No Child Left Behind Act is working," Bush said with first lady Laura Bush, Education Secretary Margaret Spellings, New York Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg (I) and School Chancellor Joel Klein at his side. "I say that because the nation's report card says it's working. Scores are improving, in some instances hitting all-time highs."
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A few moments later, he added, "As yesterday's positive report card shows, childrens do learn when standards are high and results are measured." The official White House transcript later corrected the statement to "children." [Because it is 2nd nature to them to lie.]

Read the entire article here.

You know what I think of NCLB.

Canada's Most Powerful Kitten-- CutewithChris #112

I only post this because it contains an image of my favorite dog breed in the whole world: a Pembroke Welsh Corgi. I have one, named Georgia, and she's über cute.

Too bad nobody got their hands on the rebus version!

Ann Compton and Jennifer Duck report: Never before has the White House released a draft version of the President's speech to the annual United Nations General Assembly.

But this year, a glimpse of how the President sees his speeches was accidentally placed on the UN website along with the speechwriters' cell phone numbers.

Pronunciations for President Bush's friend French President Sarkozy "[sar-KOzee]" appeared in draft #20 on the UN website. Other pronunciations included the Mugabe "[moo-GAHbee] regime" and pronunciations for countries "Kyrgyzstan [KEYRgeez-stan]" and "Mauritania [moor-EH-tain-ee-a]."

If it was anyone else, this would make perfect sense and wouldn't even seem newsworthy ... but Jo-ji seems to need scaffolding (that's education jargon for help) with everything he does. Oy vey.

If I Wasn't a Quaker, I'd Be Spitting Bullets!

Warning: This post contains 3 or more kinds of profanity, and some sarcasm. There is a lot happening in the world that breaks my heart, and over which I have little control. When things happen close to home, due only to a kind of ignorance and group-think, that affect children -- mine and others -- it infuriates me. Here's the scoop:

My eleven year old daughter brought a fundraiser catalog home from school. You know the kind: over-priced chocolates and gift wrap, a lot of resin statuary and cheap jewelry made in China ... I looked through it, and said, "You know, honey, I think we'll just make a donation to the PTO. There isn't anything here we need." She turned away, and I could see she was crying.

Well, it turns out that they did a fundraising kick-off and made a huge deal over the fact that kids who sell X number of items get to attend "The Greatest Party Ever To Come To Your School" during the school day. With games, refreshments, music, face painting, and -- I kid you not -- Deal Or No Deal: "Just sell 15 items and you're in the drawing ... you could win up to $100.00!" There are levels of participation in the party, depending upon how many items you sell. One's level will be identified by a color-coded wrist band! (The poor suckers who did not sell enough will remain in their classrooms, presumably reading or playing "Heads Up Seven Up", woo hoo. Or maybe watching inspirational movies from Halliburton, Monsanto, and Archer Daniels Midland, so that next time, they too will be GOOD Americans, and get out there and sell shit, goddammit.)

My elementary school feeds into this middle school. I know for a fact that many of my daughter's classmates are not from families that have disposable income. Some of them are homeless and living in shelter. A lot of them are working poor. Hell, our family was one of the better off at the school for the last 6 years, and that isn't saying much.

I don't hold with reward programs of most kinds, but this is the worst. Children who are required by law to be at school will be excluded from a big fun party not because of their behavior, not because of performance, not because of anything over which they might have a modicum of control ... but because they didn't sell enough FUCKING product. What a set-up.

So I didn't only blog about it. First I wrote an email to the principal, omitting the f-word -- just in case you were worried -- laying out all my points and asking him to rethink this party. I'll see what kind of a response I get from him, before I decide how to proceed. If I am not satisfied, I will contact the school board. Our district makes a very big deal (as they should) about building relationships and community, engaging students, using positive models and being inclusive and equitable. We just had a whole day inservice on those very topics last Tuesday, as we do every year at this time. This party is a contradiction to all of those things.

I also plan to join the PTO. Maybe I can get my favorite Fair Trade Organic coffee, tea, and cheese fundraiser going there. I have nothing against fundraising: it is a necessary activity in this day and age. It's the reward and punishment I object to. The setting kids up to be hurt if their parents don't cough up the cash. That is just plain wrong.

