The Words are impossible to hold back

Dear prior and future siblings in education.  Just a “touch base with you” sort of letter.  I felt very strongly about speaking to you about some strange happenings in the land of the “normal.” (Although I know that my quotations and period are correct, I still wish we could just step out there and move the quotes to the inside.) Stay on course you lazy retired teacher person that is up at 1:45 after an hour with “George and Gracie”.  (Oh I can see you correcting me if I was wrong this time.)  If you can’t tell by now, my style of writing is nothing short of the familiar stream of consciousness.  ANYWAY, I have found the perfect second life for all of us.  Teaching, (don’t run away) the once-a-week Sunday School class.  Churches are in need of teachers.  It’s only one time a week.  You have all week to prep. If any sweet little darlin’ gives you issues, you can send them to Mom or Dad (right down the hall) or tell them not to return (Wow, the ultimate definition of a bad kid.) Add all that up; then, throw this gasoline on the fire – the class only lasts an hour.  It can run over,  but never more than two hours tops.  O.K, now get ready for the piece de resistance. (for you Dr. Tracey) You get paid just as much as you have before – VERY LITTLE.  O.K., to be fair, just enough to enable you to keep on paying the electric company, gas company, phone company, grocery store, pharmacy, doctors, dentist, etc., etc., etc.  AND don’t forget that you can teach 3 year olds with the Kids Praise and just sing Do Lord for an hour.

What kind of underwear does a Southern Baptist wear? Not this kind!

It’s a good thing that my faith does not require certain kinds of underwear with little symbols on the boobs and knee and slits across the belly.  Who checks for those things anyway.  Is there an underwear policeman?  I’m having a hard time looking at Mitt and his perfect, good-looking family and imagining this underneath.  Will his white house staff be subject to morman missionaries?  The White House can be a new assignment request for young Mormons.  I really don’t see how evangelical Christians can vote for a Mormon or any other religion they describe as a cult. It appears to me that they must stay home or be labeled a hypocrite, but them one of their problems is how hypocritical they can be.

Although it’s not my state, it is my country

I really did not know much about Wisconsin before I encountered a professor in college that had graduated from the University of Wisconsin and then moved to small town Texas to begin her college teaching profession.  She was an excellent teacher and tried to begin an AIDS outreach program in the small college town much like the one she had volunteered at while she was in college.  She never saw it as anything to do with sexual preference, but you guessed it, the rest of the town did.  She was the first person I saw with the bright pink hair, and I was just so glad to breathe some of that fresh air on occasion.

Then, my son moved to Wisconsin and the schools were so much more progressive with so many more options than we had here in Texas.  I am a retired Texas educator, and I know backwards when I experience it.  So, it does concern me than my admiration for the state of Wisconsin is under siege by money.

Please check out this blog from a person in Michigan that follows politics in that area closely.  I think we all need to take this as our fight.  It’s not just Wisconsin.  Texas has fallen. Virginia has fallen.  Michigan is on the way.  The technique is simple.  The far right gave up trying to get the highest offices and began to work on the small ones (school boards, county commissioners, county clerks, etc.) and conquered them one at a time until they reached that one more person that made them the majority.  Then, one step at a time, they dismantled what did not suit them, and that could mean anything with any diversity or innovation.

So, although it’s not my state, it is my country.

http://eclectablog.com/2012/05/why-you-need-to-defeat-scott-walker.html

Politics of money

The older I get, the more I understand what my father was trying to tell me about money.  My father has been dead for many years, but through my teenage years we had a standing argument about money.  His premise was “money would buy happiness.”  My premise was, “no matter how much money you have, you are not necessarily happy.”  We would argue the point on a regular, usually about once a week, basis.

At that time it was just an argument between an idealistic teenager that had grown up with the things she needed, but not always everything she wanted and a grown man who had known poverty and was hanging on to his little bit of prosperity with all the strength he had.  I didn’t understand it until now.

As I read about the people who care little about others and make millions off the backs of the working poor, I understand why my father tried so hard to make money more important to me.  He knew that at any moment something bigger, some kind of monster, could take it all away.  I had been shielded from that.

When I read about Bain Capital and the way they do business, I understand that I could easily be one of the thousands of laid off workers suddenly without jobs, or those that on the first day of Bain Capital’s management were fired and offered an application to apply for their jobs at half the wage and no pension, or the widows and orphans that one day had their pensions cut to nothing.

