And All the Rest

Successful? What's that?

2011-11-03T07:07:00.000-07:00

“The plain fact is that the planet does not need more successful people,” writes David Orr in The Earth in Mind. “But it does desperately need more peacemakers, healers, restorers, storytellers, and lovers of every kind. It needs people who live well in their places. It needs people of moral courage willing to join the fight to make the world habitable and humane. And these qualities have little to do with success as our culture has defined it.”

[found on Cooperative Catalyst]

Reading up on the Occupy X Protests

2011-10-19T16:34:00.000-07:00

Starhawk pointed me to Riyanna. And mathbabe pointed me to David Graeber. If I weren't a mama, I'd be there. The times are bad, and maybe people are finally rising up.

I hope Michigan can fight off the attacks on eduction

2011-10-01T18:25:00.000-07:00

Fred Klonsky pointed me to this video:

Creepy

2011-09-27T07:54:00.000-07:00

The police are watching I-80 Westbound this morning. It sure doesn't look like they're watching for traffic violations. A motorcycle cop has been on the overpass near my house for over half an hour, just watching the cars. There were cop cars at the 2 entrances I passed this morning, too. And I think I saw another motorcycle cop on the left side of the freeway lanes.

I wish I knew what it's about...

What is Debt? by David Graeber

2011-09-11T16:08:00.000-07:00

Fascinating interview. Here's my favorite bit so far:

And, I might add, if Aristotle were around today, I very much doubt he would think that the distinction between renting yourself or members of your family out to work and selling yourself or members of your family to work was more than a legal nicety. He’d probably conclude that most Americans were, for all intents and purposes, slaves.

(Thanks to Cathy aka mathbabe.)

Happy Labor Day

2011-09-05T12:16:00.000-07:00

I'm watching a math video right now, but I hope I get a chance to watch this later today.

Mentioned by Marc Bousquet, in his 'Every Day is Labor Day' post:

Charter Schools, Hmm...

2011-08-14T06:56:00.001-07:00

From Christian School to Charter School

Gates Foundation: What Can Big Money Do Right?

2011-07-21T12:46:00.000-07:00

They interfere with the education system, and cause more trouble than good. But perhaps this initiative has a better chance of doing good in the world?

Visitors...

2011-06-04T18:10:00.000-07:00

Hmm, I've neglected this blog, and just now noticed that I went from around 500 page views last time I looked to almost 5 times that. There were some huge numbers in April, when I did nothing here. None of them commented (as far as I know), and I have no idea what brought them here.

If anyone reading this can tell me what happened, I'm curious.

Good Article on Racism

2011-05-30T12:10:00.000-07:00

Good Whites, Bad Whites: A False Dichotomy

Spam Evolves...

2011-03-17T07:40:00.000-07:00

It used to be "You won big!" Now, for the first time, I've gotten spam that's trying to scare me into replying:

Thank you for ordering from Bobijou Inc.     
    
This message is to inform you that your order has been received
and is currently being processed.              
          
Your order reference is 93611.      
You will need this in all correspondence.    
           
This receipt is NOT proof of purchase.               
We will send a printed invoice by mail to your billing address.
              
You have chosen to pay by credit card.     
Your card will be charged for the amount of 717.00 USD 
and "Bobijou Inc." will appear next to the charge on your statement.
     
You will receive a separate email confirming your order has been despatched.
              
   
Your purchase and delivery information appears below in attached file.
 
 
Thanks again for shopping at Bobijou Inc.       
________________________________________

name="Doc-0357.pdf"
Content-transfer-encoding: base64
Content-Disposition: attachment;
filename="Doc-0357.pdf"

JVBERi0xLjMNCiWTjIueIFJlcG9ydExhYiBHZW5lcmF0ZWQgUERGIGRvY3VtZW50IGh0dHA6
Ly93d3cucmVwb3J0bGFiLmNvbQ0KJSAnQmFzaWNGb250cyc6

Don't reply to junk!

I Like Laura's Style of Parenting

2011-03-08T09:06:00.000-08:00

Laura Grace Weldon writes about Guerrilla Encouragement Efforts.

I wonder if I can get my son interested in some of these sweet games.

Wisconsin

2011-03-02T07:40:00.000-08:00

Seems I'm posting here once a month these days. I've been listening to the news on Egypt, but saw no blog posts I needed to keep track of. Wisconsin may not be as big a deal in the world, but this post ... I want to read it again later.

Overall, I much prefer finding non-violent ways to communicate, but I was tickled that the governor was told by a whole restaurant how wrong he is:

However much he likes to talk about the silent majority who supports him, I have seen almost no evidence that anyone likes or supports Walker, let alone a majority. He literally cannot be seated in a restaurant in Madison. Walker went to one of Madison’s premier fine-dining restaurants, and the owners refused to serve him.

The owner (or manager) asked him to leave because other customers were booing him. What if, instead, each customer came up to him and said, "Let me tell you what collective bargaining has done for someone I know." And include not only the (legitimate) economic benefits, but the way that unions have helped teachers to do their jobs better, or helped other workers to fight for safe working conditions.

But perhaps booing is right, when he's so dishonest, claiming that there's a budget crisis when he created it by giving tax breaks to the rich.

Connecting With the Natural World

2011-01-19T14:04:00.000-08:00

I just loved this post and want to be able to find it later... From Laura Grace Weldon's blog.

The Youngest Have The Oldest Way Of Knowing

I had a translation problem when I was very small. Like any other reasonable preschooler, I knew full well that people had names just as I had a name. But I saw people’s faces as having their own animal faces too. I wasn’t sure why everyone else couldn’t see this. Many of the animals I saw flickering right under the surface of outward human appearances were creatures I didn’t recognize. Some kind of deer or antelope on one face, an unusual hound on another. This was fascinating and distracting. It also meant I had to translate in my head from what I saw as a person’s animal identity into their given name.

Google's New Toy

2010-12-17T18:45:00.000-08:00

Click here to play with other words and phrases.

Black Friday versus Buy Nothing Day

2010-11-23T13:54:00.000-08:00

In the past few days, I've heard Black Friday mentioned a number of times. You might prefer to do yourself a favor and celebrate Buy Nothing Day instead. (Both are names for the day after Thanksgiving.)

Halloween: Scary-wonderful

2010-10-31T19:38:00.000-07:00

My 8-year-old son adores Halloween. For weeks, he's been begging to go to the Halloween stores, just so he can check it all out. He didn't know what costume he wanted, though, and almost lost it today because he "doesn't have a costume". He has a pretend chainsaw and a bloody sword and a machete and a cleaver, and he has a great skeleton mask. I think he decided it would be more fun if he didn't melt down. (Yeay for progress!)

His cousin, who's 11, is here too. I figured they would enjoy it more without me this year, but they said they wanted me to knock on the doors for them. "OK." But when kids started knocking on our door, and my boys wanted to go, I said they'd have to wait if they wanted me. They decided to do it solo.

This is a great first. My son has had so many fears, and they're all starting to fade away. I'm very happy tonight.

For years, I've given out stickers instead of candy. I try to find really cool sparkly ones, so kids will be happy to get them. My son thought no candy to offer was very uncool. So this year, I've offered both. I'm happy to report that lots of kids chose stickers or little toys (like plastic finger puppets) instead of the candy.

Link: Oil Destroys the Oceans

2010-10-02T17:28:00.000-07:00

Good article at Mother Jones on the ecology of the oceans, and how it is all being ravaged by oil.

It is shameful that we haven't reinvented our way of life, to stop needing oil.

My Son Is Reading!

2010-09-26T13:12:00.000-07:00

...and I didn't write this when it happened, so I'm not sure of the date. It was a few weeks ago.

One night, my son was stuffed up and couldn't sleep. It was the middle of the night, and I wanted to sleep, so I suggested he read Grasshopper on the Road, by Arnold Lobel, and go to sleep when he finished. He did. And in the morning, he read 3 chapters of it to me. With feeling. The worm had a high voice - so cool!

Swimming, reading, getting better at not losing it when he's mad. Wow! It's pretty exciting to be his mama.

[I will most likely continue to neglect this blog for a while. Too busy.]

Our Chickens: A Dilemma, a Tragedy, and Some Confusion Cleared Up

2010-08-28T11:20:00.000-07:00

I wrote about our chickens last fall when we first got them. I guess I didn't tell an important story that leads up to recent events.

We got Blackie first, and a few days later picked up Penny and Squawk, who looked almost alike. (Penny is speckled.) The first or second day at our house, they were running around the yard, and wouldn't come out from behind the brush pile when I wanted to put them in the coop in the evening. I finally got Blackie but not the other two. I knew there was a danger that a raccoon would attack them, so I left my shoes and a flashlight ready near the door.

Sure enough, I heard a bunch of squawking in the middle of the night and rushed out. I saw a commotion over by the greenhouse, and thought I'd shine my light on a chicken. Nope, it was the raccoon I saw in my beam. I found Squawk, and two piles of feathers the raccoon had ripped off her. She didn't seem to have any scratches or blood, though, so I hoped she was ok. I put her into the coop, and the next morning Penny showed up, just fine.

I thought we'd had a lucky escape, but Squawk almost never laid proper eggs, and I had to wonder if the trauma of the raccoon attack had messed her up. She usually laid eggs with no shell in the coop, and they'd fall to the metal bottom, looking something like fried eggs. Once in a great while, we'd get proper eggs from her, but the shells would be very rough. We got less than a dozen eggs from her in all these months.

When we came back from our Michigan trip in July, one of the chickens had gotten lighter, but I couldn't tell if it was Penny or Squawk. They both seemed speckled now. We were getting less eggs, and I began to suspect that the chickens were eating their own eggs. (Chickens need lots of calcium to make their eggshells, and feeding them eggshells is a good way to make sure they get it - except that some people fear this will encourage them to eat their eggs. I had been feeding them their own eggshells.) Well, last week I got confirmation when I saw a wet eggshell in their run. So I knew they were eating the eggs, and I couldn't figure out what to do about it. I figured I'd have to do some research when I had a little extra time. I stopped getting any eggs at all, and every day with no eggs, I wondered if there would be any solution...

That's the dilemma I had on my hands. Then we had a tragedy occur. It was exceptionally hot for the Bay Area this past week, and on Tuesday I found one of the chickens lying in the run, dead. (They had all seemed just fine that morning.) I felt guilty for not providing them better shade. The run is near the redwood tree, and is shaded for much of the day, but not all of it. I was so sad, and wondered if the other chickens would be bothered. We didn't know for sure if it was Penny or Squawk who had died. We decided to say it was Squawk, and call the living light-colored chicken Penny.

Not only have the chickens seemed fine, but we're suddenly getting two eggs a day. So it turns out that just one of the chickens was eating the eggs. And this morning I looked at the eggshells and knew. I had eggs from Blackie and Penny in my hands. It was Squawk who'd been eating the eggs, and Squawk who'd died. We are sad about her death, but grateful to be getting eggs again.

This also means the coop will be much easier to clean from now on, without all those raw eggs stuck to the bottom. I'm grateful.

Thank you Squawk for the eggs you gave us. May your next life be a better one.

Milestones: My Son is Swimming!

2010-08-27T08:07:00.000-07:00

My son was scared of the waves at the Pacific Ocean beaches when we visited those when he was 1 and 2 years old. And he's been wary of the water ever since. At my family's cottage, he's always loved riding in the speedboat, but was never big on playing in the water until this summer. He still was nowhere close to swimming.

We stayed one night at a motel while in Michigan, to visit with close friends. He loved using my goggles in the pool. A family friend then bought him his own facemask. His new school, Homeschool By the Bay, will be held in a home that has access to a pool. School starts next week, but he's been going there for the past few weeks since I started back to work. He's suddenly swimming like wild! I showed him how to use his arms more effectively and the next day he told me I had sort of taught him to swim. :^)

The other day he showed me his summersaults in the water. He decided to try a back summersault. At first, it just wouldn't work. A minute later, he had it. Two minutes later, he was doing three in a row. And his handstands in the water are pretty good. He can only swim about 10 feet so far, but I won't be surprised if he's swimming the length of the pool in a few weeks. (Or maybe it will take a few years, like all the other big advances... I never can predict.)