[Tuesday update: The principal just phoned to tell me he got my message, he agrees with me 100%, and is canceling the fundraiser if he can, and definitely putting the kabash on the party. I am relieved.]

Bring Them Home, Pete Seeger

This afternoon I went to see the documentary Pete Seeger: The Power of Song. Pete Seeger has long been a hero of mine. He is a folk music icon, but how many people know what he sacrificed when he stood up to Joseph McCarthy and the House UnAmerican Activities Committee in the fifties? For seventeen years, Pete was banned from the airwaves in the U.S., both radio and television, because he told HUAC that his politics were none of their business. Seventeen years. Yet he is a man who harbors no bitterness towards his persecutors, but speaks only of love, peace, and understanding.

During the years when Pete was blacklisted, he made his living doing school programs. I was extremely moved by the footage of him singing with children. He preaches a gospel, if you will, of community singing. This is something I have been doing with my students for a few years now, and it is very near and dear to my heart. Listening to Pete talk about it was a huge affirmation of my work.

I wept through a good half of the film. I wept with nostalgia, I wept in celebration of this life writ large, and I wept for the state of our country now.

If there was one thing wrong with the film, it is that it plays things a little too safe. There are allusions to what is happening today, but nobody overtly connects any dots. Natalie Mains is featured talking about Pete's blacklisting, but she makes nary a peep about her own. Bruce Springsteen warns that fascism could come again, not acknowledging that it is HERE and NOW. Pete's environmental work on the Hudson River is highlighted, but nothing about the environmental disasters we are facing as the world warms up. Footage of Vietnam, but no mention of Iraq. I found that disappointing and frustrating.

It was also disquieting when many of the people talked about him in the past tense, as if he was already dead. He is still very much alive.

But critiques aside, this is a film that is well worth seeing if you get the chance.

And I'll end by telling you what I tell my students: Sing. Don't ever let anyone tell you that you can't or shouldn't. There is power in singing, and that power belongs to all of us, not just the Pete Seegers of the world. (And Pete would be the first person to tell you that.) So often these days, we surrender the music to someone else, to the professionals, and we go around plugged in to our iPods or Walkmen. I tell my students that music is participatory, not a consumer product, and that their voices are an instrument that they always have with them wherever they are. I also tell them that that is the most important lesson they'll learn from me, more important than reading, writing or math. (Take that NCLB!)

Peace.

John Edwards' $7B Education Plan ...

... just pisses me off. Why? First, and foremost because Edwards -- who voted for No Child Left Behind -- makes no apologies for his vote, but says instead that he's seen over several years how it was poorly implemented and underfunded. That statement perpetuates the myth of NCLB: that the problems with it lie with implementation and funding.

Bullshit. (Yes, you heard it from the lips of a kindergarten teacher. BULLSHIT.) NCLB was BAD POLICY from the start. Like virtually everything that has ever oozed from the Bush Whitehouse, NCLB has never been about improving schools and has always been about maximizing profit for Bush relatives and family friends. It has done more to harm schools than any other education policy I can think of. And most members of Congress (Kucinich too, sad to say) refused to listen to educators who called it out from the start, and instead went for it hook, line, and sinker.

Yet every single politician continues to talk about "revamping" NCLB, when it needs to be thrown out permanently. (Mr. Ether -- who just guessed correctly that I was posting about this topic; maybe it was the vehemence with which I was striking the keys as I typed? -- said that revamping NCLB is a little like buying fire insurance for your Ford Pinto. Ha. Good one, Mr. Ether.) Policy makers need to listen to the people who know best: professional educators.

What else? Universal preschool? It sounds nice, probably looks nice on paper too. What about universal supporting parents and other caregivers, birth to 3? Oh my God, now it's starting to sound a little too much like -- gasp -- welfare! Backpedal, backpedal ...

I am also sick to death of the assumption that education is broken and needs to be fixed. Or reformed. That somehow the "problem" is that there isn't an "excellent teacher" in every classroom. That "excellent teachers" can only come from a West Point-like academy. I'm sick of being dumped on, by the well-meaning and the not so well-meaning, alike.

