Again, who is this system, this reform, for if parents with a good set of skills and resources find the process and the system overwhelming, confusing, bewildering, overly demanding? Is it reasonable to expect every family to have a parent who has nothing at all to do but look for [...]
Consider:
Each day as students entered the building, security guards instructed them to empty their pockets, empty their backpacks, empty their purses, stand over here for pat downs, hurry up and gather materials, stop pushing, stop yelling, stop cursing, get to class. At the same time, teachers were arriving in the [...]
Read Education salaries grow $8 million under Paul Pastorek.
11/27/2009, (New Orleans) Times-Picayune
[State Rep. Jim] Fannin [chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, D-Jonesboro] and [state Sen. Ben] Nevers [chairman of the Senate Education Committee, D-Bogalusa] said they expect lawmakers to more closely scrutinize the department’s administrative salaries [...]
Not read blogs.
Update my LibraryThing/Shelfari/GoodReads account
Read books. Right now: Silence by Shusaku Endo.
Clean my desk. Again.
Write lists: To Do, Have Done, Monday, Thursday, After Lunch, During Break, This Weekend, Buy, Discard, FINALLY Do.
Listen to audiobooks and podcasts.
Rearrange and create new piles on my desk.
Shelve books.
Try not to eat.
[...]Another concern in the reshuffling and unshuffling of schools post-Floods is special education. When schools can pick and choose their students and are judged on test scores and attendance, why not limit the number of students who need the most resources? “Independent charter school” means the school needs its own [...]
Schools Chart updated Sept. 2009, Cowen Institute
It’s not a surprise that there are stumbles along the new road of School Choice to our difficult and deceptively “improved” status quo.
While the New Orleans community has successfully created an unprecedented number of school choices, [...]
In “Compassion” [from 9/4/05, and which starts with a PSA for help for New Orleanians after the Floods], Gil Fronsdal says that compassion is hard because it requires feeling the suffering of others:
When compassion flows freely, there’s a feeling of rightness of it even though it’s painful.
Compassion. The word [...]
And unfortunately I was right [that Sadie the puppy had parvovirus]. So then began the ordeal of trying to save her. Plasma transfusions. Antibiotics. Probiotics. And daily visits. I wish for every citizen of this country the kind of healthcare [sic] and treatment this little dog received. The first four [...]
One summer, all excited about teaching composition, I collected some discarded journals for real-world reading and options outside my area: Political Science and Politics: Inequality and American Democracy (30.1, Jan. 2006); American Political Science Review (102.1, Feb. 2008); and Perspectives on Politics (3.2, June 2005). I looked at them today, [...]
You’ll learn to blog but not like a G Bitch. You don’t need that kind of grief or shame.
No paper required. Bring a laptop.
[...]From this date forward, the verb phrases “need household help” and “need household staff” will no longer be preceded by the personal pronoun “I.” The preferred personal pronoun will henceforth be “we.”*
______
* Mister doesn’t like that I-need-household-help clause. Makes him look like a slacker or asshole—I forgot his exact word.
UPDATE, [...]
I cancel plans, fail to show up, don’t answer emails, never call. The first 3 are all new for me and concentrated in the past 3 years. [I've never been a phone person. I could explain the possible neurotic genesis of that but it would be really boring.]
Since about early' [...]
I’ve been teaching a class in an RSD high school. What I’ve seen, heard, and experienced has so rattled me, I’m applying for nonacademic staff jobs. At least they have slack and almost-appropriate compensation. Here’s the first set of encounters:
In a conference, on a Monday, Student A said he was [...]
The Girl’s best friend told her that M-, another girl in their class, told the best friend that atheists can’t get married. [This is rich after all the kerfuffle over now-resigned Keith Bardwell.] The best friend, who comes from a very Christian family, reported the information but didn’t believe [...]
MEDIA ADVISORY:
James Perry to Make Major Campaign Announcement Outside City Hall, Will Unveil Major Policy Initiative and Challenge Candidates to Take These Immediate Steps to Turn New Orleans Around NOW
WHO: James Perry, Candidate for Mayor of New Orleans
WHAT: James Perry to Make Major Policy Announcement
WHERE: Outside New Orleans City Hall, [...]