Amazing how fast they learn, when they're ready!

Woo Hoo! My Poem Got Published (on another blog...) ;^)

2010-08-10T17:04:00.000-07:00

Awhile back, while a bunch of us math folks were talking about math poems, I posted my poem, Desire In a Math Class, here on my more personal blog. That math poetry project eventually ended up with me meeting (just through email) JoAnne Growney, who co-edited Strange Attractors, and publishes math-related poems on her blog, Intersections -- Poetry with Mathematics.

Today she published my poem on her blog. I am honored! Years ago I tried, to no avail, to get my favorite poem, Tree Spirit, published. Some day I'll work at it again, and get that one into a book. For now, I'm delighted that one of my poems has finally been published, even if it is online and not in a book.

War Is Criminal: The Money Side

2010-08-08T08:15:00.000-07:00

The war in Iraq and the war in Afghanistan have both been against civilian populations. (Neither has a government fighting us back.) That's the most criminal aspect of our government's conduct. But here's another criminal aspect. Nathan Yau at Flowing Data shows a graph of the way money in Development Fund for Iraq was spent.

Seems to me this is grounds for prosecution.

I'd like to see some graphs showing how far that money would go (both here and in Iraq) if well-spent.

Rachel Maddow Show

2010-07-23T18:08:00.000-07:00

I just got a link (from Dina, at The Line) to Rachel Maddow's commencement speech at Smith College in May. It impressed me so much, I thought I'd check out her news show. Wow! She is doing what I've wished for years the news would do - giving good background history to help viewers understand the issues.

My close friend Linda got a TV about a year ago, just so she could watch the Rachel Maddow show. She joked about how cute Rachel was, and it didn't occur to me to dig deeper. So now I can tell Linda, I'm finally watching it too - online. (No TV in this house, but lately that doesn't seem to make a difference.)

Same Sex Marriage: A Very Good Court Ruling

2010-07-15T07:50:00.000-07:00

You may live in a state where you can marry your same sex partner, but that doesn't allow you to claim her (or him) as your spouse on your 1040. The federal government has not moved forward yet on this. So couples in Massachusetts have sued the federal government. They recently won in U.S. district court.

Here's the Slate article.

Celebrating Breaking the Gender Rules

2010-07-02T13:38:00.000-07:00

I used to identify as bi, and I said then that I was attracted to women with short hair and men with long hair, people with a sparkle in their eye. I've always liked people who bend gender.

Pilar did a post on “My Sins Against Gender-Stereotypes”, in response to a challenge from a blog friend of hers. I can't call it a sin, though, so I'm going to call it "Celebrating Breaking the Gender Rules".

Here's what I do that breaks the rules:

Let my chin hairs grow! At 53, I've got quite a few. Each semester, I carefully cut them off with scissors before my first class, so I won't scare my students. Then I let them grow. Right now they're longer than they've ever been, due to my sabbatical year.
Wear men's pants when they fit better (often), and men's fitted button downs (European fit) to fit my long arms.
Neglect my clothes.
Speak my mind.
Love math.
Hate shopping.
Eat what I want.
I don't cook much. (Which is why I love Three Stone Hearth for allowing me to eat healthy food.)

I'm sure there's more. I'm probably less aware of gender rules than most folks. ;^)

Anyone care to join this party?

Learning Is Such a Natural Thing

2010-07-02T12:39:00.000-07:00

I don't worry much about my son's learning. I trust that being around me and my incessant reading and thinking will be enough to help him move forward in most ways. I do regret that I'm not more musical - he'd blossom with a musical adult quietly mentoring his amazing musicality.

We're at my family's cottage and my brother left his iphone out for everyone to play with. My son has found two different hangman games. He's getting a great spelling lesson from his play, and I'm tickled.

Maria (who may be the only one reading this blog regularly) talked about believing in 'strong guidance'. I like her way of looking at these things, but I think I'm more laissez faire.

Kid Power

2010-06-14T08:04:00.000-07:00

My son's school is closing, due in part to tough economic times and a big mortgage. Luckily for us, one door closed and another opened. One of the parents decided to open a mini-school in her home. (No payments for space will make it much easier for this school to survive.) It's very exciting to be in on this as it forms. I've been studying educational alternatives since I was a teenager, and I have lots of resources to offer.

We will probably set up a school blog or wiki, or something, but meanwhile I'm going to start linking to good posts here. I think this post about kids changing the food system will be exciting for the parents and interesting for the kids (who are mostly 8 years old). My favorite part:

[Orren] Fox has twenty-seven hens and four ducks in Newburyport, 35 miles north of Boston. Last year, he started O’s Eggs, a small farm business selling eggs for $5 a dozen.

That Sunday, he held one of Novak’s hens, which he used to discuss chicken anatomy. He pointed out the crop, where food goes to be digested with the aid of swallowed rocks, the comb (he suggested using Vaseline in winter to keep it from freezing) and tail, where the hen produces wax that she uses to clean her feathers. “If your hen looks like she doesn’t have a head, she is probably just cleaning herself,” he said to laughter.

His love of chickens started early. At age nine he was a volunteer cleaning chicken coops at a local farm, learning all he could about the birds. Then he adopted his own flock. After choosing chickens as the subject of a school research project, “I found out how horribly most hens in this country are raised,” he said. “I know chickens are smart, they have personalities, and opinions. I am not ok with what I consider mistreatment of these cool birds for cheap meat and eggs.”

Playin' Around With the Technology

2010-06-10T20:16:00.000-07:00

On the phone with jd, and talkin' about the Mac. So I installed Google chat and so did he, and when his phone died, we did a video chat. My first ever video call, I believe. Here's a photo booth pic just before that.

He's Reading!

2010-06-08T07:59:00.000-07:00

John Spencer was musing on his blog, and wrote:

Joel catches onto phonics right now, but should he be reading? [Joel is 5.]

After replying, I realized I wanted to write a post on my own blog, so I could find it later. Here's my revised version of my reply:

Homeschoolers (especially unschoolers) can tell you, there is no should about when they start. My son goes to a 'freeschool'. There are classes, but he doesn't have to go. He was in that almost reading stage for about two years. I remember my ecstasy when he 'read' Go, Dog, Go to me two years ago. (I helped with some of the words, and the rest he had almost memorized.)

It's just in the past month or two (he just turned 8) that he has picked up a book and read. The Wimpy Kid books are what did it for him. He pores over them, sometimes for hours. I wasn't sure how much he was getting, but then I bought him Mouse Tales, by Arnold Lobel, on Saturday. He read it that night, and the next morning read it out loud to me. Ahh... He's reading!

To me, the most important thing is liking it, so it wasn't hard to wait. We love books here, and I trusted he'd get there. But am I excited? Oh yeah!!!

He's at the stage where he needs 'beginning reader' books. Most really good kids' books do not have severely limited vocabularies. The writers write naturally, the way they would in telling a story to a young person. Some of the words will make a young reader stretch, but there's enough easier words that it's ok for a reader who's been reading for a while. My son needs books right now with limited vocabulary, and I haven't found many good ones. Arnold Lobel works magic. He writes good fun stories (check out Frog and Toad!) that a beginner can read.

Freedom Flotilla Update

2010-06-05T07:39:00.000-07:00

A few days ago I linked to Starhawk's report on the Israeli attack. Here's her update in full.

Here’s just a short post as I’m currently teaching 14 hour days this weekend…my friend Caoimhe is still on the Rachel Corrie which I believe has just been intercepted by the Israelis. All the others are now safe–Hedy apparently was sick and never made it on board and I can’t help but be thankful. Anne Wright is back in New York–both she and Huwaidaa report that the women were treated brutally by the Israelis but are now safe and okay. Another friend, Paul Larudee, was badly beaten but is now free. Eyewitness reports are coming in which completely contradict the Israeli propaganda machine’s attempts to smear the flotilla activists. Most horrifying–the autopsy report on the nine Turkish activists who were killed report that they were shot close range, several in the head and face, and multiple times. The evidence is consistant with eye-witness reports of commandos attacking with intent to kill. Below are some links to reputable sources:
UK Guardian article: Gaza Flotilla Activists Were Shot in Head at Close Range
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/jun/04/gaza-flotilla-activists-autopsy-results
Michigan Peace Team–link to French video
https://app.e2ma.net/app/view:CampaignPublic/id:32698.6694108302/rid:ff20c2491d81c4a6c99e39e0224754d8

If the Oil Disaster Were Here

2010-06-03T10:11:00.001-07:00

Type in your city.

Racism in Well-Loved Children's Books

2010-06-01T11:50:00.000-07:00

I read about a book a week to my son. We've read lots of wonderful books over the years. When he was younger, I made sure to have lots of picture books with Black characters, celebrating their lives. (My son is Black and Latino; I'm white. The Latino books have been harder to find.) Some were about escaping slavery, some were about civil rights, and many were just simple stories of children's lives. When we shifted up to mostly reading chapter books, I found a few good series: The Julian books and the mystery series starring Ziggy and the Black Dinosaurs. There are also fantasy books, like The Moorchild, that address issues related to racism. (In The Moorchild the villagers react violently to a fairy child living among them, their fear of difference blinding them to any other possibility.)

We recently read two books by Lawrence Yep about families coming to the U.S. from China, which featured characters dealing with racism, with strength and dignity. (Mountain Light, set in the 1850's, and Dragonwings, set in the early 1900's.) Recently, though, we've read two books that made me cringe.

A dear friend gave us a book that is fascinating, sometimes delightful, sometimes terribly sad. King Matt the First, written in 1923 by Janusz Korczak, is translated from Polish. In this book King Matt, about ten years old, learns to govern his kingdom, becoming wiser as he gains experience. (In his first month in office, he commands that every child be given candy.) I like the character, and liked watching him grow, until the book introduced the 'savages'.

King Matt befriends King Bum Drum, an African cannibal king, and convinces him to stop eating people. The Africans are repeatedly called savages; they're depicted as quite smart, but backward. One of Kin Bum Drum's hundreds of daughters, Klu Klu, falls in love with Matt. When Bum Drum comes to visit Matt, she stows away in a crate and comes too. She is smart and wise, and saves the day many times. But the overall feel is of the white king Matt liberating the savages by showing them civilized ways of living - colonialism unquestioned.

The next book we picked up was Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, by Roald Dahl. I knew what to expect in that one, because my son has watched both of the movie versions multiple times. I was hoping that reading it would give us more space for questioning things. Also, books are usually better than movies, so I was hoping for a bit more depth. (Nope.) The problem is colonialism again. The Oompa-Loompa's are officially white (page 76, "His skin was rosy-white, his long hair was golden brown, and the top of his head came just above the height of Mr. Wonka's knee." ), but...

So I shipped them all over here, every man, woman, and child in the Oompa-Loompa tribe. It was easy. I smuggled them over in large packing boxes with holes in them, and they all got here safely. They are wonderful workers. they all speak English now. They love dancing and music. They are always making up songs. (page 71)

I told my son it reminded me of slavery, of how the owners would say their slaves were happy. The Oompa-Loompas had previously lived in Loompaland, where they were being eaten left and right by whangdoodles. So once again we have the white 'hero' saving the natives. Doctor Doolittle has more of the same. I'd like to be able to read 'classics' to my son, but I'm much happier with contemporary novels.

Do you know of any 'classics' that show contact between different cultures, and don't glorify colonialism?

Gaza

2010-06-01T02:05:00.000-07:00

From Starhawk's blog, Dirt Worship:

Early Monday morning, at 4:30 AM local time, commandos from an Israeli military helicopter assaulted the lead ship of the Gaza Freedom flotilla while it was still in international waters. Soldiers droped from the air in full combat mode and fired live ammunition at the unarmed activists—killing somewhere between ten and twenty people and wounding dozens.
...
Israel has captured the ships, forced them into harbor at Ashdod in Israel, arrested the activists and embargoed the media. They have not released the names of the dead.

If you have a TV, I suppose you knew this already. Here are the information and action sites she linked to:

I am sending this:

President Obama,

Can you stand up for what is right? Israel gets so much of its military money from the U.S. Now they've killed unarmed civilians in international waters.