Sure, Edwards makes some good points too. Read about it here, if you like. But to me, this is disingenuous grandstanding and I'm not buying it.

(By the way, in the same newspaper, the $200B more that Bush is asking for and likely to get to continue his cowboy adventures in the Middle East is pretty discouraging.)

Why Kucinich Is The Best

I snagged this video from Blue Gal. (Thanks, dahlink.) It's a great follow-up to my previous post. THIS is the candidate I am supporting. He is the only candidate that talks the talk and walks the walk. (The same was true in the last election. Howard Dean's infamous scream may have given his opponents the rope to hang him, but I didn't think what he was saying was all that great from the get go. The same way I am not enamoured of Barak "pre-emptive war" Obama or John Edwards this time around.)

That'll Larn 'Em To Get Sick ...

This is the lead story at Huffington Post this morning:

Immigrants' Emergency Care Is Limited By U.S. Rule
The federal government has told New York State health officials that chemotherapy, which had been covered for illegal immigrants under a government-financed program for emergency medical care, does not qualify for coverage. The decision sets the stage for a battle between the state and federal governments over how medical emergencies are defined. Read more and be outraged ...

Whatever one may believe about so-called illegal immigrants and their rights or reasons for being in the U.S., this is just immoral (and remember, it's the policy of the family values spewing Bible thumpers of the Bush Administration.) It effectively imposes a death sentence on illegal immigrants who have the bad fortune to develop cancer. I can extrapolate from there that, Medicare coverage probably would be denied for immigrants' end of life care, including effective pain management.

And hey, I imagine it's not much better for any resident or citizen of the U.S. who doesn't have resources to cover their medical care.

Furthemore, I suspect there are a lot of Americans -- liberal and conservative -- who believe that this is as it should be. ("I pulled myself up by my own bootstraps and why should anyone else blah blah blah woof woof ...")

I'm disgusted by such mean-spiritedness. I'd like to hear a presidential candidate talk about rebuilding the safety net that was dismantled under Ray-gun (the Insane Anglo War Lord) and reinstate welfare as we knew it before Hillary's husband ended it. And then I'd like to see that candidate elected!

No Shushing!

One secret I only infrequently reveal about my past life is that I used to perform with an international folkdance group. Several, in fact. And I went to dance workshops with a renowned Polish dance teacher, who would frequently cry out, "NO SHUSHING!" meaning, "Don't drag your feet!" But that's not the kind of shushing I'm writing about today. It's the other kind, the kind depicted in the cartoon below.
As a graduate student in Library and Information Studies, I have suddenly found my inbox filled everyday with notices from my department: job notices, house sitting opportunities, announcements of lectures and social events, kittens free to a good home, piano for sale -- U-haul ... this could really become my life, if only I didn't have a pretty full life already. I delete the bulk of it.

Today I got a link to an archived, out-of-print publication from 1972, called Revolting Librarians. It's an entire book of essays and poetry about librarianship, available online. I'm going to have to read it in stages as I find reading from the computer screen arduous, but I read this essay by Arthur Plotnik, and found it quite enjoyable. (How could I not enjoy the sentence, "Has any non-librarian ever portrayed us in any way except with that goddamn finger vibrating like an oboe reed in the force of an enormous SHHHHH?") The essay has to do with silence in libraries and the bold step that Mr. Plotnik took when he published a neon pink sign -- a special pull-out feature in the Wilson Library Bulletin -- with the subversive words "No Silence." The sign came with a note printed on the back:

A CHALLENGE TO BRAVE LIBRARIANS
Printed on the reverse is a sign of the times. Librarians with the courage to hang it in their library will be those who know that, to the new generation, silence is no longer golden. At least not when information and communication are wanted. Of course, a library can be both a place of reflective, inner solitude, and of overt, human and electronic communication, although not usually at the same time and place. To a few youngsters, the sign may be no more than an invitation to raise hell. That's the risk. But think of this: perhaps nothing has ever hurt the image of librarianship and libraries so badly as those grim signs demanding SILENCE. Who's willing to start making amends?

