Bush's presidency

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123206685391388221.html

I caught the last few minutes of President Bush's departure speech. Personally, I think it was one of his best--and I don't mean that in a "hurray, Bush is gone!" sort of way. The biggest moment of his speech for me came when he said, "As the years passed, most Americans were able to return to life much as it had been before 9/11. But I never did." I guess I agree with most that Bush is a man who has followed his convictions, with or without support from others.

As I said before, everyone has their idea of how things should be run, and American History books are full of compromises. So, no, I don't agree with everything Bush did as president. But I agree less with the Bush-bashing which has become so popular.

Peaches or Plums, by Alan Michael Parker

Oh, how I hate my mind,
all those memories
that have invented their own memories.

Take my first love, for instance,
how after Mass we'd kneel
underneath the back stairs

and kiss and kiss and kiss and.
Were her lips like peaches or plums?
She was Catholic and she wanted

to be bad, and I loved her
more than baseball,
but all the other days

divided us, carry the one,
nothing left over. So strange,
only to kiss on a Sunday,

to hold my own breath again
for a week, another 10,022
minutes of wretched puberty,

until she moved to Iowa
or Ohio or the moon.
Oh, I can still remember

nothing about her,
only kissing, and the impossible
geometry of the descending stairs

that rose to the church kitchen,
her breath like hot nutmeg
and a little like the ocean;

and once, oh my god, she bit me,
a first taste of my body,
blood in her smile.

Something to protest

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123189645948879745.html

http://www.digitaljournal.com/article/264507

I wasn't even aware of this law until a couple of friends referred to it on Facebook. It has certainly been buried under more sensational news, but when the law goes into effect, we will all be hit pretty hard, whether we make children's products, sell them, or buy them. Not to mention the effect it will have on the economy--and who knows but that we will be asked to donate even more of our children's money to bail out those who will have lost their businesses.

It's not the first time, but it is a perfect illustration of how the government makes rash, ill-conceived laws which create havoc for many, which will have to be addressed in the future, only to have even more rash and ill-conceived laws put in place to undo the damage.


oops, when I initially published, I made a mistake on the links. Hopefully it's better now.

I saw this article coauthored by Joel Klein and Al Sharpton entitled "Charter Schools Can Close the Education Gap."

I thought, hm, will I find myself agreeing with Rev. Sharpton? Until I read the first paragraph, and saw, "Public education is supposed to be the great equalizer in America."

If he's talking about making quality education available to everyone, (and by "everyone", I mean legal residents of the United States), fine. But what I am reading into it is the concept of promoting mediocrity.

As I continue reading, I find that a lot of stuff makes sense--like not bowing to the will of teacher unions to protect incompetent teachers. However, they seem to be proposing more Government intervention, more national standards that sound a lot like "No Child Left Behind." I have mixed feelings about "No Child Left Behind," incidentally. Anyway, I have little confidence that lawmakers can improve education whatever their good intentions. Especially if they site studies I can't agree with. Like the following:

"Study after study shows that good teachers have, by far, the highest impact on student learning. "The single most important factor in determining [student] achievement is not the color of [a student's] skin or where they come from," you stated on the campaign trail. "It's not who their parents are or how much money they have -- it's who their teacher is." We couldn't agree more. To close the achievement gap, start with a three-word solution: Teachers, teachers, teachers."

What studies? Can they be more specific?

I'm not arguing against teachers necessarily, good teachers have had a profound impact on my life. However, I've had a lot of bad teachers too. What has been the most important factor in my achievement (I'm going out on a limb by assuming that I fall into the "successful" category) is my parents--and they raised me without a lot of money, too. More and more, I see the government trying to take the responsibility of raising children away from the parents.

Asking for Directions, by Linda Gregg

We could have been mistaken for a married couple
riding on the train from Manhattan to Chicago
that last time we were together. I remember
looking out the window and praising the beauty
of the ordinary: the in-between places, the world
with its back turned to us, the small neglected
stations of our history. I slept across your
chest and stomach without asking permission
because they were the last hours. There was
a smell to the sheepskin lining of your new
Chinese vest that I didn't recognize. I felt
it deliberately. I woke early and asked you
to come with me for coffee. You said, sleep more,
and I said we only had one hour and you came.
We didn't say much after that. In the station,
you took your things and handed me the vest,
then left as we had planned. So you would have
ten minutes to meet your family and leave.
I stood by the seat dazed by exhaustion
and the absoluteness of the end, so still I was
aware of myself breathing. I put on the vest
and my coat, got my bag and, turning, saw you
through the dirty window standing outside looking
up at me. We looked at each other without any
expression at all. Invisible, unnoticed, still.
That moment is what I will tell of as proof
that you loved me permanently. After that I was
a woman alone carrying her bag, asking a worker
which direction to walk to find a taxi.

thinking out loud...

Things I want to explore in my "Thesis", if I can ever put together enough sources to back my positions:

Public education methods: "Traditional" vs. John Dewey (an old argument, but not all that out-dated)

Do we really need ART in our public schools? "Support ART in our schools" is a popular position, but is the defense convincing? Why is Classical music losing ground (or so we hear) year after year? If it is true, is it the fault of schools?

Are the failures of our children compared to those in other countries fairly pinned on our schools? While I am planning to be critical of Education in America, I don't think it is to blame for all of our problems, and I believe throwing more money at it isn't going to help.

