Yowling from the Fencepost

Six weeks in...

2007-10-13T20:07:00.000-05:00

It's mid-October already?

I've been a busy beaver -- we're talking nature's rendition of the Hoover Dam busy.

When the school year began, my humble little middle school in Minneapolis had a little problem with class sizes. My reading class fluctuated around thirty-six students until things finally settled down. Our Arabic elective class at one point had forty. Even the technology class I taught had twenty-two... which sounds great until I add that there were only eighteen computers in the classroom I used.

All of us took on the extra duties while budgets and allocations were wrangled into some semblance of coherence. We have added a few more teachers to take the load off everyone a little.

In the meantime, I was tapped to head up the CALT tests. These are the computerized versions of the NALT. You might know of these when you listen to the news and hear how American students are doing in reading and math compared to students in other countries around the world.

As "inefficient" as paper-and-pencil tests might be, the only way they will crash is if the truck carrying them fails to stop before going over a cliff.

That's just a small taste of the ten to fifteen hours I put in each day. Needless to say, I love my work.

Okay, I don't put ten or more hours in on the weekends... unless I am grading, or writing up purchase requests for our library or computer labs, or coming up with lesson ideas for upcoming classes, or... ...yeah, I better just stop here.

At least now I know why few teachers start or even maintain a blog.

To all my Minnesota blogging colleagues, I can't tell you how much I missing hanging around here in the blogosphere.

You can't make this stuff up

2007-08-29T14:32:00.000-05:00

Like something out of Kafka, the families of the trapped and likely dead miners in Utah are being denied the right to appoint the United Mine Workers as their representative in upcoming federal investigations. Not because this is a non-union mine, of course, but because the trapped and likely dead miners did not sign the forms themselves:

The federal agency tasked with investigating the Utah mine collapse denied a request by the families of six trapped miners that the United Mine Workers represent them in the probe of the matter, the union said Monday.

All six of the families had signed documents designating the union as their representative in the investigation, UMWA spokesman Phil Smith said. The Mine Safety and Health Administration told the union's attorneys on Monday that the agency would not heed the request.

"MSHA requires that miners sign these papers, but the miners in question were unable because the are trapped inside the mine," Smith said.

Of course, if the trapped miners could get out and sign the papers themselves, there wouldn't need to be an investigation.

Rally Report: More Like "Soak My Bones."

2007-08-19T17:57:00.001-05:00

As things stand, the 2007 Rattle My Bones Scooter Rally in the Twin Cities, is wrapping up. Visitors from out-of-town, including someone from Kansas City and a couple from Winnipeg, are motoring home. At last count, the rally had one-hundred and seventy registrants. That was with full knowledge that a lot of (much-needed) rain would try to dampen spirits. Far from it, however. The numbers were on the high-side of rally attendees over the past eight years running. Some of us speculated how many more would have come out had the forecast been for clear skies and mid-70ºs.

The official logo of the Rattle My Bones Scooter Rally
(pretty nifty, don'tcha think?)

I rode to the Friday night shindig, whacked-out back and all, on a newly-decorated Stella, courtesy of a fine artist who had experience painting an "art-car" or two... that's Michelle. I went with a partial racing stripe upwards from the ground to the name badge, with retro-1950s stars, the kind that look similar to jacks, filling out the top of the legshield. Some fellow scooterists commented that they thought the work consisted of stick-on vinyl decals. They were surpirsed and impressed that she had done it, by hand, just the night before.

While Friday was dry, Saturday and Sunday alternated between rain and drizzle. Instead of falling back on the wimp-out excuse of my fear of getting wet, I had a novel, equally lame, wimp-out excuse courtesy of my back muscles. Friday morning I did the totally freaky "sneeze while bending over to pick up my boots" act and hit the floor like a bug caught under a shoe. My back muscles snapped like a rubber band in that moment. Whoa... That was painful. I'm still nursing it back to health and have even resorted to opening the medicine cabinet. All is well if I a) sit up, b) lie down, or c) stand up, but any angle that is between one and eighty-nine generated a lot of low-volume "ow... ow... ows" from me.

Since going to work was out of the question, I rested up for Friday night and rode there on my scooter, only to experience another freaky problem: My headlight kept going out when I shifted into third and fourth gear. It's a common problem on scoots with gear shifters on the left-hand side of the handlebars, because that's where the low-high beam switch also happens to sit. Periodically, a wire will work itself out after a certain number of twists up and down the gears. With a little electrical tape, a tiny swiss-army knife screwdriver, and five or ten others watching or assisting, we fixed the problem... mostly... it still flickers a little in fourth gear. Hey, it's better than driving in the dark with no lights.

Someone commented on the Saturday ride (a.k.a. "The Big Ride") that there were two kinds of scooterists out there in the driving rain: Scooterists with rain pants, who were happy, and scooterists without rain pants, who were not happy.

Seven or eight bands played each evening over the course of events. We had both kinds of music... no, not "country and western"... more like punk and ska. Michelle and I made it to those.

Overall, a good weekend was had by all... even with bad backs, mechanical problems, and weather-related inconveniences.

