bark, bugs, leaves, & lizards

Cinnamon Rolls Coming Right Up

You know you wanna start the new year right.

Lewdsters!

Ed Blakely and Ray Nagin are __________ !

I appealed to G. “I need a new insult.  I don’t want to use ‘douchebags’.”  Ever wise G said, “Shakespeare!”  And wouldn’t you know it, there’s a handy website for just this purpose:

And here’s a couple to save for the comments:

Make It Work

G and I came up with a new home improvement show idea.  Interior designers are given:

• a 5 gallon bucket full of rags
• $50

Stun us.

Election Day: Central City

Big line at 8:30 am, all for one ward/precinct with its allotted 2 voting machines. The other precincts in the same polling place, with their allotted 2 voting machines, are empty.

No lines at 12, 13, 14

Precinct 11

About 2 pm

The Peter Feldman Strategem, or The Cracker Vote Strategy Goes National

Exhibit A: Fox News VP: If McCain Worker ‘Mutilation’ Story Is a Hoax His Campaign Is ‘Over’

Earlier today, John Moody, executive vice president at Fox News, commented on his blog there that “this incident could become a watershed event in the 11 days before the election. If Ms. Todd’s allegations are proven accurate, some voters may revisit their support for Senator Obama, not because they are racists (with due respect to Rep. John Murtha), but because they suddenly feel they do not know enough about the Democratic nominee.

“If the incident turns out to be a hoax, Senator McCain’s quest for the presidency is over, forever linked to race-baiting.”

Exhibit B: Race Baiting Attack Story Fabricated By McCain Volunteer–MSNBC Breaking News video [YouTube]

This poor young woman is unbalanced. I feel sorry for her being pulled into this. It seems unintentional on her part. And it is unfortunate for the McCain campaign that she is a volunteer. BUT note the persistent pathology of the Unknown Big Black Assailant of White Women. There is a pathology to racism.

Exhibit C: McCain Communications Director Gave Reporters Incendiary Version Of “Carved B” Story Before Facts Were Known

The McCain spokesperson’s claims — which came in the midst of extraordinary and heated conversations late yesterday between the McCain campaign, local TV stations, and the Obama camp, as the early version of the story rocketed around the political world — is significant because it reveals a McCain official pushing a version of the story that was far more explosive than the available or confirmed facts permitted at the time.

A source familiar with what happened yesterday confirmed that the unnamed spokesperson was communications director Peter Feldman. Feldman was also quoted yesterday making virtually identical assertions on the Web site of another local TV station, WPXI. But those quotes, which we also preserved here, are also no longer available on WPXI’s site, for reasons that are unclear.

This is problematic because the McCain campaign doesn’t want to have been perceived as pushing an incendiary story that not only turned out to be a hoax but which police officials said today risked blowing up into a “national incident” and has local police preparing to file charges against the hoaxster.

There’s no evidence that anyone from McCain national headquarters put out a version of events like this.

Also see Police: McCain volunteer made up robbery story (AP via TPM).

At the very least, it reveals two things: the desperation of [some in] McCain’s camp/campaign and a hard-to-deny-now racist/we’ll-get-the-white-vote strategy.

G Bitch

Still out. Grump.

Semester Zero

Teaching is fun and joyous but also hard as fucking hell, especially if you give a quarter of a shit, at whatever level you teach. You feel crazy, torn between your instinct and drive to care, push, cajole and scaffold and the occasional need, depending on your circumstances, to distance, withdraw, erect taller boundaries, or just stop for a while. I now think that all teachers, K-16, can benefit from occasional breaks and always honest but constructive evaluation. Sometimes, a teacher should be told, We appreciate all your service, your dedication and your experience but we’d like to place you outside of the classroom for a year/2/for the foreseeable future and ask you to serve and offer your gifts and experience in a different capacity. People outside of the classroom, from bus drivers to parents to school board members, wring their hands over “bad teachers” who “they” “can’t get out of the classroom” because of “unions” instead of worrying themselves with the real issue, concern and need—supporting effective, good and downright talented teachers and stopping the exodus from education. Because it is often the good teachers who leave. And what the public calls a “bad” teacher ranges from one who didn’t pass so-and-so’s child to one who teaches logic and argument rather than creationism.

The Bad Teacher Protected By Unions is more conservative myth than reality, like “widespread” voter fraud. The real problem is keeping who you have. And doing so with respect, support and carrots rather than contempt, projection and beating sticks.

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I’ve had so far this year at the college level:

• a question offered for discussion on race—”What does ‘establishment’ mean?”
• a student who took 6 weeks to “understand” his university email account
• the same student asked “What’s a ‘fallacious’?” meaning “What does ‘fallacy’ mean?” even though we’ve dealt with the concepts of appeals and fallacies for almost 2 weeks now AND the class had a quiz on the material
• students who pout and challenge the department and university grading scales with “Why you got it so hard?”
• students who “don’t understand” their grades even though the online gradebook shows a string of zeros under assignments ranging from 10 to 100 points
• a flyer, from a university office with staff, some, not all, paid better than I, with five obvious typos and errors (at a quick glance) like “student’s” for “students” and “elvaluation” for “evaluation”
• exactly 6 passing grades at midterms out of all my classes
• a class clown who talks to me like he’s P. Diddy and I’m some video ho—he’s one more crack, comment, sigh, whine, failure away from me grabbing his collar or ear and “escorting” him from my classroom. Permanently.
• administrators and staff who not only have no idea what goes on in the classroom but have no idea that what happens in the classroom matters at a university and tell students flat-out that ____ is more important than classes

G Bitch

One of these weeks, my blog will be back up and running. Be forewarned.

photo courtesy of Claudecf, used under this Creative Commons license

Colorado: Amendment 48

If passed, Colorado’s Amendment 48 will define a fertilized human egg as a person:

WHAT VOTERS WILL BE ASKED

Shall there be an amendment to the Colorado constitution defining the term “person” to include any human being from the moment of fertilization as “person” is used in those provisions of the Colorado constitution relating to inalienable rights, equality of justice, and due process of law?

Section 1. Article II of the constitution of the state of Colorado is amended by the addition of a new section to read:

Section 31: Person defined. As used in sections 3, 6, and 25 of Article II of the state constitution, the terms “person” or “persons” shall include any human being from the moment of fertilization.

The amendment is an attempt to outlaw all abortion in CO but it has far-reaching consequences. According to Fofi Mendez of No on 48, the amendment could affect over 20,000 mentions of “person” in CO law and have unseen consequences in health care:

Some of the examples Mendez gives seem a little too rare but NARAL Colorado gives a good rundown of what is likely to be affected—birth control, miscarriages and ectopic pregnancies. What about property rights? Inheritance? And how will the law be enforced? At what point do you determine the time of fertilization? I can see that on the surface, abortion opponents may’ve thought they were on to something. But this is too overarching and, I think, shows all the hands and toes and heads of the whole radical end of pro-life groups.

The Colorado Catholic Conference doesn’t support the amendment, no matter what state pro-life groups say.

This amendment will be on the November ballot.

G Bitch

photo courtesy of draco_cd, used under this Creative Commons license