I don't know how you sleep at night, with your decisions in Afghanistan. Now there is this, too.

I voted for a person I thought understood right and wrong.

Please do what is right.

Sincerely,
Sue VanHattum

Fox News: An Action You Can Take

2010-05-22T08:38:00.000-07:00

I just signed the petition. Would you like to also?

From Color of Change:

Dear friends, On Wednesday, Rand Paul, the GOP's US Senate candidate for Kentucky repeated his claim that a central piece of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was wrong, and that businesses should be free to discriminate against whomever they please.¹ Paul and his supporters don't seem to care that without federal intervention, Black people might still be second-class citizens in most aspects of American life: where we eat, where we work, even where we live.
Then, on Thursday, FOX contributor and business anchor John Stossel went even further than Paul and called for the section of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 that applies to business to be repealed.² And he's refused to back down.
While Paul may have started this outrage, he can be taken care of at the ballot box — FOX News can't.
Stossel's position is an affront to Black America and everyone in this country who believes in racial progress. It's one thing to be a candidate with backwards views. It's another to be employed by a supposed news network and to use that platform to push hateful ideas that our nation repudiated decades ago.
It's time that FOX drop Stossel. It's why I've joined ColorOfChange.org in demanding Fox do so immediately. If after hearing from thousands of people like you and I, FOX refuses to act, it will make clear that FOX stands with Stossel and his values, and ColorOfChange has pledged to go directly after the network with a major public campaign.
Can you take a moment to add your voice to the call to fire Stossel? After you do, please ask your friends and family to do the same:
http://www.colorofchange.org/stossel/?id=1832-1078494

FOX has a history of providing a platform for bigoted views and race-baiting. Most recently more than 300,000 people helped us hold FOX accountable by stripping Glenn Beck of more than 100 of his advertisers, after Beck called President Obama a "racist" with a "deep-seated hatred for white people."³
But Stossel has arguably gone beyond Beck, echoing segregationist arguments from the Jim Crow era:

"It's time now to repeal that part of the law because private businesses ought to get to discriminate. And I won't ever go to a place that's racist and I will tell everybody else not to and I'll speak against them. But it should be their right to be racist."

Stossel went on to argue something that history has disproved time and again — that private business will do the right thing, without being compelled by laws, because no one would patronize a business that discriminates. It's a blind belief in market fundamentalism that just isn't in sync with reality. In the '60s, white-owned businesses that allowed Blacks as customers lost business. Market forces actually perpetuated discrimination; they didn't combat it. Simply put: segregation would still be active in parts of this country if government hadn't stepped in.
And recent history has shown that the public accommodations section of the Civil Rights Act is still needed. In 1994, it was used to hold Denny's Restaurants accountable, after the chain repeatedly refused to seat Black customers.⁴ Just last year, it was used to go after a Philadelphia pool that prevented Black children from swimming there.⁵
It's time for Fox News to make a choice. Are they willing to continue to give a platform to racially-divisive rhetoric and revive dangerously outdated perspectives? Or will they move with the rest of the nation into into the 21st century? Please join me in calling on Fox News to fire John Stossel. And once you do, please ask your friends and family to do the same:
http://www.colorofchange.org/stossel/?id=1832-1078494
Thank you.
References:
1. http://huff.to/cjOnxL
2. http://mediamatters.org/mmtv/201005200033
3. http://bit.ly/aoJUUy
4. http://nyti.ms/bpVZZY
5. http://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/2010/January/10-crt-033.html

What the World Needs

2010-05-20T13:08:00.000-07:00

Howard Thurman:

Don’t ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive and go do it. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.

Playing with Photo Booth

2010-05-03T18:29:00.000-07:00

I was trying to record myself performing Tree Spirit, but I'm not happy with my results so far. When I gave that up for the moment, I decided to mess around. Here I am, laughing at the 'comic book' special effects.

Oil Spills

2010-05-03T08:45:00.000-07:00

Doug Noon, writing at Borderland, reminds us of the last oil spill, which was never properly taken care of.

Get Up, Stand Up

2010-04-27T07:48:00.000-07:00

Anyone reading this probably knows more than I do about the hideous Tea Party movement. Tim Wise suggests imagining the races reversed, with Black protesters threatening a white president.

Doug Noon quotes him and adds this:

Hate groups are making a stand. Everyone else needs to stand, as well. We could start with a boycott of Fox News, and anyone who advertises there. A list would be useful.

I would be delighted to boycott anyone who advertises on Fox News. (I don't have a TV, and try to stay away from anything Fox already, but I'd love to expand that.) Their hate-mongering is so dangerous.

Anyone here want to join a boycott?

Spending on War

2010-04-21T06:46:00.000-07:00

I wish I could be like Yes! magazine, and bring you mostly good news about all these hard issues (bigotry, war, poverty, environment). I'm realizing how hard that is to do. The good news is, one city is making the cost of war visible:

This week the mayor of Binghamton, New York ... exposed the elephant in the room of local budget crises – the obese, yet untouchable, military budget which over-consumes our income taxes and causes cities and towns to starve as their federal aid declines. Urged by residents he will install a large, digital cost-of-war counter, funded by private citizens, on the front of City Hall. Binghamton taxpayers have paid $138.6 million since 2001 to support failed wars...

The bad news needs more detail, unfortunately... Here's a great article sent to me by War Times / Tiempo de Guerras. I don't see it on their website, and the longer version (worth reading) has a different focus.

Local Budgets and War Spending:
A Reflection on Tax Day, April 15

By H. Patricia Hynes
Traprock Center for Peace and Justice

From every corner of America – urban, suburban and rural – the news of shrinking budgets and slashed community services sounds forth like the chorus of a Greek tragedy.

According to Pew Trust’s Philadelphia Research Initiative, balancing a city’s budget has become a year-long necessity due to the uncertainty of revenues and cutbacks in state aid. In 2009, Baltimore, Boston and Phoenix had to revise already completed budgets. Bus services are being canceled in Clayton County Georgia leaving suburban working poor, many of whom are car-less, stranded from their jobs in sprawled metropolitan Atlanta. A national survey of 151 public transit agencies found that 3 of 5 agencies cut services or raised fares because of flat or decreased local and state funding. On March 13, 2010, my local newspaperlaid out in bold front page headlines a litany of economic woes for Franklin County, Massachusetts: “United Way falling short on fundraising goals”; “Tight times in Franklin County”; “State aid to towns to be cut by up to 4%.” Human service programs, education, police officers, firefighters, and child support are threatened with continuing budget cuts and losses in tax income, according to the news articles.

With striking consistency, local politicians, media, and economic analysts lay the blame for budget woes on the unholy trinity of recession, falling tax revenues, and diminished federal aid to states, cities and towns. Their consistent remedial response: cut jobs and services; raise sales and property taxes, institute work furloughs, and negotiate with unions to reduce pension and health benefits.

This week, however, the mayor of Binghamton, New York broke with this mantra and exposed the elephant in the room of local budget crises – the obese, yet untouchable, military budget which over-consumes our income taxes and causes cities and towns to starve as their federal aid declines. Urged by residents he will install a large, digital cost-of-war counter, funded by private citizens, on the front of City Hall. Binghamton taxpayers have paid $138.6 million since 2001 to support failed wars, an amount which could fund renewable electricity for every home over the next 11 years and provide 4 year scholarships for most of the 2010 entering class of SUNY Binghamton.

Wars in Afghanistan and Iraq bleed resources from my county as well. According to the National Priorities Project taxes paid by Franklin County residents for the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, namely $270 million, could have funded 28,027 scholarships for university students for one year, or the construction costs of 934 affordable housing units, or as many public safety officers and elementary school teachers needed plus renewable electricity costs for tens of thousands of homes for one year.

Defense apologists argue that the Pentagon and the military industrial complex form the keystone of the economy, assuring military and defense-related civilian jobs as well as technical innovation. However, recent analysis of the effect of defense spending on job creation challenges this axiomatic notion. Comparing $1 billion spent on clean energy, health care, and education to the same amount spent on defense, researchers found that a larger number of jobs with mid- to high-range salaries and benefits would be created in the non-defense sectors than in defense. The reason? Military jobs provide higher average wages and much more generous benefits than the other sectors, thus fewer jobs overall per billion dollars spent. A related study assessed the long-term (20 year) effect on jobs and economic growth of current defense spending. The results reveal a diminished economy: a loss of 2 million jobs and a reduction of 1.8% GDP.

In the end, it’s a question of learning from recent history and choosing our priorities. Will we join the club of 20^th century militarized empires which over-stretched and failed, namely Britain at mid-century and the Soviet Union at the century’s end? Do we want our core identity to be that of the world’s largest military (currently as large as the rest of the world’s together), the world’s largest maker and marketer of military weapons (currently 70% of world’s market), a defacto military society masquerading as a civil society? Do we want to continue spending more on defense (now 55% of the discretionary budget) than on education, energy, environment, social services, housing, and new job creation taken together (45% of the discretionary budget)? If so, we may fulfill the intent of Osama bin Laden – to draw the U.S. into a long war and bleed us dry. But spiritual decay may overtake us first. “A nation that continues to spend more money on military defenses than on programs of social uplift,” warned Martin Luther King, “is approaching spiritual death.”

Pat Hynes, a retired Professor of Environmental Health, is on the board of the Traprock Center for Peace and Justice. A longer version of this article can be found on the Traprock Center website.

Blogging about Racism

2010-04-10T11:57:00.000-07:00

Mark Chu-Carroll wrote a post titled I am a racist, in which he lists some ways in which he is privileged by being white, and ways he participates in a white power structure. There are 171 comments to his post, but not a lot of depth. He had to close comments because a white supremacist site linked to his post.

I was in bed this morning, thinking about what he'd said. I wanted to discuss it with him, so I'm going to do so here. You'll need to read his post first, as this is a response to it.

Dear Mark,
Thanks for your post. Anything that gets me thinking about these issues is important to me, as I'm the white mother of a Black son* and really want to be the best parent I can be. I do think the way you framed this is problematic, though. Your description feels static - it sounds like: this is the way it is, and it's not changing.

Partly that comes of saying "I am a racist." Nouns feel solid and permanent. I think saying something like "I benefit from racism and haven't done enough to challenge that" (shorter title: "How I benefit from racism") allows for more of a sense of movement. It would also lead toward writing about how you'd like to move toward a better relationship with this issue.

Another problem is that your list doesn't tell enough stories about your life. Why do you live in a sunset town? ('Sunset town' refers to a white only town in which servants and workers of color are there in the daytime, and are required to be out by sundown. Ugly.) Is it really still that way? If you feel a need to stay there, what might you do about the policies? If you haven't done anything about it, why not? There must be so much story here, and those details would help people understand this issue deeply, much better than your list of 11 items does. Many of the items seem repetitive. I bet if you told a personal story for each one, you could easily clarify how each one is different.

You wrote: I am a racist, because I instinctively react to members of minorities with fear.

My guess is that you don't react to women of any race with fear, just men. I'd also guess that the fear you feel depends on the person's particular race (Black versus Asian?) and class (business suit gets a pass?). Race and class are thoroughly intertwined in this country. (I'm sometimes afraid of skinhead white guys and I'm afraid of anyone who seems out of control angry.) I'd appreciate a post where you go back to a particular incident, describe the person you feared, and what your fears were. (I hear that you're embarrassed, but writing the details will help us think about this very common problem.) Yes, white people are trained to fear Black men in this culture. How can white people overcome that training? I think we need to see clearly what's happening and try to understand it.

When my son is older, will you be afraid of him? Maybe. You won't know him, he'll be tall, and he might choose to wear the current in-your-face fashion. But he'll have had a lot of privilege, and it might show in his body language. Maybe you'll know he's no threat to you. Some people will be afraid of him, though. That is crazy and damaging, and I wish I could change the world before it harms my boy.

Thanks for pointing out how hard it is to remember that our success is not our own. You and I had thousands of invisible privileges - some that everyone should have, some that no one should have. U.S. culture is all about individualism, and doesn't acknowledge the power of community. Let's celebrate the power of community, and do what we can to open it up, to spread the love.

Keep writing, Mark. I'm looking forward to some interesting stories.