I was interested in Mr. Plotkin's musings on the nature of silence. It seems to me that there is dead silence and then there's living silence. As a Quaker, I practice silent worship, and I can tell you that that silence is anything but dead. Sometimes it positively hums with energy. And the silence in the wee hours of morning, when I get up before anyone else, holds the promise of all the daytime sounds into which it will wake -- the birds stirring, the cicadas, the occasional car going by in the dark. It is my favorite time of day.

But I know the dead silence too. Sadly, that's the current state of affairs in my school's library, and I'm not quite sure what to do about it. I worry that some school district mucky-muck will come to visit and decide to axe our full-time librarian because of it.

Oh, I realize I'm rambling here. It's late Friday afternoon and my brain is a little fried at the end of a teaching week that saw me receive 4 new kindergartners in one day! I'll draw this post to a close with a silly story. My eldest daughter liked to visit my classroom on her days off from high school. One day she was there when I was lining up my students to go somewhere. They were particularly boisterous. (Walking in quiet lines is not my natural m.o. I sometimes think that while the words "Quiet line please!" are coming out of my mouth, there is a little invisible demon sitting on my shoulder saying, "It's OK, kids. She went to an alternative hippy dippy high school in the seventies, and she doesn't really mean it." Guess who the kids listen to.)

So I was becoming slightly exasperated, and I said in my best voice of authority, "All I want to hear right now is the sound of silence!" I looked up and caught my daughter's eye, just as she was opening her mouth to break into that maudlin, sappy Simon & Garfunkel song. (We read each other's minds.) "DON'T EVEN THINK OF IT!" I think I said.

Anyway, good weekend to everyone.

Tomatoes for Peace!

6 hours of work, 37 pints of tomatoes. And two bushels remaining in the basement! I think the rest of them will be roasted and frozen. But not tonight.

A New Blog!

In all of the happenings of this past week, I have been remiss in not noting that my eleven year old daughter has started a blog -- Rainbows 'N' Unicorns. (Blogging is contagious in our house.) She blogs under the name of "Sparkly Sea Cow", which might give you a little clue about her personality. Please drop over and give her a peck on the cheek from her mom.

A Passing

Yesterday evening my father-in-law, Bill Feeny, died. He was 77 years old. He was an artist, a cartoonist, a teacher, a writer, a pilot, a model airplane enthusiast, and a hell of a nice guy. He had lived with a chronic form of leukemia for the past 6 years, which appeared to have become more active and aggressive in recent weeks. He was in the hospital for a week before they figured out what was going on, went into hospice on Wednesday, and failed very quickly after that.

My mother-in-law has frequently commented that he would not have survived so long in his state of illness, if not for his "strong heart." To me, that's a perfect metaphor for him. Bill was all heart, as loving a person as you would ever meet. We often joked about how sentimental he was. He was, by all accounts, a great dad and, I can say firsthand, a wonderful grandpa. In recent years he was plagued by chronic pain and weakness, that made him withdraw into himself, which was very sad.

But he always kept abreast of what was happening in the world -- and he didn't like it one bit. He had a moral compass that pointed true North when it came to matters of peace and social justice, and he was a frequent writer of letters to the editor in our local newspapers (and once in the National Geographic.) There was one memorable day sometime in the past year, when the newspaper published one of his letters and one of mine on the same day. (That was a little embarrassing; the icing on the cake would have been if they had also published one from my extremely right-wing uncle at the same time.)

All week he had been asking for a margarita. Last night, on the way to visit him in Hospice, my husband stopped at a liquor store and bought a bottled margarita. He swabbed it onto his dad's lips and gums, and his dad seemed to respond with pleasure. He opened his eyes and looked at my mother-in-law. She told him it was okay to go, that Sophie [our deceased daughter] was waiting to play with him. And he closed his eyes and died.

Nobody wanted to live more than he did. I'm glad he went peacefully at the end.

I want to put in a word here for Hospice Care. We have a facility in our city which I had never been to before. It is an incredible place. It seems that everything is done to ensure the residents' and their families' comfort and ease during a difficult time. So ... support your local Hospice organization!

What comic book has Gonzo been reading?

"Over the past two and a half years, I have seen tyranny, dishonesty, corruption and depravity of types I never thought possible," Gonzales said in prepared remarks at a Hispanic Heritage Month ceremony at Bolling Air Force Base. "I've seen things I didn't know man was capable of.