Technorati Tags: scooter rally, scooters

Compare and contrast

2007-08-19T11:47:00.000-05:00

Mitch Perlstein, Center for the American Experiment and consistent “No new taxes” proponent, in a column today in the StarTribune's Opinion section:

It would have to be demonstrated, for instance, that decisions by the Minnesota Department of Transportation about what to do about the bridge -- whether to repair it, how to repair it, when to repair it -- were made on the basis of what such steps might cost. But I know of no evidence that money played any role in determining what state officials or anyone else did or didn't do in maintaining the bridge.

StarTribune front page news story, same metro edition:

Dorgan and senior engineer Gary Peterson denied in interviews that money was a factor in deciding what to do with the Interstate 35W bridge, which was not due for replacement until 2022. They provided a written timeline showing that MnDOT supervisors on Nov. 1, 2006, funded the reinforcing project for $1.5 million, with work to begin in January 2008.

But at least three internal documents suggest that money was a consideration.

On using cost/benefit analysis in determining whether to repair or replace the bridge:
Perlstein:

Likewise, to draw any suspect connection between the collapse and the consistent preference of large numbers of Minnesotans to hold the line on taxes, one would have to assume that inspectors and other officials charged with protecting and serving allowed anything other than their professionalism to determine how they gauged the sturdiness and fragility of the state's infrastructure. Without a morsel of evidence that any of them compromised their integrity, it's slanderous to imply that any of them did.

News story:

Earlier, when MnDOT and its consultants were zeroing in on reinforcing the bridge, an internal MnDOT "investment strategy" meeting was held on July 24, 2006, in which officials debated various approaches.

* * *

The "risk" of that approach was described this way: "Must pay approximately 2 million dollars to get the job done."

* * *

A logistics and financial issue also was discussed. MnDOT officials said that if the bridge was simply inspected, the benefit would be: "Don't have to pay for steel, stockpile steel, or install steel."

On the timing of repairs:
Perlstein:

And then, of course, even if Pawlenty broke his no-tax pledge 20 minutes after taking office in 2003, and even if MnDOT's budget doubled in a single bound, does anyone really believe that federal, state and local bureaucracies would have moved fast enough so that anything other than maybe talking about a new 35W bridge would have happened by now?

News story:

The men and women whose job was to ensure the safety of Bridge 9340 were meeting once again. Just after noon on Dec. 6, they filed into a conference room in Roseville to divvy up the final prep work for a dangerous steel reinforcement project high above the Mississippi River.

A senior engineer was going to pull property records in order to contact landowners beneath the bridge. Detours were coming for West River Road. The Coast Guard was about to get heaps of paperwork on what tasks would be done from the river channel. Truck drivers would soon learn of pending weight restrictions.

* * *

• Jan. 17, 2007 The turning point occurs during a conference call. Dorgan and staff opt for inspection only. He says the decision is based on URS assurances that inspectors can detect and isolate cracks before they reach a dangerous length.

* * *

“We regret the additional work this has caused you and others in the district," Peterson wrote in an e-mail, "but I'm sure you agree that based on this new information it [is] appropriate that we postpone the project until we can determine if another option may [be] as safe and a more cost effective approach."

On the long-term results here:
Perlstein:

....if we got our priorities straight, enough money would be freed to adequately build what we really need and maintain what we have.

News story, quoting State Bridge Engineer Dan Dorgan:

"You can't help but ask yourself ... what should have been done differently," he said. "As an engineer you can't be at peace until the cause is found. And even then I have doubts that will bring peace."

Quick question: When is $168K not enough?

2007-08-18T15:05:00.001-05:00

I wish I had Tony Snow's problem.

Financial Pressures Force Snow Departure (Washington Post):

White House press secretary Tony Snow said Friday he'll leave before the end of the Bush presidency because he needs to make more money.

"I'm going to stay as long as I can," he said without elaborating on a departure date.

Snow's comment caught White House colleagues by surprise, and they said they could not hazard a guess about when he might leave.

The 52-year-old Snow, the father of three children, earns $168,000 as an assistant to the president but made considerably more as a conservative pundit and syndicated talk-show host on Fox News Radio. He was named press secretary on April 26, 2006.

White House press secretaries in recent administrations have found the speechmaking circuit to be lucrative once they've stepped down. Snow was eagerly sought by Republican audiences before the elections last year, and in a break with tradition he made a number of fundraising speeches for GOP candidates.

How much more moola does Snow need? Maybe we can all band together and chip in a few bucks apiece to help him along, or we could hold a bake sale. Better yet, how about we demand that Congress pass and the president sign a bill allotting a salary that will be able to support a press secretary and his or her family, because a low, six-digit income for spinning the administration's lines just isn't cutting it these days.

Gosh, just how does the rest of America get by on dual-income, five-digit incomes?

Technorati Tags: bush administration, press secretary, tony snow

Do you feel it? A scooter rally approaches.

2007-08-16T22:39:00.001-05:00

It must explain why I am wandering into the strange-yet-oh-so-cool offerings on the web.