Oh he made money, and it helped a lot of us since our pension plans and college endowments had invested in the company just for that reason.  Of course, the individual didn’t know that, but we liked making money too.

My father did understand the money issue much better than I did, but I’m learning.  I just don’t want to be like Mitt.  I don’t want the only people with a seat at the table to be millionaires and how could they since I’m not.  I just want to be left alone and treated fairly.  Apparently, that is too much to ask.

Please, if you want some interesting information about how the money-making machine works read the article in the Dallas Observer.  Excellent research and fascinating study in psychology.

Mitt Romney: American Parasite

Mitt Romney’s years at Bain Capital represent everything you hate about capitalism.

By Pete Kotz Thursday, Apr 19 2012

Just click on picture to see full article.

I can say it and I did

Future admin building? Fits what's inside?

If this was your child, would you want her going out in all kinds of weather to get to her car after school?

Well, I learned a few days ago about the renovations at the admin building of my previous employer, and I nearly flipped out.  The reason being, our campus houses the severe and profoundly disabled children for the entire district.  For two years we have been trying to get awnings built over the sidewalks that these children go out every evening to be picked up.  Those with cerebral palsy, in wheelchairs, and other physical issues are forced to go out and down a sidewalk with no protection from thunderstorms, hail storms, sleet, not much snow here, but when it does snow it always manages to snow at dismissal time, and other weather related problems.  Yet, our renovations of the admin building has become more important with a new regime change than these children.

Since I no longer depend on THEM for my paycheck, I fired off three emails to three board members.  I heard back from one.  One that I did not hear back from actually has grandchildren in our school, but of course his children are “perfect.”  I am so happy to report that the one board member that stood up for us may have actually changed the tide as it appears we will be getting our awnings as well as a new office area to remove the filthy carpet that the health department actually requested be done over a year ago.  Now, I don’t want to get too excited.  I’ll believe it when I see it, but I can keep the heat on now that I can say everything I always wanted to say but was afraid to!  Just to end on a descriptive note; the board member that brought this up asked the question, “Why does ****(name left out to protect the innocent) always have to suck hind tit.”  For those of you that don’t understand that particular analogy, ask a farmer.

I wish I could draw – is it anything like writing??

If you have not discovered Mark Fiore, take a look.  He is irreverent, funny, outspoken artistic and just plain entertaining.  What a great way to educate.

http://www.markfiore.com/

Pulitzer-prize winning Mark Fiore, who the Wall Street Journal has called “the undisputed guru of the form,” creates animated political cartoons in San Francisco, where his work has been featured on the San Francisco Chronicle’s web site, SFGate.com, for over ten years.  His work also appears on Newsweek.com, Slate.com, CBSNews.com, MotherJones.com and NPR’s web site.  Fiore’s political animation has appeared on CNN, Frontline, Bill Moyers Journal, Salon.com and cable and broadcast outlets across the globe.

Beginning his professional life by drawing traditional political cartoons for newspapers, Fiore’s work appeared in publications ranging from the Washington Post to the Los Angeles Times.  In the late 1990s, he began to experiment with animating political cartoons and, after a short stint at the San Jose Mercury News as their staff cartoonist, Fiore devoted all his energies to animation.

Growing up in California, Fiore also spent a good portion of his life in the backwoods of Idaho.  It was this combination that shaped him politically.  Mark majored in political science at Colorado College, where, in a perfect send-off for a cartoonist, he received his diploma in 1991 as commencement speaker Dick Cheney smiled approvingly.

Mark Fiore was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for political cartooning in 2010, a Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Award in 2004 and has twice received an Online Journalism Award for commentary from the Online News Association (2002, 2008).  Fiore has received two awards for his work in new media from the National Cartoonists Society (2001, 2002), and in 2006 received The James Madison Freedom of Information Award from The Society of Professional Journalists

Women in the workplace circa 1900 and before

My grandmother on the assembly line at Fleischmann's Yeast in Dallas, Texas circe 1933

I learned something recently.  Many, some of a few – I don’t know which – wore a catheter when working.  They did this because there were no facilities available for them in town.  So under those long, dragging the dirty ground skirts was a gross urine filled catheter.  The Mr. always told me that if you lived back in “the good ole days” you would not call them the “good ole days.”