"But I will tell you here and now that these things still leave me hopeful," he said. "Because every time I see a glimmer of the evil man can do, I see the defenders of liberty, truth and justice who stand ready to fight it."

Good riddance, and may he still be brought to justice. More than likely, he'll be the recipient of Bush-style justice: a plum ambassadorship to the Duchy of Luxembourg, or some such.

Surge Seasoning

H/T to Mr. Ether for sending this to me (and apologies that I didn't look at it sooner. A little something extra for you later, okay M.E.?)

Enjoy!

Locally Grown ...

... it's popping up everywhere. I spent the day at a hospice care facility (more about that at another time) and was pleased to see on the menu in the little in-house café, "egg salad made from local, organic eggs." It's a trend I like to see.

One step closer ...

This afternoon, after finishing work, but before making myself available as mosquito fodder (see previous post) I had a meeting with the middle school library media specialist with whom I'll be doing some required student teaching this semester. I still don't know how the timing is going to work out -- I am teaching full time -- but I left feeling really excited about working with her. And the other cool thing? I'll be working at my daughter's middle school.

After this I will be 140 hours of student teaching (in an elementary school library) away from my certification!

Abundance

Poodle Doc and I have both been reading Barbara Kingsolver's new book Animal, Vegetable, Miracle. In fact, he bought it for me for my birthday. We keep comparing notes, and we're both a little obsessed with this idea of eating locally. So last Sunday after Meeting, when I casually mentioned that I really wanted to can tomatoes, he immediately offered up his share of tomatoes from the community garden of which he is a member.

After work today, Poodle Doc, Mr. Ether, and I drove out to his garden about half an hour out of town. We braved the mosquitoes -- oh my God, they were fierce, but my Repel Lemon Eucalyptus goop seemed to really work. (I was a little concerned that any marauding koalas might catch wind of us, and then we'd really be sorry, but they must have all been sleeping.) We harvested 5 bushels of tomatoes, plus a variety of both sweet and hot peppers, leeks, basil, eggplants, and a couple of tardy watermelons and cukes. Poodle Doc also generously gave us a portion of his onions and garlic for the year. It is truly an astounding amount of food.

Now comes the part that is both wonderful and difficult -- figuring out how to deal with it all. Making the time to make up a big batch of baba ganouj, roasting the peppers, making salsa ...

Yesterday Quaker Dave asked what each of us will do to end the current wars and prevent the next one. My answer was, "Can tomatoes." What I meant is, we need to do the protesting and the activism, but we also need to remember to find joy, to build our communities, to hold a vision of what we want the world to be and to work toward that. That's what I am doing as I celebrate this amazing abundance.

One more song for today ...

Greg Brown sings his song, "I Want My Country Back", Falcon Ridge Folk Festival, 2003.

You know how you want something so badly sometimes, that your desire is visceral? No, I'm not talking about Greg Brown. I'm talking about wanting to wake up from this 6 1/2 year nightmare. Wanting the Bush administration's reign of terror to come to an end and being able to focus on the things that matter like climate change, education, poverty ... not this insane (and highly profitable) game of chicken with Iran, with North Korea, with Osama Bin Laden, with our's and our children's lives and future as pawns.

I want my country back!

Road of Good Intentions, John Gorka

I posted this some time ago, but it bears another look, especially on this most sober of anniversaries.

And please, let's not forget that this is also the anniversary of the bloody 1974 CIA led overthrow of the democratically elected government of Chilé.

We can't afford another war.

No War With Iran, No War Period

This is from Catherine Whitmire's Practicing Peace: A Devotional Walk Through the Quaker Tradition.

E. Raymond Wilson, one of the founders of Friends Committee on National Legislation, is said to have commented: "If you open your toolbox, and the only thing in it is a hammer, everything will look like a nail." ... We don't spend one percent of [our federal budget] -- not one percent of that -- on peace. So everytime we open our toolbox, the only thing, as a country, that we have are weapons ... If the only thing in your toolbox is a weapon, then the only thing you can think of to do is hit the nail. Everything will look like a nail.