It's either that or the results of Michelle's foray into the art of painting up scooters... particularly mine... with kick-butt, 1950s-jazz-lounge-era stars on the legshield. Pics will be forthcoming.

Who gives a furry rat's gluteous maximus about fishing openers or deer season. Scooter rally season is where it's at. Rattle My Bones is its name. Three days of Pabst, Bloody Maries, and two-stroke fumes (especially if you find yourself behind one of those vintage Lambrettas, which can create a heat-island effect without ever leaving first gear.

Check it out. Heck, come on out Saturday morning before The Big Ride and walk among the scooterista. Most hail from our fine Twin Cities, but there are plenty of out-of-towners who make their pilgrimage up here. Most of those come from Chicago (those would be the ones who ride in slouched positions, wearing worn-out Chuckies, and managing to keep their cigarettes in their mouths while at cruising speed) and from Denver (those would be the ones who put their seats up to either air out their gas tanks or keep the sun from baking their black vinyl seats; I haven't figured out which it is, yet).

(Thanks to Clunkyrobot.com for finding that "rad for so many reasons" video. Enjoy all those hits you'll get... from all three of my readers.)

Technorati Tags: andrew thompson, scooter rally, scooters

Some things just should not be made more efficient.

2007-08-15T10:36:00.000-05:00

The death penalty, as one example, clearly fits this bill.

Gonzales to Get Power In Death Penalty Cases (Washington Post):
Rules Would Expand Fast-Track Authority

Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales, under political siege for his handling of the U.S. attorney firings and other issues, is to get expanded powers to hasten death penalty cases under regulations being developed by the Justice Department.

The rules would give Gonzales the authority to approve "fast-track" procedures by states in death penalty cases, enabling them to carry out sentences more speedily and with fewer opportunities for appeal if those states provide adequate representation for capital defendants.

Such powers were previously held by federal judges, but a provision of the USA Patriot Act reauthorization bill approved by Congress last year hands the authority to the attorney general.

Under the regulations, death row inmates would have six months, instead of a year, to file appeals in the federal courts, and federal judges would have less time to consider petitions in capital cases.

The proposed changes, reported yesterday by the Los Angeles Times, would hand new authority to Gonzales as leading Democrats and some Republicans have called for his resignation and questioned his truthfulness. Earlier this month, Congress gave Gonzales greater powers in overseeing the government's warrantless wiretapping program.

The leaders of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vt.) and Arlen Specter (R-Pa.), asked Gonzales in a letter sent earlier this month to delay implementing the new death penalty rules until October at the earliest, "to guarantee adequate representation of death row prisoners before certification occurs."

If our states and nation insist on having a death penalty for crimes, they better make damn well certain that every aspect of a conviction is thoroughly examined and considered between throwing those switches.

This isn't so much about the person who committed the crime. It's more about maintaining our integrity as a nation that professes to stand for liberty and justice, due process, and equal justice under the law. Executing those who are found out to have been innocent of committing a crime, even if as rare as hen's teeth, completely violates that principle.

Add to that how the current Attorney General has a penchant for refusing to offer any information on almost anything he does at the Justice Department, and we have mapped a path for our nation to add summary executions to secret trials based on secret evidence. I'm not ready to see our nation go that route. Not now. Not ever.

Rove: Hanging it up or moving to new pastures?

2007-08-13T08:55:00.000-05:00

On the one hand:

Yea!!!

He must have run out of "new products" to roll out after August.

On the other hand:

<astro voice>
Ruh, roh.
</astro voice>

Now the Old Boy Wonder is free to join a new presidential campaign, now that he's done helping this administration drive the nation into the ground...

...hey, this could also be good news.

Technorati Tags: bush administration

Blogging while oblivious

2007-08-12T11:42:00.000-05:00

Shorter Jeff Kouba: "Why, no, I've never received anonymous email with images of my face photoshopped onto a mutilated and ejaculate-covered corpse with my home address posted below. Why do you ask?"

The president is on vacation... Duck!

2007-08-10T15:05:00.001-05:00

Why does it seem as if disaster looms on the horizon every time Bush goes on vacation? Check it out: In 2001, there was September 11. In 2003 he and his buds were planning their "splendid little war" in Iraq. Katrina hit in 2005. Here it is, 2007, and the Federal Reserve is pumping billions of dollars into the system.

Go back to work, Mr. Bush. Better yet, how about just going away, as in take a permanent vacation, by resigning?

Technorati Tags: bush, economy

Yowling from the Library.

2007-08-10T10:45:00.000-05:00

Been gone so long, I forgot to check my blog's host server to see if I was paid up. Never fear, Yowling is still here.

So, what's been going on? I've spent the summer working for the middle school I joined back in February. It's been a little bit of summer program workshops here, move computer labs there (and there and there and there), and equipment maintenance, class preparation for the fall and all the rest.

I'll share some more details of all the fun stuff I did over the next month. You cannot imagine what it is like to work a job you love wholeheartedly while knowing that the possibility of remaining here is up in the air, even at this very late date.