Warmly,
Sue

Dear Readers,
Now I'll take my own advice and tell a story or two that comes out of Mark's list. It's hard for me to write about this, because I want to be perfect for my son. Of course I'm not... But my fear of ever saying anything that would alienate him makes it hard for me to expose any lingering racist attitudes. I'll do my best to write as much healing truth as I can.

Mark wrote:

1. I am a racist - because I never noticed all of the unearned privileges that are given to me until someone pointed them out.

Yep. It's amazing how blind we are, isn't it? I'm still trying to understand how we were trained to be so blind. Maybe it's not training, maybe it's human nature not to notice things that benefit us.

In my first women's studies course in college (1974), I 'learned' that the crayon labeled 'flesh' was the color of a white person's skin, ditto for band-aids, which only came in that peachy color back then. Now you can get clear ones, and decorated ones, and maybe you can find ones that match a darker skin color. My son likes the Blues Clues bandaids. I prefer clear - they're cheaper. And Crayola sells a package of 8 crayons in 8 different skin tones. (Of course corporations are happy to make another product to fill another niche.) What do they call that peachy color now?

Why did I have to 'learn' those things in a course? Why had I never noticed? It is upsetting, isn't it? But it keeps happening.

If you are white, did you know that Black people's skin colors don't show up as well in photographs as white people's? I didn't learn about this until I was in my 30's. Whatever the reason for it, you know the skin color of the folks in charge is going to show up well, because someone is going to make money figuring out how to do it.

If you are white, did you know that Black men have trouble getting taxis? I didn't realize this until the day I participated in protests after the cops who beat up Rodney King were proclaimed innocent. A speaker talked about his problem catching a taxi, and I once again was faced with how ignorant I had been of the reality Black people face. I started asking taxi drivers about it, and some of them were quite comfortable admitting that they didn't pick up Black men, because ... they were scared. I'd like anti-racist taxi drivers to get together and talk about the issues they face with people who rob them, and how to deal with those issues without oppressing innocent people.

If you are white, do you know how often Black people are watched and followed in stores? When I was a kid, I accidentally walked out of the store without paying (this happened a number of time). As soon as I realized it, I went back in and paid. I used to think, "I must look innocent." Yeah, how about realizing that my skin color (and other markers of class) made me look innocent? Hmm. My son's godmother is older and middle-class, and looks it. But she's still followed in stores sometimes.

My colleague's husband was in Palo Alto in the evening, and was asked by a cop what he was doing there. I overheard her telling a Black student about the incident. As friendly as she and I are, I don't think it would have occurred to her to tell me about it. There's a big inhibition among Blacks about sharing these stories with whites.

White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack, by Peggy MacIntosh, is a classic article on this issue. Worth reading. I also found the psychology study on our unconscious reactions (mentioned in the comments at Mark's post) interesting and worth doing.

I'll try to keep writing about this uncomfortable topic, trying to find ways to move from this bad, ugly reality toward something healing. I've written in this post primarily about Black and white, but I'm aware that racism is directed against lots of other races. The issues are complex and can benefit from some intelligent discussion. Please join me in the comments.

Namaste.

_____
*A note on capitalization: Black describes a cultural group with a common history; white describes the people who were allowed into the group who were seen as 'us', inside, not different. I am Dutch, German, a small part Native American, etc. My ancestors were able to assimilate as white. In doing that, they lost much that isn't about power, but more about rootedness, and they gained privilege. Similarly, most men are trained into maleness, and lose connections to feelings, etc, but gain privilege. Gay men don't get the same quality of male privilege. It's all connected...

Book Review: Attack of the Fluffy Bunnies

2010-04-04T20:19:00.000-07:00

Last week was my son's spring break, and we went up to Guerneville to see the redwoods. While we were there, we visited the local bookstore, River Reader. I had bought four books, and began to chat with the owner, Susan. My son wanted to leave, but saw it was going to be a while. He discovered a book in the Diary of a Wimpy Kid series, and sat down on the floor to check it out. He wanted it, but I'd already bought him another book, and I told him we'd have to wait for it to come out in paperback, or else buy it used. He was bummed.

Susan offered him a free book from her box of advance review copies, on the condition he (or we) review it. We were both excited and looked carefully at each book in the box. My son selected Attack of the Fluffy Bunnies, by Andrea Beaty. It was his choice, so I didn't say anything, but it didn't look good to me.

I was in for a big surprise. It was hilarious (in a silly sort of way), and we both loved it.

The Fluffs came from another galaxy when their marshmallow planet was burnt up by a meteor. Fluff is an acronym for Fierce, Large, Ugly, Ferocious Furballs - these are not your average Earth bunnies.

The main characters, Joules and Kevin Rockman, are twelve-year-old twins on Earth who love horror movies, and know too much about Famous Last Words. When their parents drop them off at the overgrown entrance to Camp Whatsitooya, their own horror show begins.

My son kept cracking up at the jokes, and I started smiling in anticipation. We highly recommend this book.

Economics: Does anyone really know what time it is?

2010-04-03T07:50:00.000-07:00

Owen got me thinking. Here are my scattered thoughts...

In many countries, the courses you take are in Political Economy, instead of Economics. Perhaps I would have majored in political economy, but economics seemed like it was just about how our capitalist system works, as if that were the only way things could possibly be.
At Notre Dame, dissenting voices in economics were pushed out.
What does it mean that most people do not understand economics?
Owen Thomas, blogging as vlorbik, went to a local conference in Columbus, Ohio, and has pointed the rest of us to some good documents here.
About 25 years ago, I went to a People’s Economics Seminar. It was good stuff, but (ironically) what I remember is being bummed that they weren’t progressive enough about how to do education. Too much lecture left me antsy…
I subscribed to Dollars and Sense for a while. I don't remember it very well. Their site looks like it has some good information. It also looks a bit overwhelming. Does understanding economics require understanding what's going on all over the globe? That's big.
This site, The People's Economics, looks interesting too.

When I have time to read something other than math, I'd like to come back to this...

Anarchism = Extreme Democracy

2010-03-29T12:13:00.000-07:00

On my math education blog* I just thought about calling myself an anarchist, and decided not to mention it. Why? Have I actually put myself in the closet? Well, I'm not sure, but I do know that most folks have no idea what the word means. It's kind of like if you said you were a lesbian in a conventional sort of gathering in the 50's. People would be puzzled and think you were a bit nutso.

In most people's minds, I think it goes like this: anarchist = bomb thrower = terrorist. Maybe I should make a pin, and a bumper sticker, etc, saying: Anarchism = Extreme Democracy.

Here's the definition of anarchism at dictionary.com:

1. a doctrine urging the abolition of government or governmental restraint as the indispensable condition for full social and political liberty.
2. the methods or practices of anarchists, as the use of violence to undermine government.
3. anarchy.

Oh yeah, and anarchy, that means chaos, right? No... Let's look at the roots. an-arch-y. an is a negation. arch is in monarch, which means one ruler. So anarchy is no ruler. Hmm, that does not equal chaos in my mind...

I think part of the p.r. problem for this idea (anarchy, anarchism, anarchist) is that it's defined in the negative. I think of it now as connected to my paganism. That's my spiritual direction (call it religion if you want, but it's different - there's no One Right Way), and anarchism is my philosophy of social organization (you can't really call it government, can you?). They go together because they're both about equality in some sense, about taking our direction from our inner moral compass.

Why is it a problem for a word to be defined in a negative sense? Well, anarchism is a hard concept for most people to wrap their heads around. The word should give them a picture, or a direction, or something more than 'not this'. Also I've read that, when you're training a dog, you need to use positive commands. If you say "don't jump!" mostly the dog just hears the jump part. Our subconscious works the same way. If you're trying to change a habit, it's important to phrase your thoughts in the positive. (Instead of telling myself to stop biting my nails, I could try to visualize how great it would be to have good looking fingers.)

So I'll mention extreme democracy on the other blog, and I think that will send the message I'm trying to send better than 'anarchist' would.

_____

*Math Mama Writes, which has had over 17,000 visitors. This blog is climbing over 500.

Earth Hour

2010-03-27T07:44:00.000-07:00

I wish I had known about this before today. It would be great to have a party, unplug everything a few minutes before 8:30, and then talk about the earth, play on the trampoline carefully in the dark, walk around the block together, come home and eat easy finger snacks. I'd like to do this monthly. It would be best to invite people who live close enough to walk. Hmm, maybe there's still time. I'll consult with my son when he wakes up.

Earth Hour only makes sense if it helps us change our lives. Before I took on single parenting, I rode my bike to get places. Each time I do that now, I remember how marvelous it feels to be on the bike, and to really see the neighborhoods I'm passing through. Can I think of some other way to use less energy and enrich my life? During our hour of less energy use today, may we each find one joyful way to simplify.

(My thanks to Professor Susurro for the heads up.)

African American Picture Books for Black History Month

2010-03-21T08:50:00.000-07:00

Throughout Black History Month, I was trying to post a book review a day. It didn't quite work out that smoothly, but I reviewed over 30 books for the month. I'd also written a number of reviews before, in A Dozen African American Picture Books, that I've included in this list.

I put this list together when I saw that Professor Susurro had written a post about my series in her blog, Like a Whisper. She mentioned young adult fiction, which I've reviewed in another post, A Dozen Delectable African American Chapter Books. Maybe I can expand that list next year for Black History Month. If I know people are following me, I'll be able to be more diligent.

1. Freedom On the Menu, by Carole Boston Weatherford
2. Pictures for Miss Josie, by Sandra Belton
3. The Escape of Oney Judge: Martha Washington's Slave Finds Freedom, by Emily Arnold McCully
4. Henry's Freedom Box, by Ellen Levine
5. Big Jabe, by Jerdine Nelson
6a. Sweet Clara and the Freedom Quilt, by Deborah Hopkinson
6b. Aunt Harriet's Underground Railroad in the Sky, by Faith Ringgold
6c. Under the Quilt of Night, by Deborah Hopkinson
6d. Show Way, by Jacqueline Woodson
6e. The Patchwork Quilt, by Valerie Flourney
7a. Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry, by Mildred Taylor
7b. Bigmama's, by Donald Crews
8. Corduroy, by Don Freeman
9. Whistle for Willie, by Ezra Jack Keats
10. Joy, by Joyce Carol Thomas
11. Goodnight, Baby, by Cheryl Hudson
12. Baby Dance, by Ann Taylor
13. Billie and Belle, by Sarah Garland
14. Do Like Kyla, by Angela Johnson
15. Yo, Jo! by Rachel Isadora
16. Christopher Changes His Name, by Itah Sadu
17. Lily Brown's Paintings, by Angela Johnson
18. Regina's Big Mistake, Marissa Moss
19. The Car Washing Street, by Denise Lewis Patrick
20. Earth Mother, by Ellen Jackson
21. Coming On Home Soon, by Jacqueline Woodson
22. John Henry, by Julius Lester
23. A Million Fish ... More or Less, by Patricia McKissack
24. Flossie and the Fox, by Patricia McKissack
25. Liza Lou and the Yeller Belly Swamp, by Mercer Mayer
26. Z's Gift, by Neal Starkman
27. To Hell With Dying, by Alice Walker
28. From Miss Ida's Porch, by Sandra Belton
29. Ben's Trumpet, by Rachel Isadora
30a. Amazing Grace, by Mary Hoffman
30b. Boundless Grace, by Mary Hoffman
31. Nappy Hair, by Carolivia Herron
32. Smoky Night, by Eve Bunting

Here's one more bonus book. It's set in Africa, so I don't think of it as African American. When I get around to posting my list of books from diverse cultures, it will be in that list. Where Are You Going, Manyoni? by Catherine Stock, is a delightful story of a very long walk to school. The story is told mostly through the watercolor pictures of Manyoni's long walk through the African veld, near the Limpopo River in Zimbabwe.

My son and the telephone

2010-03-16T12:08:00.000-07:00

My son, who's 7 now, mostly will not talk on the phone. I think he's actually talked to someone on the phone about 5 times in his life. He just called me from school to ask if his friend could come over for a playdate.