Mary Lord, 2004

And I'll just add, if every time you hit the nail, you, your friends, your daddy, or your daddy's friends get even richer, there is not a lot of incentive to dig a little deeper in the toolbox to find the other tools. I believe it is an essential piece of the solution that Congress outlaws war profiteering. Not that I think they will or that this despotic administration would care even if they did.

Months ago I posted about Mark Kurlansky's book, Nonviolence. I urge you to look up the book and read it. Individual by individual, we can pick up and work with a different set of tools.

More On Patriotism

I want to thank everyone who commented about my last post on patriotism. I really appreciate the thoughtful response I received. The following words "speak to my condition" (as Quakers are wont to say.) They were written in 1934 by Lloyd Stone, set to the music of the hymn "Finlandia" by Finnish composer Jean Sibelius.

This is my song, Oh God of all the nations,

A song of peace for lands afar and mine.

This is my home, the country where my heart is;

Here are my hopes, my dreams, my sacred shrine.

But other hearts in other lands are beating,

With hopes and dreams as true and high as mine.

My country's skies are bluer than the ocean,

And sunlight beams on cloverleaf and pine.

But other lands have sunlight too and clover,

And skies are everywhere as blue as mine.

Oh hear my song, oh God of all the nations,

A song of peace for their land and for mine.

What is this an expression of? Universalism? That's what I am.

On Patriotism, or Why I'm Not

Blue Gal recently posted a wonderful video of Billy Bragg singing 'Waiting For the Great Leap Forwards', including a snippet of an interview at the end where he talks about dissenters being the real patriots. And while I appreciate the sentiment, I have to say I am uncomfortable with attempts to redefine patriotism so that it fits dissenters.

Webster's has the following definitions:

patriot: one who loves his or her country and supports its authority and interests

patriotism: love for or devotion to one's country

I guess one could interpret those definitions in different ways. This is how I see it. I love many things about my country, without a doubt. Do I support its authority and interests? Not at all, and BushCo is just an extreme example of what the U.S.A. has stood for since its inception: imperialism, profiteering, expansion ...

Of course there are shining exceptions to the rule, but they seem to fall outside the authority and interests of the country, and are vulnerable to being co-opted or outright squashed.

What about devotion to one's country? To me, devotion implies a certain amount of blindness, and once again, I cannot allow that definition to define who I am and what I do.

So no, I am not a patriot, thanks all the same. I even got a chance to proclaim that nationally a few years ago.

Way back in 2001 -- pre-9/11 -- Republican legislators in our state managed to tack a bill onto the budget requiring daily recitation of the Pledge or singing of the national anthem in public schools. With a strange timeliness, it was shortly after 9/11/01 that it was implemented.

On 10/1/01 my mom lay on life-support in the ICU and I was at the board of education meeting arguing for an opt-in implementation (for example, an optional morning assembly) as opposed to having it piped into our rooms every day. (I think my mom would have been proud of me.) That night the school board made one of their infamous ill-conceived decisions, to require only instrumental versions of the anthem, which ignited a firestorm of controversy. The flames were fanned by the likes of Rush Limbaff and Dr. Laura.

Because I was one of the few who spoke out initially, I found myself in a rather bizarre situation of getting a phone call from an LA Times reporter, in the teachers' lounge on my lunch break one day. I said something like, "I believe that patriotism leads to nationalism, which almost inevitably leads to jingoism" which was published and widely quoted. (For a while after that if you Googled me, you would come up with right-wing websites raving about how I should be removed from my job. At Christmas that year my elderly and ultra-conservative Aunt Jean said, "I heard your name mentioned on Dr. Laura's show. She mispronounced your name, but I knew it was you." Yeah, well ...)

It gets stranger. About a week later I got a phone call from writer Mark Singer, a regular contributor to The New Yorker, wanting to interview me for an article. And then, one morning a photographer from The New Yorker showed up at my school to photograph my class reciting the Pledge. That photograph was published on a double page spread in the Nov. 26, 2001 issue. It's a motley crew in the photo, and the photographer was unhappy with the light where the flag was, so she actually took the picture where the kids are facing a banner proclaiming "PEACE" which I had hung up. Subversion R Us.