I don't know what the conservatives and right-wing Republicans are complaining about. I still stand by my claim that this school got a really great deal hiring me, since tech support -- just one part of my job description -- runs about fifty to one-hundred and fifty bucks in the so-called real world. I believe I provide the same service for about ten dollars per hour at this rate (that's working my normal hours plus the extra unpaid hours I put in on top of that).

Yeah, yeah, so the pay ain't all that great. Still, I can't complain in so many other ways. Each day I go home with my soul intact (unlike my years in the part of the corporate world where dog-eat-dog was more like Kong-beats-T-Rex-to-a-bloody-pulp). I have a good rapport with my colleagues and co-workers, which can be difficult when juggling so many different priorities at once -- I may have turned that juggling into an art form. I also have a good reputation among the students, as was demonstrated near the end of the last quarter. A student told another student I had just asked where his classroom was and why he wasn't there, "That's Mr. Moses. You don't want to mess with him." Hee-hee-hee. I don't do anything nasty or intimidating. I just don't let go of the subject until its has been resolved. If that means calling in behavior support, assistant principal, parents, and teachers, that's quite alright with me. Amazingly, most students don't figure out that just giving me (or other teachers, administrators, and staff) a straight answer is the path of least resistance, but a good number of them figured that out over the last semester.

Add to that rep that my students' only complaint in my technology class each quarter was that I didn't give them enough free time. Any time that came up, I'd simply look at them and say in my worst fake-German accent, "Vat iz dis 'free-ee time' you spee-eek ov?" Nobody has answered that one yet.

Duty calls, so ciao for now.

-- Moses

I-35W

2007-08-02T09:27:00.000-05:00

My wife, our friends, and their families have all reported in to each other. So far, none of us has been touched by the disaster that occurred yesterday when the I-35W bridge collapsed. Many of us take that route frequently, and we are all remarking how fortunate we are to not have been going that way yesterday.

All of us will keep those who have been affected by this disaster in our thoughts.

Nice if you can pull it off

2007-07-27T07:20:00.001-05:00

Shorter Ron Carey, via Drew Emmer:

“We are fully committed to investigating ourselves and have little doubt that we will be fully vindicated.”

(not) Dead (yet) Chicks Monday...

2007-06-25T16:04:00.001-05:00

(...and let us hope they live long, happy lives before they do pass on.)

dee-dee dee-dee-dee... skimming news headlines and articles today... dee-dee-dee... hey, what's this?

... "Israel has decided to reach out to young US men by publishing images of ... soldiers" ...

Feast your eyes on these sexy, sexy gun-toting pieces of eye candy:

yowza (and an 'Murican flag bandana, too. That's so-o-o hot.)

grr-ow-w-w-l ... look at 'em carry those big guns

ah-OO-OO-woo-woo-woo
<slim pickens> Now, he sure does have a purdy smile, don't he? </slim pickens>

*whistle*
He sure knows how to use his weapon.

hubba hubba... waitaminute ...whoops...

I really need to read these articles more closely:

Israel targets US lad mag market (BBC):

Israel has decided to reach out to young US men by publishing images of semi-clad female former soldiers in US men's magazine, Maxim.

The pictures are part of a public relations drive to improve the image of the country within the US.

Maxim said it was "pleased" with the result of its collaboration with the Israeli consulate in New York, which came up with the idea.

But some in Israel have said that the images were not appropriate.

"We definitely have public relations problems, and I'm all for creative solutions," Israeli lawmaker Colette Avital said.

"But there are enough beautiful and interesting things we can use to tap into this demographic than to show a half-naked woman in a magazine of this kind, considered pornographic."

According to AP, the photo spread will include pictures of Israeli model Nivit Bash - who served in Israeli military intelligence - and former Miss Israel, Gal Gadot.

The Israeli consulate defended its decision, taken after research indicated that Israel meant very little to young US men.

"Males that age have no feeling toward Israel one way or another, and we view that as a problem, so we came up with an idea that would be appealing to them," said David Dorfman, a media adviser at the consulate.

The photo feature, entitled "Women of the Israeli Defense Forces", will be published in the July issue of the magazine.

Will someone over at the Anti-Strib please tell me again how low-brow sexism and rambo-esque militarism supposed to "improve the image" of Israel to the American population? I keep forgetting.

- - -

On another note: Hey, Tracy. I saw you interviewed in last week's paper. When did you sell out and become pro-Strib?

Technorati Tags: feminism, israel, public relations, united states, war

In defense of the free market. Sort of. Ok, not really.

2007-05-30T17:12:00.000-05:00

"I aimed at the public's heart, and by accident I hit it in the stomach."
- Upton Sinclair, "The Jungle"

E coli conservatives and their ostensible devotion to the free market strike again:

WASHINGTON: The Bush administration said Tuesday it will fight to keep meatpackers from testing all their animals for mad cow disease.

The Agriculture Department tests fewer than 1 percent of slaughtered cows for the disease, which can be fatal to humans who eat tainted beef. A beef producer in the western state of Kansas, Creekstone Farms Premium Beef, wants to test all of its cows.