This post is mainly for myself, so I'll have a record of this milestone. :^)

Dont' Forget Haiti

2010-03-05T17:13:00.000-08:00

Mud Mothers

AFP/Getty/Unattributed

the children of haiti
are not mythological
we are starving
or eating salty cakes
made of clay

because in 1804 we felled
our former slave captors
the graceless losers sunk
vindictive yellow
teeth into our forests

what was green is now
dust & everyone knows
trees unleash oxygen
(another humble word
for life)

they took off
with our torn branches
beheaded our future
stuck our breath up on pikes
for all the world to see

we are a living dead example
of what happens to warriors who―
in lieu of fighting for white men’s countries―
dare to fight
for their own lives

during carnival
we could care less
about our bloated empty bellies
where there are voices
we are dancing

where there is vodou
we are horses
where there are drums
we are possessed
with joy & stubborn jamboree

but when the makeshift
trumpet player
runs out of rhythmic breath
the only sound left is guts
grumbling

& we sigh
to remember
that food
& freedom
are not free

is haiti really free
if our babies die starving?
if we cannot write our names
read our rights keep
our leaders in their seats?

can we be free
really? if our mothers are mud? if dead
columbus keeps cursing us
& nothing changes
when we curse back

we are a proud resilient people
though we return to dust daily
salt gray clay with hot black tears
savor snot cakes
over suicide

we are hungry
creative people
sip bits of laughter
when we are thirsty
dance despite

this asthma
called debt
congesting
legendarily liberated
lungs

- Lenelle Moïse

Lenelle Moïse hailed “a masterful performer” by GetUnderground.com, is an award-winning “culturally hyphenated pomosexual” poet, playwright and performance artist. She creates jazz-infused, hip-hop bred, politicized texts about Haitian-American identity and the intersection of race, class, gender, sexuality, spirituality and resistance. In addition to featured performances in venues as diverse as the Louisiana Superdome, the United Nations General Assembly Hall and a number of theatres, bookstores, cafes and activist conferences, Lenelle regularly performs her acclaimed autobiographical one-woman show WOMB-WORDS, THIRSTING at colleges across the United States.
····
Moïse will be featured at Split This Rock Poetry Festival: Poems of Provocation & Witness, March 10-13, 2010, in Washington, DC. The festival will present readings, workshops, panel discussions, youth programming, film, activism – four days of creative transformation as we imagine a way forward, hone our community and activist skills, and celebrate the many ways that poetry can act as an agent for social change. For more information: info@splitthisrock.org.
Please feel free to forward Split This Rock Poem-of-the-Week widely. We just ask you to include all of the information in this email, including this request. Thanks!
This poem is reprinted from Split This Rock’s blog–where you can find other great poems and poetry news <http://blogthisrock.blogspot.com>

Copied from Like a Whisper. Pass it forward.

BHM Wrap-up: 8 More Books

2010-03-02T20:56:00.000-08:00

Well, I lost steam. I have no idea if anyone is reading these, so the daily thing didn't work. But I do want to finish up. Here are 8 more picture books we love, with Black main characters. And that makes one for each day of the month.

In Coming On Home Soon, by Jacqueline Woodson, Ada Ruth's mama is going away to Chicago to find work, "They're hiring colored women in Chicago since all the men are off fighting in the war." After Mama leaves, Grandma holds Ada Ruth when she cries. While they wait for Mama to come on home, a kitten comes around. Grandma says, "You know we can't keep it." But they do. Grandma and Ada Ruth make it through a rough winter, and eventually Mama does come on home.

We have two different books about John Henry. The one we like best is by Julius Lester, with pictures by Jerry Pinkney. In a wonderful introduction, we're told that John Henry may, or may not, have been a real person. The legends around him grew and grew, and in this story, he grows as big as a man within a few days of being born. Soon he goes to work building the railroad. One day John Henry and a steam drill have a contest... (If you don't know the song, google it.)

Want another tall tale? Patricia McKissack's, A Million Fish ... More or Less, about the weird things that happen in the Bayou Clapateaux, is one of our favorites. Papa-Daddy and Elder Abbajon come rowing by while Hugh Thomas is trying to catch some fish, and remind him of some of their adventures in the bayou. After they leave, he catches a million fish (more or less), and then has his own strange encounters with the creatures of the bayou.

In Flossie and the Fox, also by Patricia McKissack, Big Mama asks Flossie to take some eggs over to Miz Viola at the McCutchin place, but tells her to watch out for the fox. Flossie does as she's told, and when the fox comes round, she outsmarts him somethin' fierce!

Liza Lou is good at outsmarting trouble too, in Liza Lou and the Yeller Belly Swamp, by Mercer Mayer. She outsmarts a haunt (with a confederate cap on), a witch, a gobblygook, and a devil, all while running errands for her mama.

Two years ago, my son had to deal with someone he loves dying, so we started reading lots of books about death. One of them, Z's Gift, by Neal Starkman, is about a boy who helps his mom and classmates realize that their teacher who has AIDS is not contagious. He makes her passing a little easier, and she offers him a gift after she's gone.

Alice Walker has written the most amazing children's book, To Hell With Dying, a true story about her childhood neighbor, Mr. Sweet. Over and over, he'd be at death's door, and Alice's father would say, "To hell with dying. These children want Mr. Sweet!" And she and her brothers and sisters

... would come crowding around the bed and throw themselves on the covers, and whoever was the smallest at the time would kiss him all over his wrinkled brown face and begin to tickle him so that he would laugh all down in his stomach...

Although Mr. Sweet was alcoholic, he was a good playmate, and they were determined to bring him back.

It did not occur to us that we were doing anything special; we had not learned that death was final when it did come.

While Alice was in college, she got a telegram asking her to hurry home, Mr. Sweet was dying. She made it in time, but this time there was no bringing him back. He was really gone. Such a tender story! And such an affirmation that "I did not need to be perfect to be loved. No one does." Mmm...

I started out the month with a civil rights book, and I'll end it that way, too. In From Miss Ida's Porch, Sandra Belton offers a fantastic introduction to the issues, and a warm affirmation of community.

There's a very best time of day on Church Street. My street. It begins when the sky and my feelings match, both kind of rosy around the edges.
...
Most of the best times ... just about all of us end up at Miss Ida's. Sitting on her porch. ... the biggest reason we all end up there is that Miss Ida's porch is a telling place.

The kids don't believe it's possible that Lena Horne stayed at Miz Jackson's place. The adults tell them why famous people did stay at their houses. Mr. Fisher says:

Nowhere else for them to stay! Couldn't stay in hotels. Hotels didn't allow no black guests! Famous or not. When our folk came to town to give a speech, put on a show, or whatever they came to do, we had to be the ones to give 'em a bed.

Then he gets to tell his story about the time Duke Ellington stayed at the boarding house he lived at. Shoo Kate follows with her story of the time she got to see Marian Anderson at the Lincoln Memorial, because Anderson's concert at Constitution Hall had been canceled - the hall owners would not allow a black performer to sing there. Lots more stories in the book, told in just the right way.

Happy reading!

BHM: Earth Mother, by Ellen Jackson

2010-02-20T20:25:00.000-08:00

The story is a lovely sort of joke. Man thanks Earth Mother for yummy frogs, but wishes she hadn't made mosquitos. Frog says the same about mosquitoes (yummy) and man (bad), and of course Mosquito agrees, sort of.

What a sweet introduction to the complexity of ecological awareness!

BHM: 5 books for 5 days

2010-02-19T19:21:00.000-08:00

Oh dear, I don't do well with assignments. I love these books, and I enjoy writing about them, but I don't find the time to do it daily. If anyone's following me, I apologize for the fits and starts...

I'm sort of working my way up now, from our favorite baby books last week, to our favorite young kids books today, and on back into the world next week.

Yo, Jo! by Rachel Isadora is a simple book. Mama tells big brother Franklin to watch Jomar until Grnadpa gets home, and the two boys hang out on their front steps. All their friends come by, and each says a different sort of hello. My son loves this book because of all the interactions between the different kids.

Christopher Changes His Name, by Itah Sadu, is another favorite. There are lots of scenes at Christopher's school, as his teacher deals with his repeatedly changing name.

Lily Brown's Paintings take her to a whole new wonderful world, but at the end of the day she comes back to her own world, also wonderful. (Angela Johnson wrote it, and E.B. Lewis illustrated it.)

Regina, in Regina's Big Mistake, is drawing, and wants to do it perfectly. After she crumples up one sheet of paper, and her teacher says not to crumple another, she has to figure out how to rescue her drawing when her sun comes out lumpy. (Written and illustrated by Marissa Moss.)

In The Car Washing Street, Denise Lewis Patrick shows us a hot Saturday morning in the city. Matthew loves his block, because everyone comes out to wash their cars together on days like this. And my son loves the playfulness of these books.

BHM: Today is Family Day for us

2010-02-14T10:11:00.000-08:00

Seven years ago today, my son came home to live with me. He was 9 months old; we had been visiting for about 3 weeks. Every year on February 14th we celebrate Family Day. We go out to dinner early, so we can avoid those hordes of people celebrating that other holiday that comes on February 14th. ;^) (We have a thing about multi-tasking holidays - he was born on Mother's Day and we finalized the adoption on my birthday.)

When my son came home to live with me, his foster mom gave me a big suitcase full of his clothes and toys, and a few books. Goodnight, Baby, by Cheryl Hudson of Just Us Books, was one of those books. I memorized the whole thing and recited it to him every night when I put him to bed. I still get shivers when I recite it:

Baby's getting sleepy.
You had such a busy day.
You played with toys
And made much noise
With friends who came to play.

You splashed and sang
Some bath-time songs,
And made them sound just right.
And now a story ends your day.
It's time to say good night.

Good night, Baby,
Sleep tight.

There was also one of those little books with a photo of a baby on each page, each one with a different skin color. In my experience, those books of baby faces are the first books babies really look at.

Before I adopted my son, I had been collecting books with stories of strong girls and women. When I became a mama, I immediately began expanding my collection, and spent a lot of time at Cody's Books looking for good ones. (Sadly, Cody's is gone now...) One of the first ones I found, Baby Dance, became my all-time favorite board book. The text comes from a poem by Ann Taylor, written in the 1800's. It's been changed some, and I like this version from our book better than the original:

Hush little baby, don't you cry
Hush little baby, Mama's nearby.

Dance, little baby,
move to and fro
Coo and crow, baby,
there you go.

Up to the ceiling,
down to the ground
Backward, forward,
'round and 'round.

Dance, little baby,
dance and sing
Dance along, sing along
rig-a-ding-ding!

The illustrations by Marjorie van Heerden are so luscious, and the story they tell warms my heart. Mama's napping on the sofa, and Daddy's holding the baby, who has a tear in her eye. Daddy dances the baby around, she cheers up, and at the end Mama wakes up, and Baby and Momma are reaching out to one another.

We found Billy and Belle, by Sarah Garland, more recently. It's about an interracial family (Black dad, white mum) in England. Belle, about 3, comes to school with Billy, because Mum is going to the hospital to have a baby. My son loves this book, perhaps because it's one of the few we have that shows a boy like him with a white mama.

In Do Like Kyla, by Angela Johnson, the little sister tells of her day. As they wake up, dress, and walk through the snow to the corner store, she watches and then, "I do like Kyla." At the end, Kyla follows her lead. In James Ransome's paintings, you can just see how hard she's working at getting dressed and walking through the snow. But she keeps up with Kyla just the same.

If you've been reading along as I write these, you may remember James Ransome did the illustrations in Sweet Clara and the Freedom Quilt, too. I just now looked at his website, and he's done lots more! His website also led me to an intriguing project he's involved in. Children's book authors and illustrators are collaborating on a story, started by Jon Scieszka, called The Exquisite Corpse, in which each author writes one chapter, and no one knows what will come next.

BHM posts coming soon

2010-02-13T16:50:00.001-08:00

I wasn't able to post on Thursday and Friday, because I was working on a deadline. Today I was just too busy having fun with my sweet boy. Tomorrow I'll review 4 books and tell a story. The books: Baby Dance, Goodnight Baby, Billy and Belle, and Do like Kyla.