I wonder what else the workplace held for women back in the “good ole days.”

Who knew about ANZAC day??

“Those heroes that shed their blood And lost their lives. You are now lying in the soil of a friendly country. Therefore rest in peace. There is no difference between the Johnnies And the Mehmets to us where they lie side by side Here in this country of ours. You, the mothers, Who sent their sons from far away countries Wipe away your tears, Your sons are now lying in our bosom And are in peace After having lost their lives on this land they have Become our sons as well.”^[

It just goes to show how blogging can be such a rewarding personal experience.  I was “followed” today by http://en.gravatar.com/turkischland.  I always check out who is following me, and I found a very interesting and informative article about ANZAC day.  This holiday reminds me of our Veteran’s Day, but I never knew it existed.  Thank you for broadening my horizons.  What I especially appreciate about the holiday is how the Turkish show their appreciation to the Australian and New Zealand citizens for what they sacrificed.  The quote that I started this blog with is inscribed on a Turkish memorial as well as one in New Zealand.  Appreciation.  Respect.  I’m back on my soapbox about long-lost values.

Inappropriate, scrutiny, or sheer numbers

I hear things on the news about inappropriate relationships between high school students and teachers.  Should I personally have that as a memory of high school?  Do I remember it so many years later because it did make me uncomfortable, when I have forgotten so many other things?  Why does my brain allow space for that memory?

When I was 15 and a sophomore in high school, I was taking a biology class.  Our teacher was a beautiful, young married woman.  She and her husband lived near our neighborhood, easily accessible to us.  She was personable and told us things about her husband on several occasions.  She was also a good teacher.

A year older than I, was an extremely good-looking football player.  He had a beautiful girlfriend that he had “gone with” off and on since 8th grade.  Of course with that description, you can surmise that they were one of “the couples.”

My perspective:  One afternoon, the FB player came to HER classroom.  I was in there.  He opened the door, and when she saw him she quickly went to the hall.  We could hear the talking, but not what was said.  It was pretty obvious that FB player was drunk.  Unfortunately for those two, the class was directly across from the office.

Next day the the teacher was gone, the Princiipal was teaching the classroom, and the FB player and his girl were broken up. No newspaper reports, no TV reports, just a little gossip

Within a year the FB player and the teacher were married (his mother had to sign for him as he was underage), raised three kids, and she went on to be an administrator in an acclaimed school district.  He became a preacher.

Would that happen today?  Should it have happened then?  Is there just more media to scrutinize schools?  Are there just so many students and teachers than in the past that there is more to hear about? I should just let it go, but it is like an accident scene – you just can’t help but look.     

I didn’t get a very good education in biology that year.

Be careful what you wish for – very careful

This is an excerpt from a Wall Street Journal article; the emphasis and illustrations are mine.

LINDSTROM, Minn. — Ki Gulbranson owns a logo apparel shop, deals in jewelry on the side and referees youth soccer games. He makes about $39,000 a year and wants you to know that he does not need any help from the federal government.

He says that too many Americans lean on taxpayers rather than living within their means. He supports politicians who promise to cut government spending. In 2010, he printed T-shirts for the Tea Party campaign of a neighbor, Chip Cravaack, who ousted this region’s long-serving Democratic congressman.

Yet this year, as in each of the past three years, Mr. Gulbranson, 57, is counting on a payment of several thousand dollars from the federal government, a subsidy for working families called the earned-income tax credit. He has signed up his three school-age children to eat free breakfast and lunch at federal expense. And Medicare paid for his mother, 88, to have hip surgery twice.

By BINYAMIN APPELBAUM and ROBERT GEBELOFF  (I checked the spelling; it is correct.)  Published: February 11, 2012

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/12/us/even-critics-of-safety-net-increasingly-depend-on-it.html?pagewanted=all

Once again, everyone wants someone else to do what they won’t do themselves.

If you want to lead the country down this path, use a rule of good leadership:

Lead by example.  Don’t sign up if you don’t want the government to help people.  You are people.  No one forces you to go sign up for Medicare or Medicaid, or Free Lunches.  No one forces you to take EIC on your taxes.  If you just keep mouthing without the leading no one will follow – you’re not going anywhere!!