Larger meat companies feared that move because, if Creekstone should test its meat and advertised it as safe, they might have to perform the expensive tests on their larger herds as well.

We knew that this administration sheds its purported principles whenever it suits their supporters, but to prohibit a small meatpacker from testing for a deadly disease when the small business wants to do so at its own cost is simply insane and shows what the true agenda is. Rick Perlstein offers this comment:

First, observe the contempt for liberty. When E. coli conservatives say self-regulation is preferable to government, they're even lying about that. Second, observe the contempt for small business. When a small company want to - voluntarily! - hold its product to a higher standard, the government blocks it, in part because bigger companies have to be protected from the competition, in part because a theoretical threat to the bottom line (false positives) trumps protection against a deadly disease.

There's your conservatism, America: not extremism in defense of liberty. State socialism in defense of Mad Cow.

And in case you’re wondering, you can buy Creekstone Farms meat locally at Kowalski’s.

It's a big world out there

2007-05-13T15:43:00.000-05:00

And there are some really scary Bridges you have to drive over.

Lost in (the lack of) translation.

2007-05-07T12:34:00.001-05:00

悩みをこれを読むことを持たれているか。この言語のテストを取らなければならなかったら何か。イライラしているか。それでそれがこれらの愚かな州テストを取っている私の学生のためにのようであるものの、今小さい好みを有する。

(You figure it out.)

What this blog needs

2007-05-01T21:25:00.000-05:00

Is iron-clad evidence that Mitch is the most feminist person he knows!

Left to right: Gloria Steinem, Bella Abzug, Mitch Berg, Shirley Chisholm, and Betty Friedan discussing the future of the Equal Rights Amendment, April 1972.

Update: Photo courtesy of Tild, ofcourse.

What's on your reading list? (Episode 2)

2007-04-02T20:10:00.001-05:00

My reading pile is never small, but even I think I may have gone overboard in recent weeks. Take the history of Africa, for example. I used to have about twenty or so works on the continent in general and on southern and South Africa in particular. Now, I think I doubled or tripled that section. Thank the book gods for used bookstores.

Here are some good works I would recommend:

Africa: A Biography of the Continent, by John Reader -- As a paperback, this book weighs in at just under seven-hundred pages of straight narrative text. I can't imagine the size of the hardcover. But hold on there, Hoss, 'cause Reader's history of the continent is not some unapproachable tome only meant for academics to decipher. Africa is a highly readable book that builds upon itself chapter after chapter. From pre-history to recent times, you can gain a sense of peoples and places, how past events shaped future events, and where the author stands on his interpretation of Africa's history.

The quick and dirty version of this work seems to argue the following: Africa is a unique, challenging environment and the people of that continent were doing just fine coping and prospering under those conditions until the Europeans arrived and screwed it all up. Seriously, though, from the spread of export slavery, to domestic dispossession and dislocation, and to the economic and environmental ruin of populations in whole regions, the effect of Europeans on Africa over the last five-hundred years has left a gutted, rotten legacy for the continent's current population to repair. Although this summary is almost certain to raise the howling hackles of the right-wing bloggers, it is nonetheless the case that Western values, Western market economics, Western political and Western attitudes regarding race wrought much damage to Africans and continues to do so today. Since I know that critics of this interpretation will challenge this general thesis, let's move on to the next title, shall we?

Apartheid: South African Naziism, by Sipo Mzimela -- When I first saw this book, with its bright red cover and photos of bodies that testified to the horrors of Nazi Germany and apartheid South Africa, my first inclination was to wonder if the author had made too much of a leap. I bought the book to check it out and discovered that this was a thoroughly serious work of academic research.

Mzimela not only makes literary connections between the Nuremberg laws that marginalized and dispossessed Germany's Jewish population and the apartheid laws that did the same to South Africa's non-white populations (not simply black South Africans, but also Asian and mixed-race people, too), he establishes timelines when the 1950s architects of apartheid were (physically) in Germany during the 1920s and 1930s studying (even literally, as in: in universities) the methodology and practices of the architects of what would become the Nazi genocide of European Jews in the late-1930s and early 1940s.

I am still working on this book, but it is a captivating and compelling read so far.

Now, in deference to my right-wing readers of this humble little blog, we shall hear from "the other side" of the so-called argument...

A History of South Africa: Social & Economic, by C. W. De Kiewiet -- If you are a well-read student of South African history, the author of this apparently innocuously-titled book should make you reach for it right away. For those of you not yet in the know, the architects of apartheid were decedents of Dutch settlers of the late-1500s and early 1600s, to be known first as boers, but later they will identify themselves as Afrikaners and view themselves in a shiny, mythical "white city on a hill" light that rivals the typical yet often skewed mythology many people in the United States hold about themselves and their nation today.

When I said that the title of De Kiewiet's book was "apparently innocuously-titled," the reader can quickly see that the author's intent is to establish a solid argument that it was the white population of South Africa that made it the land of prosperity it has become in modern times.

Ummm... Okay, I guess... except that De Kietweit's work is missing something... something that should stand out... hmmm...