Hmm, Google is not making me happy today

2010-02-12T14:13:00.000-08:00

They've got this buzz thing on my gmail screen. It said there was one message, so I clicked it and saw a bunch of twitter like stuff from people whose blogs I follow. I thought, "Maybe on a slow day" and closed it.

Just now I start reading the stuff in my Google Reader, and there were a bunch of things I haven't subscribed to. Turns out I'm allegedly 'following' 10 people. I figured out how to 'unfollow' them, so maybe that's the end of this nonsense. But, geez, whatever happened to asking first?

Ok. Rant over.

BHM: Joy, by Joyce Carol Thomas

2010-02-10T05:39:00.000-08:00

My copy of Joy is a board book. It was one of the first books my son and I shared, and it became a deep part of our lives. Often, when I'm moved by my love for my boy, I'll tell him, "You are my joy."

You are my joy

In every season
Summer, fall, winter, spring
You touch my heartstrings
You are my joy

It was published by Jump At the Sun, a division of Hyperion Books for Children. Hyperion's site seems to have no information about children's books. Apparently Disney Hyperion Books for Children is a separate company completely, with its own website, completely unconnected to the first Hyperion I looked at. (Did Disney buy out the children's section?) Jump At the Sun is part of DHBfC, but Joy isn't easy to find there.

In fact, no books are listed when you first click on Jump At the Sun, just a video about how great JAtS is. There's one clickable phrase that will take you to a page of 6 books, and there you can find a small button to take you to more books. That page has no pictures. Hmm, if I were an author with Jump At the Sun, I'd feel like there was a serious lack of marketing going on.

I giggled when I saw the description. It says, "Throughout the year, a grandmother expresses her unconditional love for her grandson." And I thought it was the mommy - an older mom, like me. Maybe it is.

Joyce Carol Thomas has written dozens of books - this site offers a good bio and bibliography. While reading it, I found out that... she worked at my college!! ("She remained at San Jose until 1972, when she moved to Contra Costa College.") Now I want to find out more.

BHM: Corduroy and Whistle for Willie

2010-02-09T18:22:00.000-08:00

The books I've highlighted so far are about Black History. The books I intend to highlight this week do not relate to historical events. But they speak of an aspect of Black History by their very existence. The first two (for yesterday and today) are books whose main character is Black, but they are both written by white authors. Tomorrow I'll bring us closer to the present with a book by a Black author. I haven't done any serious research, but I'm guessing there wasn't much support for Black authors in the 60's when these first two books were published.

Written in 1968 by Don Freeman, Corduroy is the story of "a bear who once lived in the toy department of a big store. Day after day he waited … for somebody to come along and take him home.” Lisa wants him but mom dissuades her. She comes back later with the money from her piggy bank, and takes him home. Corduroy is a simple story of the friendship between a girl and a stuffed bear. My son has loved it for most of his life.

Written in 1964 by Ezra Jack Keats, Whistle for Willie is about Peter and his dog, Willie. Peter wants to be able to whistle for Willie, but he can't quite get it. The book follows Peter and Willie in their day's adventures.

Does anyone know of any good picture books with Black protagonists, written by a Black author before 1970? I'd be eager to find more 'classics'.

BHM: Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry

2010-02-07T13:57:00.000-08:00

Hmm, yesterday I said I'd tell about this book today, but it's not a picture book. Maybe I can figure out a picture book that goes with this one somehow.

In Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry, by Mildred Taylor, Cassie Logan tells us about her family. They own a farm in Mississippi, and it's the 1930's. Impressively, at the beginning of the story Cassie has no notion that whites would consider her family inferior. But when she goes to a store in town and the shopkeeper waits on every white person in the store before dealing with her, she is faced with the ugly reality. I haven't been able to find my copy today, so can't tell much more of the storyline. But the solidity and courage of her family in the face of racist attacks has stayed with me for many years.

I hope to raise my son with as solid a sense of himself and as much courage as Cassie Logan showed.

Taylor has written a sequel, Let the Circle Be Unbroken, and a wide range of other books (most shorter) about the Logan family. In my search for more information, I found this biographical site, where Mildred Taylor said, "As a small child, I loved the South. In my early years, the trip was a marvelous adventure, a twenty-hour picnic that took us into another time and another world." And that reminds me of a thoroughly delightful picture book set in the south - Bigmama's, by Donald Crews. I think he'd describe his trips south in the same way. This book is the best vicarious experience of the pleasures of summertime I ever had.

BHM: Escaping Slavery, Sweet Clara

2010-02-06T06:36:00.000-08:00

Ok, I promise, this is the last post on escaping slavery, and then I'll move on. Like Big Jabe, Sweet Clara and the Freedom Quilt, by Deborah Hopkinson, with paintings by James Ransome, is fiction. Big Jabe is like the stories people told themselves to keep up their courage (like the folk history of The People Could Fly, by Virginia Hamilton), while Sweet Clara's story is more realistic - like the stories people told each other to share the path to freedom.

Oney Judge and Henry Brown had unusual circumstances. Most people did not have the same sorts of opportunities to escape that they did. And their need for secrecy means that we have less evidence of their lives. So most of the stories told about them almost have to be fictional. And then, even real people like Harriet Tubman show up in some great fiction, like Aunt Harriet's Underground Railroad in the Sky, by Faith Ringgold. The quilt in this story tells whether it's safe to approach a house for shelter, while Sweet Clara's quilt makes a map.

Sweet Clara was taken away from her momma before she was twelve, to work in the fields of another plantation close by. She was taken in by 'Aunt' Rachel, who helped her learn to sew, and got her moved from the fields to the Big House. While she sewed, she thought, and listened. And one day she began to sew a quilt from scraps, "blue calico and flowered blue silk for creeks and rivers, and greens and blue-greens for the fields, and white sheeting for roads."

This story of a quilt, and of a journey, is very moving. Deborah Hopkinson has written an equally moving sequel in verse. Under the Quilt of Night is also supported by James Ransome's moving illustrations.

One last quilt story: In Show Way, Jacqueline Woodson tells the story of her own family's memories of sewing messages about the path to freedom into quilts.

Tomorrow: Sometimes we help our children become strong by protecting them from the painful realities around us.

PSA: Wear Your Seatbelt, a Video

2010-02-06T06:31:00.000-08:00

I got tears in my eyes when I watched this video. It’s perfect.

(I wonder if it works well for kids, too. I’d expect ads that get kids bugging their parents to wear a seatbelt to be wildly effective.)

BHM: Escaping Slavery, Big Jabe

2010-02-05T19:13:00.000-08:00

Unlike the last two books I reviewed, this one is fictional ... as far as we know. In the tradition of tall tales, Jerdine Nelson tells the story of Big Jabe, with the help of Kadir Nelson's powerful illustrations.

Addy has gone fishing and hasn't caught "nary a one", when she sees a boy floating down the river in a basket. He hands her a golden pear, and plants its seeds after she's eaten it. Then he calls the fish to jump in her wagon, which they obligingly do. There's feasting that night, at the Big House, and in the Quarters.

By June, Jabe is a full-grown man "with the strength of fifty. He could weed a whole field of soybeans before sunup, hoe the back forty by midday, and mend ten miles of fence by sunset." With all that help, there's time for leisure, and Addy gets to fish more, under that new pear tree.

The overseer gets mad and tries to punish some of the other slaves, but they keep disappearing. The story keeps me on the edge of my seat every time I read it.

BHM: Escaping Slavery, Henry Brown

2010-02-04T06:18:00.000-08:00

Henry's Freedom Box, by Ellen Levine, tells the story of Henry Brown. Born a slave in Virginia, he was taken away from his family when he was about 15, to work in a tobacco factory in Richmond, Virginia. While living there he married Nancy, and they had 3 children together. They were owned by different masters, and one day her master sold her and their children away to a plantation in North Carolina - Henry could do nothing about it. He was devastated, and eventually determined to escape to freedom. With the help of two friends, who nailed him into a box, he mailed himself to Philadelphia, where he was able to live as a free man.

We love Kadir Nelson's illustrations. Tomorrow, another book warmed by Nelson's illustrations.

BHM: Escaping Slavery, Oney Judge

2010-02-03T07:34:00.000-08:00

As the white (single) mama of a Black and Latino son, it's important to me to tell him of the strength of his people. We've enjoyed lots of books about people escaping from slavery. A few are true stories.

The Escape of Oney Judge: Martha Washington's Slave Finds Freedom, by Emily Arnold McCully, tells a fascinating bit of history. The young Oney Judge was Martha Washington's seamstress, and at 16 had to leave her mother behind when George Washington assumed the presidency and the Washingtons traveled from Mount Vernon to New York City. A few years later they moved, along with the nation's capital, to Philadelphia. Although the Washingtons had slaves with them there, there were also many free Blacks in the city, and a law that said that an adult slave living there for 6 months must be freed.

When Oney found out that upon Martha Washington's death she would be given to Martha's son-in-law, she knew she needed to escape. Free Black friends helped her arrange passage on a ship, to New England, and one day she simply walked away. She lived in New Hampshire, and still had to worry about the possibility of being taken back. That would have been a public relations problem for George Washington - it didn't happen. She married and had three children. (Here's more information.)

Tomorrow, the story of a slave who mailed himself to freedom.

BHM: Josephine Carroll Smith

2010-02-02T07:04:00.000-08:00

I've been following the blog Like A Whisper for maybe 6 months now. It keeps on educating me. (Professor Susurro is very interested in media issues, and sometimes I skip the analysis of TV shows and movies, since that's just not a part of my life.) She's got some sharp analysis of race, gender, and class issues, and tells great stories too.

From her post today on Black History Month:

I think we often shrink black history down to key figures in moments that ultimately celebrate dominant narratives (what a good country the U.S. is for abolishing slavery or embracing civil rights or making millionaires, etc.) and erase the harder questions, struggles, and failures of the nation in the face of powerful opposition by black women and girls.

So the book I'm picking today is about a woman who did a lot of good in a realm where the U.S. is still failing Black children terribly - education. Josephine Carroll Smith worked in the Washington DC public schools throughout her professional life, retiring as a Director of Elementary Education. Over the years, she "opened her home, her heart, and her purse to numerous young Black men who were struggling to educate themselves."

That quote is from the biographical page at the end of Pictures for Miss Josie, by Sandra Belton. The story is written from the point of view of a young boy whose father takes him to meet the delightful but intimidating (for him) Miss Josie, who helped Dad make it through college. By the end, he's grown and is introducing his own son to Miss Josie, who helped him through college, and helped him follow his passion.

My son and I love this book.

I wanted to find a page or two online that tells more of her story. Shockingly, I haven't succeeded. Here's a challenge for those who like searching online. Find us more information on the life of Josephine Carroll Smtih!

(I did find a page that has lots of good children's books, and a great mission: Embracing the Child. When I have time to read something more than math books, I'll go back there for inspiration.)

Happy Black History Month...

2010-02-01T15:01:00.000-08:00

... of course, I think Black History deserves more than a month. But I'll start with what I've got.

I just found out that today is the 50th anniversary of the Woolworth's lunch counter sit-in in Greensboro, NC. Here's an NPR story on it. There's also a great picture book about it, Freedom On the Menu, by Carole Boston Weatherford.

And Democracy Now had a great segment on the Freedom Riders, who rode busses into the south and sat together interracially, braving police violence for breaking the crazy laws of the time.

I'll see if I can post on a cool book each day this month.

Dear Diary

2010-01-29T12:47:00.000-08:00

I haven't been writing here much, because I'm working hard on my book. Until last week, I was working TWTh afternoons at my son's school, and after the holidays, I'd started feeling like I won't have enough time to finish everything when I need to. (May would be good. I start back to teaching in August, and there's lots going on in the summer.) Last Tuesday was my last day teaching at his school. (They needed my tuition money, and I needed my time.)