(And about 6 months after that, the author Mary Pipher -- who recently returned an award and resigned from the American Psychological Association in protest over their weak stance on torture -- requested permission to use that photo on the cover of her book The Middle of Everywhere: The World's Refugees Come To Our Town. Weird, eh?)

In another hilarious development, my principal brought in a recording of national anthems from around the world. She was away one day, but left directions for the secretary to "play the anthem." The hapless secretary didn't realize she meant our anthem, and played the national anthem of China!

Oh yeah, and the Pledge? After a huge media circus of a meeting, attended by busloads of Christian fundamentalists from out of town, Minutemen in full costume, and some normal people, the school board decided that principals would lead the Pledge over the P.A. system every day, but it must be preceded by this statement:

"We live in a nation of freedom. Participation in the Pledge is voluntary. Those who wish to stand may do so. Others may remain seated."

I am not a patriot. Come join me.

Pavarotti Loves Elephants

Full disclosure: I don't consider myself to be much of a fan of opera. My dad loved opera. Every Saturday afternoon he listened to the broadcast from The Met, and it gave me a headache. He used to walk around the house in his long johns, humming parts of operas. All the time. It was embarrassing when I was an adolescent.

He took his unappreciative kids to see a good many performances. He especially loved Mozart and Gilbert & Sullivan. And actually, I do like The Magic Flute, The Marriage of Figaro, and Don Giovanni. And I like Lakmé by Delibes, but so does everybody else, right? It's like the Pachelbel Canon of opera.

I was even once in an opera, The Poacher by Albert Lortzing. The director of the university's opera company was also the director of my Unitarian church's children's choir, and The Poacher featured a children's choir. That was cool.

But what I'm really trying to say is, I was never a big fan of Pavarotti. But I am a fan of this video: http://www.rathergood.com/elephants/

I apologize that I couldn't embed it in my blog. You'll just have to see it the old-fashioned way.

The apple doesn't fall far from the tree ...

... so if you like my blog, go over and say hello to one of the apples of my eye at her blog.
Tell her that "Mom" sent you.

Dog-tired

First day of kindergarten. I know that all of these kids are going to make mountains of progress between now and June, but in the beginning they are positively larval, literally wiggling around on the floor. I have 13 students, about half Spanish speaking (I'm not) but they seem functional in English. And interestingly enough, I have only one Caucasian child. That's a first.

I went kicking and screaming, but it's OK being back. My loyal fan base -- students from previous years -- make it easier.

The definitive way ...

... to find out if a rabidly homophobic politician is gay? Ask him what his favorite ABBA song is.

I drove my younger daughter and a friend to a Renaissance Faire today, 2 hours each way. We sang along with ABBA on the way there and the soundtrack from the new Hairspray on the way back.

I had lots of time to think about politicians who are NOT GAY.

The "faire" was OK -- infinitely better than going to Six Flags and marginally better than a poke in the eye, although perhaps a little more prolonged. (I've taken my kids every year for a l-o-n-g time -- it's a tradition -- so I'm a teeny bit jaded.)

Please explain to me chain mail and leather. Particularly chain mail brassieres. Why?

What's your favorite ABBA song? I'll tell you mine if you tell me yours ...

Johnny Clegg - Asimbonanga

One more Johnny Clegg video, and then I'll take a break. I promise. My eldest recommended that I put this one up on the blog. (Thanks, honey!) Check out the special guest ...

Some unsolicited advice ...

... for any bigoted homophobic closeted homosexual Republican politicians who happen to be reading my blog:

Listen up, guys. Have sex with each other! Call it a committee meeting, or -- I know -- a secret Skull and Boner Society thang. You could get your needs satisfied without having to solicit sex in public restrooms, which frankly is pretty dumb because you know that you're going to get caught sooner or later. (Or is that part of the excitement?) You can stay in the closet and continue to pander to your bigoted base back home. Oh, there may be whispered rumors -- like that pesky question of just who Jeff Gannon was visiting in the White House (Jo-ji? Karl? A threesome??) but if you keep it between yourselves (ha-ha ... that conjures up some imagery now, doesn't it?) the public need never be the wiser. And you're all in the same boat, so no one can spill the beans without incriminating himself.

Hey, you're welcome. No problem ... log on for advice anytime.
[editorial comment: eeeeeeuwwwww.]