I investigated vegetarianism because I was really, really, really poor at the time and needed information on cheap sources of protein and was never much of a meat-lover anyway. I could take it or leave it but in my clans, there is no [...]
NOLA chronic insomniacs, where are you? Insomniacs never organize, for obvious reasons, but maybe that should change. Humid Insomniacs? Sleep-Deprived Beings? NOSleep? SaveNOLASleep? UpAt4AMSTILL? TwoByFourUpsideYourHead.org?
[...]The Sunday Times-Pic makes it look like Sen. Vitter finally made a statement condemning or at least metaphorically shaking a finger at Justice of Peace Keith Bardwell over in Tangipahoa Parish.
Tangipahoa justice still under fire
Louisiana congressional members continued to criticize Tangipahoa Parish Justice Keith Bardwell for refusing to [...]
1. As soon as my head hits the pillow, I’m out.
2. I had chronic insomnia once.
3. You just need to relax.
4. Have you tried ___ ? It always works for me/my mother/my uncle/my sister’s father-in-law in Istanbul.
5. Just put your head down and go to sleep!
6. People think they need [...]
Item #1: Clarence Thomas sentence: “”I think the confirmation process is both unnecessary, it’s uninformed with respect to what the court actually does and it’s very dangerous.”
Yeah, both of those three things suck.
Item #2: at bark, bugs, leaves and lizards, the college paper read aloud word for mistake [...]
I’ve been awake since midnight. I was exhausted at 7 PM and nearly comatose at 9 and unconscious soon after that. Then I wasn’t.
The insomnia is actually what I could call better–I get some sleep, just not consistently. And some nights are like this, where it is clear I will [...]
Why hasn’t Sen. Vitter, or Rep. Melancon, said anything about the interracial marriage brouhaha? [Did I miss Melancon? See comments below.]
from HuffPo
Fine, I’ll say it—neither Vitter nor Melancon feels comfortable acknowledging or losing The Cracker Vote. They know they need it. How else would they get into or stay [...]
Interracial Couple Denied Marriage License By Louisiana Judge
This justice of the peace in Tangipahoa Parish wouldn’t do it because of “the children.” This is the typical, well-worn li[n]e against interracial, particularly black-white, marriages and relationships.
Did you just hear me spit on my own damn floor?
[...]If you’re going to Rep. Cao’s AAA Health Care Fair [“Because health care should be Affordable, Accessible, and Accountable”] Sat., Oct. 17th, 9AM – 1PM*, can you explain to me what the FBI is doing there? From the announcement/email:
We have partnered with the LSU Health Science Center, LSU Dental School, [...]
Odd Bits of Life in New Orleans has started a weekly literary events post, “Odd Words.” Go check it out.
Even I might finally get close enough to the loop to smell the cigarette smoke.
It’s been a day week month period of time. I could use some cigarette smoke. Or [...]
Coming up for air soon…..
_______
crop/photo courtesy of dameetch, used under this Creative Commons license
At Humid City, a kick-ass letter from Katrina L. Rogers, Women’s Caucus Chairof the Young Democrats of Louisiana. A taste:
On Tuesday, the U.S. Senate passed an Amendment to make sure taxpayer-funded government contractors cannot deny rape victims a day in court. For reasons only he knows, David Vitter [...]
The radar-and-cameras school zones? I’ve seen Sacred Heart’s on St. Charles and Trinity’s on Jackson. Where else are they? Though I hate the Big Brother monitoring, school zones are as respected around this town as Nagin’s intellectual rigor. Please tell me there are others around town, not just at private [...]
Chick lit—the range of fiction by women about contemporary city life, friendships, sex, jobs, climbing out of the wreckage of youthful dreams—gets a lot less respect than the male equivalent, which people tend to approach as if it were automatically more artful, more written. Women write “thinly veiled accounts”; men [...]
Bobby Peru is supposed to be in there somewhere. Or in The Jejune Institute. Via nonchalance or Oaklandish.
Just follow….