So now I have my full days free to work on the book. The hardest thing will be to write my own parts of it. I haven't really done that this week, but I have:

Sent out a proposal to New Press
Sent out a proposal to AK Peters
Edited a chapter on gifted kids
Edit another chapter (I'd been procrastinating on this one, so, yeay for me)
Emailed various authors about various details
Sent a progress report to all 15 authors
Dealt with childcare so I can go to 3 different events related to my work
Read The Calculus of Friendship, by Steven Strogatz, which was excellent

So I've accomplished something substantial this week. But it was pretty uneven. I got the first 3 things almost done on Monday, and finished them up on Tuesday. Then on Tuesday night I had trouble sleeping (a common problem for me), so on Wednesday, I was a bit groggy. That's the day I read the book. I did nothing for my book that day. I bit my nails because I wanted to be getting something done, but I couldn't motivate myself.

Then we had an intense - and good - meeting at my son's school on Wednesday evening, and maybe that was the kick I needed. I got the second edit on the gifted chapter done yesterday, along with editing that other chapter. Today I won't get much done. I've been jumping up and down because I'm too excited about everything that's happening. (I'm avoiding telling a story I'd like to tell, so as not to jinx it. More details later.)

Tonight I get to go see Paul Giganti's Math Festival in Albany. Tomorrow I get to go to a Math Circle workshop for teachers. Sunday I get to hang out with my son. I am so lucky to be living my life.

So this is the way I work - big push on 3 days, nail-biting procrastination on one day, excited rambles on the 5th day. If I can get 3 good days of work each week, I think I can do this. Maybe I can find a way to get out of that useless feeling day. When I start writing more, I know I'll be biting my nails over that. Next Wednesday I have a dentist appointment - I figured Wednesday was the perfect day for it.

Howard Zinn Died Yesterday of a Heart Attack

2010-01-28T07:44:00.000-08:00

He was 87, and still active. He will be sorely missed.

I first read his People's History of the U.S. while visiting friends in New York City. I sat for hours in a cramped apartment, reading that book, when a more sensible tourist would have been out exploring. I have wished for a People's History of the World, and haven't found one.

Owen Thomas, at Open a Vein, pointed me to some fascinating recollections from Harvey Wasserman, How the great Howard Zinn made all our lives better. It's eery to read a eulogy before you know the person has died.

Most of the news reports say that he died in Santa Monica while traveling, and don't mention the purpose of his trip. I had a hunch he was traveling for a reason, so I kept searching, and found a notice of an event he was scheduled to speak at in Santa Monica next week, promoting his new documentary, The People Speak.

As I looked for more detailed reports, I turned to the NY Times, which usually has more in-depth coverage than smaller papers. This is the first time I've seen its nasty habit of slanting the news up close. Compare this respectful account of his life (from a source in Boston, his hometown) to the NY Times account, sprinkled 'liberally' with the word leftist.

I hope Zinn, who is noted for his sense of humor, would chuckle at my Onion-style imaginary headline: In Anti-war Publicity Stunt, Zinn Dies While Obama Gives Sate of the Union Address

Zinn has died, long live activism. Or, as they said in Nicaragua, Presente!

Scams - I had no idea...

2010-01-25T08:26:00.000-08:00

Read this, about 'skimmers', that get your ATM card info. Scary!

TSA: Security State

2010-01-15T07:30:00.000-08:00

The rest of this post, by Timothy Burke, is here:

There have been numerous reported episodes over the last seven years of children and babies being patted down, questioned, or otherwise subjected to strenuous screening because they have the same name as someone on the watch list. The case reported by the Times is just the latest.

I’m in the camp of people who think most of what the TSA does is meaningless “security theater” that can and has slowly eroded our autonomy as human beings. Leave that larger debate aside for a moment. A different kind of point arises in this case: if a government agency is going to engage the public through its web site, and questions about the accuracy or truthfulness of what it says to the public arise, it should never be permissible to refuse to respond directly to questions. If the New York Times is running a front-page story about a specific case that demonstrates that what the agency says is a weasel-worded evasion at best, there should be a standing directive that comes straight from the office of the Presidency that an agency is required to respond in specific terms to the specific question.

A Math Poem Over Here?

2010-01-12T19:49:00.000-08:00

Well, I just wasn't comfortable posting it on my other blog, and we're talking about math poems, and I do want to share with anyone who'd like to see it, so... here it is...

Desire In a Math Class

My lover

Sat in the back of my classroom.

“My friend, who’s visiting from New York,

Wanted to join us today,” I say to the class.

Her visit has distracted me

From my usual preparations,

But I know this stuff, and these students,

And her presence electrifies me.

My hands shape ideas more fully,

My eyes look into students’ more carefully.

(Avoiding hers, and too much desire?)

The calculus is alive.

I ask, “Why do we set this equal to zero?”

Rebecca, usually shy, tells us,

“To find the highest point, where the slope is zero...”

And finishes with her hands shaping the idea.

After class is over and students are gone

She tells me how good it was to watch.

She, the playwright, saw drama in my classroom.

“They so wanted to get it.”

At first I am shocked by how good I was,

Much better than usual.

Then I blush, hoping my students

Never know quite why...

April 14, 2001

Sue VanHattum

Deborah Meier on Education

2010-01-07T10:37:00.001-08:00

At Bridging Differences, Deborah Meier wrote a post titled Keep Your Eyes on the Money. Here's the bit I want to follow:

My friend Vito Perrone in the closing essay of Roots of Open Education in America (1976) reminded us that,100 years earlier, most Americans dropped out of school before 5th grade. In the Dakotas, half didn't even make it to 2nd grade and only 1 percent completed high school. Nationwide, people of color couldn't even start school! Perrone also reminded us (as you do, Diane) that the fight between centralization and decentralization goes way back, as do the arguments for and against field trips, lockstep curriculum, traditional readers, rote learning, and spelling bees. Small vs. large schools, ideas vs. skills vs. facts, and academia vs. vocationalism have had proponents and opponents over and over. But the context has changed—in 1820, most political decisions occurred close to home.

What has Obama done in his first year?

2010-01-03T15:11:00.000-08:00

[Written on January 3, and never posted until February...]

It’s worth remembering that America is a vast and cumbersome machine, designed to resist deep change. That this one man has moved the country a few key, structural degrees in one year, and that the direction is as clear and as strategic as that first embraced by Reagan and Margaret Thatcher (in the opposite direction), is under-appreciated. But the shift is real and more dramatic than current events might indicate.

I forget, is Andrew Sullivan a conservative, or middle-of-the-road? Anyway, here's the piece he wrote for Newsweek, on how much Obama has achieved in his first year. I don't follow details enough to know what I think overall.

I don't think the healthcare plan is adequate, and if individuals are required to pay for healthcare insurance, I think that's unconstitutional, but I am thrilled that we are talking about this, and may get something for lots of people.

I don't like his insistence on waging war in Afghanistan. But I sure don't feel 'betrayed' - I knew going in that he wouldn't be exactly the leader I want. It's our job on the left to push for saner policies.

I don't think Obama has a clear understanding of what's needed for education policy, and that's my biggest disappointment.

However much I disagree with his policy choices, I still have hope that the man intends his actions to be moral. At my parents' house, they were watching something called The People's Choice Awards (I think), and the camera kept panning to the Obamas. I can't help liking him ... But the more time goes on and he picks policies that are not helpful, the more I know we need to struggle.

Starhawk reports on the Gaza Freedom March

2009-12-29T08:54:00.000-08:00

We had created a micro-Gaza right there in the plaza, and again, that is the point of nonviolent action—to dramatize an invisible wrong and make it visible, put in the face of the world so it can’t be ignored.
...
So I ended up in front of these hard-eyed Egyptian security guys, with the grim expressions that reminded me that these are the folks the CIA gets to do their real torturing for them. But honestly, I was bored. So bored that I decided to make use of the time, if possible, to improve my Arabic.

I smiled at grim cop in front of me, held up one finger, and said, “Wehed?” His eyes locked on mine. I held up two. “Efnayim?” He ventured a smile, nodded encouragingly, and said “Taletha.” “Arbah” I replied, holding up four, and before I knew it the entire line of cops within earshot were grinning and nodding encouragement as I counted to ten, then patiently instructing me on to eleven, twelve, thirteen…There’s a music to the Arabic numbers that is quite hypnotic, and before I knew it I was up to a hundred, with my team cheering me on. Then we started over again, and over. They were all gazing at me with fond, paternal eyes, like a father looks at a promising child, and they stopped looking to me like potential torturers and started looking more like sweet young men doing a job that wasn’t really their choice to begin with. Then they switched shifts, and I had to start all over again. But damn if it didn’t work just the same way with the new guard.

Those quotes are from Starhawk's fourth post detailing her participation in the Gaza Freedom March. Here's the first one.

Is this on the news?

Organizing Against Foreclosures in Chicago

2009-12-19T18:55:00.001-08:00

My friend Sandy was at some of these demonstrations. Her friend Elce is in the videos. Go, Elce!

Borders Suck Too...

2009-12-12T08:16:00.000-08:00

Sci Fi author Peter Watts beaten at border crossing. Amy Goodman, of Democracy Now fame, was questioned at length at the border. Maybe she'd like to highlight this case. (I found the contact gizmo on their webpage and sent the link.)

School Sucks Sometimes

2009-12-12T06:55:00.000-08:00

Mark Chu-Carroll was severely bullied in high school and now they want to to friend him on Facebook, and want him to come to the high reunion. Over 400 comments - he's hit a nerve.

It speaks to me, even though I wasn't physically abused, and can't remember any emotional abuse at school after all these years. (I got more of that from my cousins, who I do see, who think I'm 'too sensitive' for having any problem with their behavior. Yeah, they 'friend' me on Facebook, too. Maybe that's why I've never taken much to Facebook; it's a pretty superficial environment.)

His solution for his kids is to make sure they know martial arts. My solution is to keep my son away from environments like that. His school is tiny, and cares about how the kids feel.

Political action, what's that?

2009-12-08T11:45:00.000-08:00

Mike Tidwell's provocative title, To really save the planet, stop going green, isn't quite accurate, but the point he's making is right on.

Don't change your lightbulb, organize!

Our local coffee shop

2009-12-04T09:46:00.000-08:00

Catahoula is a local coffee shop 4 blocks from my house. I'd gone there a number of times, but wasn't a regular until I lost my internet connection at home for a few weeks. During the month of November they got to know me well. "A latte, please. More milk, less coffee."

A few days ago Rigo, who works there, said hi as he walked by on his way home. I said, "I bet you knew my internet was better." But I realized I missed the camaraderie, so I headed over there this morning without my computer, got my latte, and read the paper. (I found out Barbara Lee and Barbara Boxer are opposing Obama's "surge". I'm proud of them. I hope they can make a difference.)

I had left some business cards in the display they have for us locals, and noticed they were gone (cool!), so I left a few more.

This is such a cool business. I wish for more like it in our struggling neighborhood.

What will it take? Is this a first glimmer of hope?

2009-11-28T08:48:00.000-08:00

Nationwide for 2007, according to the latest federal data, infant mortality was 6 per 1,000 for whites and 13 for blacks.

This NY Times article talks about what's happening in the county which includes Madison, Wisconsin, because the infant mortality rate there for Blacks has fallen dramatically.

Map Quiz - What's it Mean?

2009-11-27T07:48:00.001-08:00

Good Morning. Here's a quiz I got none right on. I was almost right on one, and sort of right on a few. You're given 20 maps, and asked to figure out what they're about. (On #'s 5, 9 and 21, guess the date.) The answer links go to the original showing of the map on the web and the answer you seek isn't always obvious. (On the map that referred to papal visits, I had to click around quite a bit.)

Here's a few more hints, so you can maybe get something right: My brother Dave's state, Minnesota, figures prominently in one question (joined with Washington DC, I believe). It's a political question. There's a different sort of political question I was happy to see included, since it's something that might matter personally someday. By the time it might matter to me, the map is likely to be out of date. Looking for countries that were once part of the British Empire is relevant on a few questions, but you'll still need to figure out what it means.

I had fun, and learned a bit. What do you think? (Please let me know if you get any right.)

(Found on Flowing Data.)

Links...

2009-11-24T06:48:00.000-08:00

pretty leaves, cute jokes

Rethink Afghanistan

On the anti-smoking movement being classist:

Joe Bageant starts by quoting (at length) another Joe...

And, in the employment section of the want ads, more and more businesses and government agencies declare that "users" of tobacco, in any form, need not apply: "Urine and blood samples will be taken when we accept your application."

