Thank you, Maria. Me with my goddaughter, Gwyneth (on my lap) and Grace. Look at how good he (me) is with the children. This is a couple years old - I think. Maybe a year old. They grow up so quickly, don't they?
GRACE! You pay attention when Nino's showing you videos! (Sorry)
(For video above, FB users click here.) Newly discovered Brit alternative band (by me). Their debut album was in 2001. Intelligent lyrics and a great sound. I give'em a 98, Dick! Listen to when Gus Garvey sings the chorus of this song - I swear there are similarities between he and Richard Harris singing "MacArthur Park".
Check out Elbow's Wiki article and their website.
There was a time when Former Assistant Secretary of Education Diane Ravitch thought No Child Left Behind, school vouchers and charter schools were good for the American education system.
Not any more. Ravitch states during an interview on NPR's Fresh Air:
I came to the conclusion ... that No Child Left Behind has turned into a timetable for the destruction of American public education...I had never imagined that the test would someday be turned into a blunt instrument to close schools — or to say whether teachers are good teachers or not — because I always knew children's test scores are far more complicated than the way they're being received today.I don't know enough about No Child Left Behind to comment on whether it's good or bad. But two points Ravitch made I clearly find puzzling.
1) Teachers' unions are "not the problem". Tell that to the New York State teachers' union. Millions wasted on "rubber room" teachers getting full pay and benefits for sitting in a room doing nothing. I'm not saying teachers' unions don't have their place - just that they're not perfect. Oh - and tell that to one of Wisconsin's "best new teachers"...who was laid off because of union collective bargaining rules.Good teachers will be rewarded with more money for improved student achievement, and asked to accept more responsibili-ties for lifting up their schools.I'm unaware if Obama's stance has changed. Regardless, you can find just as many articles and studies that laud merit-based pay as those that decry it, so don't quote me facts either way. Use common sense. How many times have you heard sports' fans bitch about overpaid athletes and how athletes should get paid based on their performance? Why can't teachers have a similar pay incentive?
Not that you didn't already have this in your head about many student-athletes, but UConn basketball star Kemba Walker readily admitted it in Sports Illustrated.
Above: Robert E. Lee's death mask.
Picked this up (among some other very fine pieces of enamel cookware) at my Uncle Butch's place. He's a "picker". Retired. Recycles metals. I've contemplated getting a rain barrel and, not thinking about it, set this outside my back stoop for decoration. It rained last night - but not 9 inches worth (which is what I collected). Twice now. Probably 'cause this house has no rain gutters and it's following directly off the top of the roof.
This will be nice for the flower/vegetable garden. Goin' green, baby.
I like them.
Discovered their music the day AFTER they played in Milwaukee last week. Here are a few favorite tunes - "Poison and Wine", "Falling" and "Barton Hollow".
Did I say I like them? And to think, they had separate careers before they came together. ;)
Continental CEO Jeff Smisek (left), who helped merge United with Continental, and Glenn Tilton, CEO of United, received a shitload of money (Smisek = $4.4 million total compensation, Tilton = $16.8 million) in recent pay raises.
Fine. Whatever. So if these airlines are making that much money (because we're always hearing how the airlines are in bad shape), why is it that consumers are still paying checked bag fees, exorbitant ticket change fees, this fee and that fee? Why do some airlines offer you the entire can of soda but others just offer a cup? Why is "no smoking" printed on the back of every seat? How much does that cost the airlines? And why are there still idiots who think they don't have to turn their iPods off when directed to by the stewards?
And while I'm on the subject, why does the seat space on every airplane I fly seem to be shrinking (because they do shrink the space, did you know that?). Seriously, if I put the tray down and place my computer on it my hands are literally pinned to my chest.
Click here for the full story. Oh wait...the executives who left United in the merger? They also get lifetime flight benefits, elite frequent-flier status and lifetime membership in the company's airport lounge clubs. Quaint. Nickel & dime, baby.
Someone please tell me why bottled cherries WITH STEMS are 75 cents more than cherries W/O stems. You'd think the extra work to pull the stems would make stemless cherries more expensive - but they're not. Why?
Aside from the fact that Earth Day was founded by United States Senator Gaylord Nelson from Wisconsin in 1970, lets not forgot one of Wisconsin's "favorite sons", Aldo Leopold - ecologist, forester, outdoorsman, hunter and conservationist, who spent the last 24 years of his life in western Wisconsin. Leopold founded the science of wildlife management and wrote the landmark book, A Sand County Almanac.