Oh yes! I remember now... Apartheid! Nowhere -- not in the text, not in the index, no-flippin'-where -- does this odious policy and legal system that oppressed over three-fourths of South Africa's population show up in this book. I thought to give the author the benefit of the doubt because, after all, the book was published in 1941. When I saw that the book had been updated and revised into the mid-1970s, however, giving poor De Kieweit that benefit didn't seem to be right. You see, apartheid as a legal system began in the middle-to-late 1950s, with 1958 being a seminal year. Even with that in mind, the actions by white South Africans (Afrikaner and English) to turn the black population into little more than cheap laborers for the fiscal benefit the former group from as early as the 1600s, into the 1830s, and though the early twentieth century could not have gone unnoticed, right? Right?

It is fun to read a work such as De Kiewiet's to get a laugh at how a people can totally delude themselves and their history of themselves. The fun ends quickly, however, given the fact that such skewed self-notions of a people can result in the capability for that group to dish out large helpings of self-righteous oppression and violence to others over the course of a whole century.

I firmly believe that there are no "two-sides" to every argument. Instead, I believe that there can be as many sides to an argument as there are interested parties (active or passive). The problem of De Kiewiet's work, however, is that it would have certainly lined up with supporters of a pro-Afrikaner self-image, of which there were some who would go so far as to shout down or drive out anyone who would dare to challenge their mythology. Let's hope that this does not remind us too much of how things are today in our nation, where some are interested in making certain that people accept only our mythology as some kind of official, sanctioned version of our nation's history and driving out those they fear to be committing some kind of heresy.

There's much more on the pile, but I think it's okay to save that for a later date.

When "Spring Break" becomes "Catch-up Week."

2007-04-02T18:34:00.001-05:00

Before I get started, allow me to direct a heartfelt, personal, pre-rebutting rebuttal note to Swiftee: Go blow it out your ear.

There. Now that that's done...

To my more serious readers (yes, all three of you): It is Spring Break in Minneapolis' public school system. Rather than high-tail it with Michelle to the Gulf Coast of Florida to visit my mother-in-law, and the beach she just happens to live near, hop on the old scooter (which blew the crankshaft for a second time in four years), or do anything that might be loosely defined as "fun," I have decided to use this so-called "free" time to try to tackle the long list of things I have wanted to do but had to shelve to address more immediate concerns.

Take today, for instance. I went into the office to meet with a few others -- who have also transmogrified their "free" time into "working" time -- and draw up a Top Ten of projects I hope to get done by the end of the week before the show gets on the road again seven days from now.

I'll spare you the nasty details, but suffice it to say that I finished my Top Ten list in about ten minutes. Mostly, it involves software updates, database preparations and updates, reorganizing certain areas, writing a bunch of e-mails to people, getting cost estimates, and planning the next quarter of my class for a new bunch of students. Whee!

No, seriously... Whee! Almost every morning when I arrive on the campus, I hit the ground running and don't stop until the class dismissal bell. Some days, I don't even get a chance to drop my coat off in my office because something requiring my attention has come up. Because of all the budget cutbacks and reductions, most of us -- teachers, administrators, and staff -- are conducting the educational and administrative equivalent of meatball surgery. Granted, it's not pretty and it leaves a lot of rough edges, but we get the job done quickly and effectively.

You probably know how many critics of education argue that public schools should be run like a business, right? Well, if schools were run in such a manner, the employees would go on strike in a heartbeat due to the arduous working demands, the rough conditions, and the less-than-adequate compensation for their expertise. As I indicated in my previous post, if my school contracted out for the technical support I provide, it would be in a financial hole five to six times greater than what I receive...

... Of course, I did happen to crash the school's network last week. Hey, it could have happened to anybody. Besides, I fixed it in less than an hour (it should have been less, but I didn't ask the important starting question, "Okay, what did I do that caused this?") and finished re-wiring the third floor lab all at the same time.

God, I wish I had George W. Bush's job. All he does is tell people to do things or not to do things. He's not a "details" person, by his own admission. He never has to accept blame for his failures. He just passes them off to his underlings' underlings, or his underlings themselves if the failing issue is too hot. He doesn't even do e-mails, or so he says, anyway. Most importantly, he works nine to five, takes super-long vacations that are truly vacations and not some demented version of free time to address the as-yet-unaddressed tasks, browbeats and bullies others without a care in the world, and is chauffeured all over the place. All that, a six-digit annual income, and no calls for accountability from the Right Wing Nut House, too.

*sigh*

C'est le guerre, I guess. At least I get to maintain a clear conscience and sleep well at night, knowing I am doing some serious good in our little part of the world, here in Minneapolis.

Back to the ol' grindstone.

Technorati Tags: education, minneapolis, vacation

Notes from my old metal desk.

2007-03-30T13:06:00.001-05:00

It has been two months since I accepted a position with one of Minneapolis' middle schools. During that time, I have played my role as librarian, technical repair, maintenance and troubleshooting, and taught my first class on media technology.

All-in-all, it's been good, but the obstacles and hurdles... Oy!