[...]Full disclosure: I am married but not necessarily a monogamy True Believer. I don’t think that men-can’t-control-themselves or that monogamy is counter to human “nature.” I don’t think monogamy is impossible, though it can be hard like any other long-term absolute or commitment. I think people talk monogamy and present [...]
First, Gov. Bobby Jindal robot-walks his way through a response to Pres. Obama. Then Rep. Charles Boustany gives a lame response to Pres. Obama. And Vitter has sent out a fundraising letter that lies like the motherfucker he is. [From TPM, 6 pages. HT: Doing a Vitter---you [...]
“Idiot box” offers too much intellectual heft, as if idiots got themselves together inside a box or box-like structure.
I’ve been so down on TV lately, and print and nonprint news, especially of the MSM type that never, ever, ever stops, that TiVo is my bestest girlfriend. And tonight, we girls [...]
Both Mister and I had unsettled sleep last night, me as usual, him as usual, I said, after a neighborhood shooting. Mister and I were in the back yard, chatting at the grill, The Girl inside with a cat or 2, when we heard gunfire, close, more than 1 [...]
Saturday was the first slightly normal August 29 I’ve had since 2005. I cleaned the kitchen. I went to a meeting. I went to a birthday party. I read no news or comments. I didn’t post that We Are Still Not OK. Unlike many others, especially [...]
The Times-Pic again discovers the local blogosphere and has the joy of printing the real name of Ashe Dambala. [Along with a picture.] As if the most dangerous thing going on politically in NOLA is Dambala’s question about Ellis and the conflict of interest his wife’s clients may pose. [...]
No, it’s not a joke or oxymoron. Though it does sound like a pipe 10-foot-water-bong dream…
In no society are women treated equally yet. I believe strongly that if women are not full participants in society, the society does not advance the way that it could. And if women are denied [...]
from SaveCharityHospital.com:
The second line will start at Charity Hospital, 1532 Tulane Street, at 6:00p.m. sharp. The Rebirth Brass Band and the Hot 8 Brass Band will lead the second line for about one hour around the footprint of the proposed LSU medical center in Lower [...]
To me from Vitty-Cent, whose office I once hung up on cold and still feel no regret or shame:
Dear Friend,
Please join me at a Doctors Town Hall Meeting this Friday, August 28th.
We´ll be joined by two Senators who are also doctors – U.S. Senators Tom Coburn and John Barrasso – [...]
Got some aging sex toys you hate to throw away? Tired of that 11-inch electric-purple double dildo but it’s not the kind of thing Goodwill will take? Been wishing for a Cash for Clunkers program for your Miracle Ball-Grip Massager? Want a $10 gift certificate for each butt plug, [...]
Highlights of The Tide for me:
Getting $2.50 from liprap. The culture panel—I’ve resolved in fall and winter to cook red beans every Monday. And to veganize the foods I remember and make sure The Girl eats them regularly. And if I can find a freaks-and-geeks social aid and pleasure [...]The 4th disasterversary of The Floods approaches us.
Schedule below. More details at Rising Tide 4
9 – 9:30AM
arrival and breakfast
9:30 – 10:30 AM
culture panel
10:30 -10:40 AM
break
10:40 – 10:55 AM
Net2NO presentation
10:55 – 11 AM
break
11:00 AM – 12 PM
Harry Shearer!
12 PM [...]
Hold on—Larry King isn’t on long.
At the end, he finishes her off. Note the crowd muttering, complaining and grumbling when she asserts that health care reform is a “Nazi” policy and questions why Rep. Frank keeps supporting this idea of “Obama’s,” as if that name indicates the depths of [...]
A grade I could’ve used: the FD:
Located in British Columbia, Simon Fraser University has just upped the ante, or lowered the bar, or whatever metaphor you have handy when it comes to establishing a new milestone for failure. Not satisfied with handing out “F’s” to their worst-performing students, the school [...]
1. Seth MacFarlane: Baby Stewie From ‘Family Guy’ Is Gay [Huffington Post]
2. On being Mayor Pitt: ‘I don’t have a chance.’ [NY Daily News]
3. Octomom: “I Screwed Myself.” [Huff Po---along with scary trailers from the coming reality show]