Public vs. Charter vs. Private vs. Homeschooling and my dilemma. While disillusioned by the rhetoric which gives so much credence to Public Education, I am not wholly opposed to it. Partly because Boise doesn't offer a ton of options without a ton of inconvenience to myself. I believe that kids do need peers, and they benefit from other perspectives besides mine. I also cannot deny that as a parent, I have already gone against conventional wisdom that says TV is bad for kids...so can I be entrusted with their learning? Confession that I still have a lot of self-serving ambitions that are "on hold" until my kids are in school. Will I be able to look at this objectively?

public education

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122748933977852023.html

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122912779960403217.html

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122990457567925243.html (teacher strikes in PA)

http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/ken_robinson_says_schools_kill_creativity.html

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123128805154659199.html

http://townhall.com/columnists/EdFeulner/2009/01/09/school_choice_the_real_test?page=full&comments=true

http://www.idahostatesman.com/eyepiece/story/628253.html


http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123301897611717947.html

http://www.facebook.com/ext/share.php?sid=21976999949&h=Lrfw-&u=_wBRw CO experiment

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123457271366086479.html Jeb Bush on education and other things

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123698751663025791.html
I've been thinking a lot about public education, and doing a lot of reading. Some links are above. I have some opinions forming, but am not ready to organize all of my thoughts into a coherent thesis. The more I think about it, but more I feel like I could write a whole paper on. Anyway, you (my vast readership, haha) have been warned about what may be to come. Actually, I'm mostly interested in doing this for myself.

What party do I belong to?

I have been confused at the number of arguments going around about the merits of a two-party system, or the lack thereof. I'm with many who consider themselves "conservative" as opposed to Republican, but I also recognize that "conservatives" alone don't have the power or money to make a difference against the status quo. While most of the Libertarian philosophy rings true to me (though I disagree with some), it is looked at with so much contempt by the media, it's a real uphill battle. The truth is that each and every citizen has a different idea of how things should be run. Actually, some have no idea at all, but for those of us who do (and I admit my understanding is limited), we have to work with one another to come up with solutions, and we will not be able to get our way 100% of the time. Unfortunately, conservatives will not be able to get our way 40% of the time in the next few years, and my best hope is that "we" will be able to prevent extreme liberalism from running rampant. Anyway...these are thoughts I have been forming as I have been reading informed blogs like Kannie's, and watching the news. The WSJ had an article I read today that I can support.

Oniomania by Peter Pereira

Not so much the desire
for owning things
as the inability to choose
between hunter or emerald
green, to buy
just roses, when there are birds
of paradise, dahlias,
delphinium, and baby's breath.
At center an emptiness
large as a half-off sale table.
What could be so wrong
with a little indulgence?
To wander the aisles of fresh
new good things knowing
any of them could be hers?
With a closet full of shoes
unworn back home,
she's looking for love
but it's not for sale —
so she grabs three of
the next best thing.

Two Poems by William Butler Yeats

When You are Old

When you are old and grey and full of sleep,
And nodding by the fire, take down this book,
And slowly read, and dream of the soft look
Your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep;

How many loved your moments of glad grace,
And loved your beauty with love false or true,
But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you,
And loved the sorrows of your changing face;

And bending down beside the glowing bars,
Murmur, a little sadly, how Love fled
And paced upon the mountains overhead
And hid his face amid a crowd of stars.

Aedh wishes for the Cloths of Heaven

Had I the heavens' embroidered cloths,
Enwrought with golden and silver light,
The blue and the dim and the dark cloths
Of night and light and the half light,
I would spread the cloths under your feet:
But I, being poor, have only my dreams;
I have spread my dreams under your feet;
Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.

Very Pretty, by John L. Stanizzi

Point O' Woods, South Lyme, August, 1999

So early in the morning,
and yet too hot for her to walk
even a step or two.

We sit her in a plastic lawn chair,
secure her with a bed sheet
huge and cool around her frail body,

and Ma, elegant and 70 pounds,
waits with apprehension
to be lifted to the top
of forty-seven steep and crooked steps

to the landing that overlooks
the cottage roof where a gull sleeps,
and below that
a sail on jeweled green water.

At the top,
with the sun impatient for 97,
we stand with her a moment
as she looks out on the bay.

Very pretty, she says, very pretty.

And I think of those words
as sweetest memory
the very moment
she is speaking them.

for Katherine Conkling

If the shoe fits...throw it?

A couple of items in the news relate to my earlier rant on civility, or more specifically, the lack of it!

1st example: An Iraqi reporter throws his shoes at President Bush.
2nd example: Governor Palin's church in Wasilla set on fire (with people inside) by an arsonist.

Investigators are still looking into the fire, so nothing conclusive has been reported, though many speculate that the fire was set in protest of the church's stance on gay marriage. Whatever the reason--no matter how severe the disagreement with the church: whether it be gay marriage, abortion, or a conflict between people within the congregation--arson? Seriously, ARSON???!!!

Back to the shoe-throwing incident. As I watched the KBOI670 talk radio TV broadcast this morning, I was dismayed to hear several callers condoning the reporter who assaulted the President of the United States. The thing is: they have every right to speak dishonorably of him. And ironically, thanks to President Bush, people in Iraq are now free to disagree with their leaders (and ours) without risking their lives. While it is our constitutional right to disagree, it does not grant anyone the privilege of using violence in any shape or form.

Christmas 1963, by Joseph Enzweiler

Because we wanted much that year
and had little. Because the winter phone
for days stayed silent that would call
our father back to work, and he
kept silent too with our mother,
fearfully proud before us.

Because I was young that morning
in gray light untouched on the rug
and our gifts were so few, propped
along the furniture, for a second
my heart fell, then saw how large
they made the spaces between them

to take the place of less. Because
the curtained sun rose brightly
on our discarded paper and the things
themselves, these forty years,
have grown too small to see, the emptiness
measured out remains the gift,

fills the whole room now, that whole year
out across the snowy lawn. Because
a drop of shame burned quietly
in the province of love. Because
we had little that year
and were given much.