From what I have heard, this school's library and computer labs I run used to be staffed with five full-time people. Today, after four to five years of budget cuts, there are two: my assistant and myself. We are both, technically, part-time. In reality, however, we each put in a full-time effort. Although I am listed as a "point eight," which means thirty-two hours a week, I can't recall a week where I have worked less than forty. I am not complaining. My work is at a place where I can do good and I sleep well each night knowing that what I do will have benefits for our society somewhere down the road.

If I have any complaint, it is that my poor library and media center have been stuck in a time bubble. With year after year of budget cuts, we have lost our ability to keep our book stacks and magazine racks -- the latter is a meager selection at best, these days -- updated. Our computers are between three and five generations old; some are beginning to fail after years of intense use.

On my drive home, I flip through the radio dials and, all too frequently, wind up hearing some ignorant, bombastic blowhard railing against my school district in particular or against public schools in general. Of these mooks, our semi-homegrown resident right-winger Jason Lewis tends to raise my blood pressure the most. To him, I am a some kind of socialistic, lazy, inept, wheedler of his and Minnesota's tax dollars. Well, to address his concerns, I am most certainly not lazy (I think I've lost five pounds since I started this job), nor inept (heck, I feel like an army cook who can make Spam look and taste like it came out of the kitchen of a five-star restaurant). Hell, Minneapolis is getting one heck of a deal with me on their payroll; paying me for thirty-two hours when I easily put in forty to fifty each week. Technical assistance from the private sector runs anywhere between fifty and one-hundred and fifty dollars an hour. My school gets my know-how for a song in comparison.

(What's that? I didn't address the "socialistic" part? Well, you can figure it out for yourself.)

Now that I have settled into a general pattern of my varied and constantly shifting responsibilities... maybe "pattern" isn't the best term to describe things... I should be able to carve out a little time to put some life into my poor, little, comatose blog. Please hang in there, all three of my dear readers. Yowling should be yowling away soon.

Technorati Tags: education, minneapolis, minnesota

Dead Chick Friday redux

2007-03-23T12:09:00.000-05:00

Life’s been busy, but I have to come out of hiding to bring you, dear readers, this week’s version of Dead Chick Friday, brought to us courtesy of “America’s Top Model.”

"It's the first photograph that I've seen of you where you actually look like a fashion model. She doesn't look like a model to me, but I happen to like this photograph."

(Actual quote from Judge Twiggy)

Other, equally glamorous photos of models on the show and not afraid to take risks with their careers are available here, here, and here. Yeah, they're dead, but look at those tits!

Previous Dead Chick Friday can be found here.

It's the snowpocalypse!

2007-03-03T12:35:00.000-06:00

Otherwise known as The White Death.

Finally, winter has arrived, just in time for spring.

I have found myself stuck in a snowbank once, at the entrance to our alley, so far this week.

(Testing new blogging software here. Never mind the ranting.)

Not going to attack Iran? Yeah, sure.

2007-02-19T17:35:00.001-06:00

To paraphrase an old saying, it ain't paranoia if the Bush administration is really out to attack another nation.

US 'Iran attack plans' revealed

US contingency plans for air strikes on Iran extend beyond nuclear sites and include most of the country's military infrastructure, the BBC has learned.

[Wait! Don't run away. There's more. Come back...]

Hey, we are only a month away from marking a fourth year of US military occupation in Iraq. What better way could Bush Company celebrate the occasion?

Well, yeah, they could refrain from making an even bigger mistake.

They could have refrained from invading and occupying Iraq, too.

And my students wonder why I am so grouchy. I shouldn't read the paper before going in to work. I shouldn't listen to the news on the radio while driving in, either. Where's the medical gauze, because I'll need to wrap up my head to keep from those morning routines of mine (or maybe I could move out to some gated community in the 'burbs and start a cheap cigar habit).

Nothing odder than simultaneous sunshine and dark clouds.

2007-02-17T13:19:00.001-06:00

Two weeks ago, I started working for a middle school in Minneapolis, taking the reins of the school's Media Center; what we of my generation used to call "libraries" when all they had were books while those scratchy, worbly voiced 16mm films were still considered high technology and housed in a separate "A/V Center" along with those tape-and-still-film projectors with the annoying beeps to forward each frame.

I love the work and the endless variety of responsibilities. I am part librarian, part technogeek and troubleshooter, part stage manager, and part teacher of a class on media technology. It's not my dream high school social studies position that I still longingly pine for, but I am definitely trending in the right direction.

Jumping into a new position in the middle of a school year is never easy -- neither on the students nor the teachers who take such positions. My entry -- and that of a couple of others who also recently joined the school -- just happened to coincide with the start of a new quarter, which does smooth out many potential rough spots. I had the added fortune of meeting the person who I was replacing. She provided enough information to help me get started, and her assistant, who has been there longer than the last three or four people in my position as a Media Specialist, have made it possible for me to hit the ground running on the very first day.