"A thing is right when it tends to preserve the integrity, stability and beauty of the biotic community. It is wrong when it tends otherwise."Read the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel's editorial on Leopold's conservation contributions. You can find more information on the Aldo Leopold Foundation here.
- Aldo Leopold
(FB users will want to click this link.)
From Wild Blue Yonder (Jennifer's packing list) -
Books - When I travel on location I always have Walt Whitman's
Leaves of Grass with me. I love it; it calms me in ways I can't explain.
I'm a fan of biographies. You learn how not to fuck up. Mike Farrell, Frank McCourt, Malachy McCourt, Frank Lloyd Wright, Bruce Dern, Dean Martin, Elvis, The Beach Boys, The Beatles, Kirk Douglas, Dennis Wilson, Brett Favre, Vince Lombardi, Richard Burton, Howard Stern, Abbie Hoffman, Thomas Jefferson, John Adams...and more to get to. Had I read Dean & Me (A Love Story), by Jerry Lewis, I would've finished it in a day (I took three days). Fast read. Funny read. Deano's my favorite all-around entertainer - and I loved these guys as a team and individually.
Hey look! It's me and the "original" Ricci Martin, Deano's 2nd son, at a gig in Pasadena. I got to know Ricci a bit through the Carl Wilson Cancer Foundation. Chip off the old block.
Motherlode. Well, it's subjective. Or relative. One man's junk (as they say). Couple was in an assisted living home and they were selling everything. Golden years, right? Click READ MORE! for the rest of my bounty. I think the ladder is my crown jewel.
Oscar winner Julie Christie. I can't believe my baby turned 70 last week. My favorite actress. Check this love scene out with Donald Sutherland in Don't Look Now, widely purported to be real (we'll never know & there's nudity so no kiddies) and arguably the best love scene I've ever seen (it at least makes a lot of lists). It's not so much the lovemaking but the way it was filmed.
You know who Watts is (top). Paulette Goddard was the first actress to be given a Technicolor screen test and was considered for the role of Scarlett O'Hara in Gone With the Wind. She was married at least four times - including to Charlie Chaplin and Burgess Meredith. I believe her last husband was the author of "All Quiet On the Western Front".
Charlie would've been 122 today. Listen - the song is, "Smile", sung by Nat King Cole, which Chaplin wrote.
I did. Let me know if you want some pure, organic Wisconsin maple syrup - made by my brother and I. Delish.
My father and Molly resting to Erik Satie's "Gymopedie No. 1" while my brother and I are "sugaring" in southwestern Wisconsin. Here's the link for FB friends.
While I was subbing today, there was a student in a 3rd grade classroom who obviously had some developmental disorder. I wasn't sure if it was autism or something else. So I asked a teacher (not the teacher of that class) what condition the boy had. She wouldn't tell me. She said, "oh I can't divulge that...no".
Are you kidding me? I was under the assumption our society's been emerging from the dark ages regarding such matters. I mean, the student has been mainstreamed within the classroom...it's not like it's a big FUCKING secret. Besides, I'm a teacher. For my own benefit, I have the right to made aware of children with ALL issues should a situation arise. Oh - wait...I'm a substitute teacher. Right. Maybe that's what it was. So I just asked another teacher and she told me. Was that so FUCKING hard?
Autism, MS, Down Syndrome...whatever the case may be. It's this teacher's attitude (not sure if it was her's or something the school told her to say) that placed these disorders in the closet in the first place. You wanna talk about hot? Me? Fine. We won't talk about the retarded, mental student anymore who walks around yelling and screaming nonsensical gibberish while he's given breaks from the closet that he's normally hidden in.
Better? By the way - the kids...they loved me. Didn't want me to go. Guess it's that substitute charm I exude.
135,000 square feet. 250 rooms. 8,000 acres. Went to visit my friend Joey (and take care of some theater business) before she takes off for Atlanta in May to get her doctorate in pastoral counseling (is that right, Joey?). The Biltmore estate in Asheville, NC is the Vanderbilt "country home" and is the largest, privately-owned home in the U.S. The pictures don't do it justice (and, of course, no photos of the interior).
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