When I stopped by to see the principal on my way out after my first day, she asked how everything went. I smiled and said, "Great. People were happy to see me. Students, for the most part, listened to what I had to say, and I have my very own desk to call my own." Seriously, substituting's lack of such mundane aspects of a person's job satisfaction (save maybe for the first) or steadiness (as I have said before, imagine starting your first day of work, every day, in front of a less-than-appreciative audience that balks as the idea of having anything less than a "free day" while you try to get things done) can really wear even the most indefatigable spirit down.

All this doesn't mean that I haven't had some serious challenges along the way.

Part the first: Illness. Nothing says "welcome to our school" faster and with more fanfare than catching the latest bug sweeping though the student and faculty body. By the end of the first week, that tickle in my throat I felt blew up into a full-fledged nasty bug. By the middle of the second week, I felt I was among the Walking Dead. Let's see; there was fever, coughing, soar throat, periodic total loss of voice (not good), fuzzy brain, aching muscles, and plenty of activity in the mucous membrane. Michelle would put me to bed at about six or seven only for me to get up and haul my diseased carcass back into the fray early the next morning. Only by yesterday, Friday, did I start to feel as if I had passed the nadir of the bug's bite. The rest I needed to avoid missing work cost me in the time I wanted to map out the next few weeks for my class.

To my knowledge, teachers rarely, if ever, take days off for such illnesses, because it is far easier to work in such a state than it is to go through the tight channels to get a sub, figure up a lesson for that person, and do the inevitable damage control the next day that comes with an absence. I feel the same way. When a student said to me, "No offense, Mr. Moses, but you look like crap. Why don't you stay home sick?" I told him that I hadn't given the class my "don't mess with the sub" talk yet and wasn't about to in the middle of this bug.

All told, this last week was far from a loss. I got a lot of things done in spite of feeling like death warmed over. Still, I didn't get to map out my strategy for the next few weeks as I had wanted to last weekend, which means having to do it this weekend.

Part the second: The big build up. Part of successful teaching is having certain abilities. Among the more important ones, teachers need to be able to let roughly ninety percent of the crap that flies their way pass by, otherwise the stress levels generated by trying to deal with every single issue that arises will increase the likelihood of an early, flaming burnout. As unfortunate as this may seem to the uninitiated, it is a necessary job survival skill because of the challenges we inevitably encounter that must be reckoned with. If teaching only meant showing up in a classroom for six hours a day to drone on endlessly about the subject you were hired to teach and give tests or assigning papers, everyone would want to be a teacher. Most teachers I know are nine-to-fivers of the calendar variety rather than the clock variety: They start early in September and work straight through to the end of May (or later), twenty-four-seven, with "breaks" that are more opportunities to grab a quick breath of fresh air and survey the situation than a short respite from one's labors.

With my Week Number Three just around the corner, I can see the growing wave of things I'll need to plan for and coordinate that are on top of the usual duties. Take the next round of standardized test dates, which will chew up a couple of weeks of time students could have spent learning in a classroom and an additional week or three to the teachers and administrators who have to figure out schedules, locations, and the usual unholy host of necessary contingency plans.

Those tests ain't just gonna give themselves to the youngsters. Nope. No-sir-ee. The clock's tickin'.

Part the third: Working on less than a shoe-string budget. Technically, I am working what is called a "point eight" position; it's not quite full-time, but it's close enough to make things both worthwhile and a pain in the patootie. Call it a "twilight full-time" position, if you will, because even though I get paid for thirty-two hours of work each week, I am already noticing that I haven't worked less than forty each week so far and that trend will probably continue until the end of the year. These positions are just one the unintended consequences created by the continuous cycles of budget cuts Minneapolis and many other school districts have had to endure in the past five to six years.

I knew this discrepancy in the work-to-pay ratio would be the likely case before I signed on and I don't particularly mind it myself. The upshot, however, is that my donation-in-time above and beyond my paid time is near the end of the rope of budget cuts that have zeroed out any line-items for new textbooks or school library books, updates to computer labs hardware and software, much-needed repairs to school facilities, sufficient support staff and administrators, and sufficient full-time classroom teachers to meet the manifest educational needs of a neighborhood's children.

As I have started this new job, I have noticed that the one thing that hasn't come up has been the purchasing of new or updated supplies and equipment. I, myself, am used to working on a budget that is effectively less than zero, but the needs of a school to teach children to be much more than merely successful standardized, "basic-skills" test-takers so that certain political leaders and critics of public education can get their self-righteous rocks off should not go unmet as they have in recent years.

So to Tracy at Anti-Strib, Swiftee, and all those other critics of the work I and many others commit to doing: If teaching is so easy and undemanding, why aren't you money-grubbing materialists lining up to feed at the trough?

~{}{}~

This weekend I have the time and a reasonably good state of health to plan out another few weeks down the road. That includes what to do with this blog I have raised from a wee, wrinkly kitten of zeroes and ones. I will continue to write and publish Yowling from the Fencepost, but I may ask some friends to add their two-cents from time-to-time to help me keep this blog's content current. Stay tuned, and, in the immortal words of an old Bartles & James commercial, thank you for your support.

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