Generally, this war is described as a battle against big tobacco, but, of course, it's actually a war on working people, their habits, their little idiot joys, their little mechanisms of coping.

Then he writes about his own struggle to quit, along with much commentary about folks on the left being way too judgmental of working class folks who they seem to see as beneath them...

Yes, I think the anti-smoking movement is becoming a mass social control program. But not in the ways I sense you see things. I don't believe any grand wizard or corporate cabal cooked it up behind the curtain (although they certainly capitalize on it). Not directly anyway. I believe it just came down the pike wearing opportunity's hat. In America one man's misery has always been another's opportunity to make a buck. We are not good at "the common good."

Personally, I hate cigarette smoke. But I know how hard it is to quit. I've watched a colleague try, over and over.

Fun with iMacs

2009-11-23T15:14:00.000-08:00

So there's the built-in camera, and I had to call the store to find out what software would take photos with it - it's called photo booth. Here I am...

Now I guess I'll have to explore the files and see what other goodies are buried in this machine.

We've just watched another instant movie - Little Women.

The wireless hub is working, and so are the scanner and copier on my old printer. Lotsa fun...

Lost my internet, But now I'm back

2009-11-22T09:57:00.000-08:00

17 days ago, I clicked on 'update software' and it trashed my computer. I'm on a Mac and was unpleasantly surprised. I called their tech support, and they started to tell me I didn't have a maintenance contract. When I said "It's Apple's fault!", they ended up helping me, for hours, ... and sent a new OS disk to reinstall that. But nothing helped, and one of their hypotheses was that my hard drive was too full. (55gig hard drive had 9 gig left.)

So I resigned myself to buying a new computer. I now have an iMac, and am hoping I'll keep loving it. I chose the smaller screen (21.5" vs 27"), and it's huge! Right now it's too big, but I think I can get used to it. ;^) The store (M.A.C. on Shattuck, in Berkeley) couldn't reduce the price any, but threw in labor to help me with getting everything working.

My old printer, which stopped working when I 'upgraded' to 10.5 (so my externat hard drives would work) now works again, so I can scan stuff in and print in color. My new laser printer is cheaper on ink, so I'll still use that mostly, but I'm thrilled to be able to scan again.

They're trying to fix my laptop, but still haven't figured out what's wrong. I figured getting all my stuff off the hard drive would help isolate the trouble. We'll see...

I can now watch movies instantly from Netflix. (Unexpected bonus, yeay!) My son and I watched The Nightmare Before Christmas, half last night, the rest this morning.

I love the scrolling on the new "magic mouse".

This new machine will need to live in my bedroom, so I'll need to have wireless. (Cheaper and easier to install than added DSL line, I'm assuming.) That will happen in the next few days. If my laptop gets fixed, that will mean I can work outside.

What Obama Does Right

2009-11-02T06:57:00.000-08:00

I want him to have a clearer understanding of what's needed in education. I want him to get out of the wars our country is waging in Iraq and Afghanistan. I want him to stop foreclosures instead handing billions (or was it more?) to banks. He says we need to push him, and I will try to do that.

Meanwhile, I never would have imagined this speech, given at a Human Rights Campaign event. He talks about having met with Matthew Shepard's mom in the Oval Office. He talks about honoring same-sex relationships equally with those between a man and a woman. (Does that mean he will support same-sex marriage, or will he try to find some other, lesser, way to honor our relationships? He is definitely avoiding the word 'marriage'.)

"We are ending the discriminatory ban on entering the U.S. based on HIV status."

"I've required all agencies in the federal government to extend as many federal benefits as possible to lgbt families as the current law allows."

"...That's why it's so important that you continue to speak out, that you continue to set an example, that you continue to pressure leaders, including me, to make the case all across America."

The friend who passed this on to me said it made her cry. Through most of it, I wasn't quite that moved. But 21 minutes in, he told the story of Jeanne Manford, the mom of a gay man, who founded PFLAG. His one funny moment was imitating the policeman who had called her in the middle of the night, in the 60's, to tell her her son had been arrested. He said, "...and you know, he's homosexual." (Obama drawled this out a bit, so cutely.) She said, "Yes, I know. Why are you bothering him?" PFLAG always moves me to tears. Hearing President Obama talk about them is a special moment.

It is such a relief to have an intelligent, well-spoken president. I can only hope his position on other issues will get as close as this to what we need.

A message from the mayor of Richmond on the gang rape

2009-11-02T06:18:00.000-08:00

I'm on a mailing list for these messages. This is from Gayle McLaughlin, the mayor of Richmond:

It has been a very difficult past week in Richmond. Many of you are aware of the horrific rape and assault of the young woman, 15 years old, at Richmond High School.

We, in the City of Richmond, extend our full support to the young woman and her family. We know that recovery (physical, mental, and emotional) will be a long process.

Throughout last week, I was interviewed by many reporters and shared my outrage and pain over this horrendous crime. This incident is deeply troubling and our police department is fully engaged in making arrests and conducting a thorough investigation.

Although this horrible incident occurred in Richmond, there is no doubt that this incident is symptomatic of a much larger problem. While the national media has chosen to cast disparaging light on the City of Richmond, this incident is not about Richmond. It is about violence to women, experienced daily throughout America. Every nine seconds in the US a woman is sexually violated.

Hostility and violence against women is based on social injustice propped up by advertising and commercial interests that choose to portray women as sexualized objects, passive and dehumanized, apart from real human relationships.

A Richmond High teacher rightly said that this is a “teachable moment,” and it is a teachable moment that must extend beyond the moment and sink deep into our national consciousness. Sexism, along with racism, poverty, and all forms of social decay continue to exist in our nation because we have not put all forces to bear into opposing them.

This deeply troubling incident in Richmond is indeed a time for reflection. It is time to reflect more deeply on the injustices that are allowed to fester in our society. Every one of us has the responsibility to critically analyze the root causes of social ills. Why did some among our youth stand by in the face of this heinous crime? Yes, there is something wrong here, but it doesn’t originate in our youth and it doesn’t originate in Richmond. The status quo culture throughout our nation does not encourage youth to stand up for justice. Nor does it encourage youth to speak truth to power. We see young people too often being shaped, molded and told to "fit in" to this unjust society without questioning its persistent flaws. When we call upon on our youth to not stand by passively in the face of a crime, we must call upon ourselves to not stand by as our youth come of age in a world filled with problems, and instead encourage them in the strongest way possible to stand up for something better.

And the media must be called upon as well. They must be called upon to look deeper at the issues they cover. Shockingly, I was told by a prominent Bay Area TV News reporter when she questioned me about this horrendous act of violence in Richmond that she “didn’t want to hear about social injustice.” Well, the problem should not be separated from the cause, and, in my view, the media has a responsibility to explain Richmond’s issues in the context of our overall systemic problems. News stories leave a profound impact upon our youth. In Richmond you will find the brightest and most empathetic youth as you will find anywhere. Many have overcome huge challenges in their young lives already. They are refusing to take on the image that the press too often places on Richmond youth and our community as a whole.

In response to this rape, I participated in a very moving press conference organized by youth groups at Richmond High this past Thursday. Check out the strong voices of our youth, their teachers, and adult allies at Richmond High School here (scroll down on the page to the video): Community rallies...

Another activity, a Peace Rally, will be held in front of Richmond High on Nov. 7 at 11 a.m. to continue to extend support and raise awareness.

Richmond High is accepting cards and donations for the young rape victim and her family. Checks should be made out to the Richmond High Student Fund. The checks and cards should be sent directly to the school at 1250 23rd St., Richmond, CA 94804-1011

Sincerely,

Gayle McLaughlin
Mayor
City of Richmond

I love history! or, Textbooks are evil...

2009-11-01T07:38:00.000-08:00

On my other blog, Math Mama Writes, I often consider the ways in which school impedes our learning of math. Of course that happens in other subject areas too. Until I got to college, I loved math too much for school to come between us. For me, it was history that suffered the most from what school does to destroy the joy of learning.

In high school I hated 'History', which to me meant history classes, with their horrible, sleep-inducing history textbooks, full of presidents, wars, and stupid dates I was supposed to memorize. Luckily, the women's movement entered my life during my senior year, and when I began college I took as many women's studies courses as I could. 'Theories of Feminism' was taught by a history prof, and I suddenly found out that I loved history. Reading original sources while learning about something that mattered to me made this sort of history delightful. (Thank you, Robin Jacoby!) I even managed to remember a date or two. (The Seneca Falls Women's Conference was held in 1848. At that time, the vote for women was considered one of the more radical demands. Women got the vote in 1920.)

Those high school classes left their mark, though, and I've never wanted to study history in a more general way. So when I read Frances Fitzgerald's America Revised in the early 80s (in my 20s), about how bad high school history textbooks are (and why), it impressed me enough that I remember it still. (I've just ordered a copy from PaperBackSwap.) I don't remember much, but basically, she discussed how committees take anything 'controversial' out of textbooks, and what they leave is the rah-rah patriotic stuff. It's not real history at all.

My favorite books on more broad-based U.S. history are A People's History of the U.S., by Howard Zinn, and Lies My Teacher Told Me, by James Loewen. My favorite way in general to learn history is through historical fiction. That probably leaves me with some amusing misconceptions.

I got started on this train of thought when I saw the post at BBC News Magazine on "The map that changed the world". It was created in 1507, and was the first known map to include the Americas. 1000 copies were made of it, but by 1570 it had disappeared from view. One copy was discovered in 1901, and in 2003 the U.S. Library of Congress bought that copy for $10 million. Fascinating piece. The comments include an interesting discussion of where the name America comes from.

Maps are not usually my thing, but I liked this.

Not a Scavenger Hunt

2009-10-24T05:24:00.000-07:00

What is this called, when one clue leads to another, and eventually you find the prize at the end?

My nephew's 10^th birthday was a few days ago, so last night I made him 10 clues to find his gift. My son wanted a clue hunt, too, so I just now made him 7 clues (he's 7). I love putting these together.

For my nephew J
Clue #1:
This clue is a real pleaser,
If you look in the _______.

Clue #2:
Don’t trouble your head,
Next clue is in the ____.

Clue #3:
First give your aunt a hug,
Then look in your favorite ___.

Clue #4:
Freddy is a happy elf,
He says look on the book____.

Clue #5:
Give your aunt a bit more lovin’,
Now go look in the ____.

Clue #6:
This clue rocks!
Look in the da-da-da-___.
(I had to help with this one. It was the Jack-in-the-___. When they played the tune and it popped open, the paper clue popped way out. It was great!)

Clue #7:
When you fight,
you often say ouch,
Now look in the ____.

Clue #8:
When we got lice,
we cut off our ____,
Now go look behind the ____.

Clue #9:
Hope you’re not too tired to look,
Next clue is inside a ____.

Clue #10:
Last clue, almost home,
Look for your gift under the ____.

Here's the one my son gets to do in the morning. (I'm up in the middle of the night because I couldn't sleep...)

For R
Clue #1:
Don’t be a fool,
Look under the _____.

Clue #2:
If this clue is not a liar,
The next one will be in the ______.

Clue #3:
Don’t go too far,
Find a clue
On the ___.

Clue #4:
Tell Punkie to stop her clawing,
Now look behind a cool car ______.

Clue #5:
Give your mom a great big hug,
Now look under a different ___.

Clue #6:
Solve all puzzles if you’re able,
Next clue is under a folding _____.

Clue #7:
You are getting very hot!
Find your prize in the old ___-___.

Action on Climate Change

2009-10-20T10:49:00.000-07:00

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce seems to be in the way of progress on this issue, so...

I just heard on Democracy Now that the Yes Men have struck again. From their website, it looks like their last 'prank' was in 2007. Yesterday they impersonated the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, made a press release, and gave a press conference. See it on YouTube, it's hilarious!

Medill Innocence Project Pressured

2009-10-20T08:03:00.000-07:00

This program at Northwestern University has done so much good. Now, when a new hearing has been scheduled for a man in prison for 31 years for a murder he may not have committed, the prosecutors office is harassing the students who helped get the evidence to exonerate him.

VanGogh online

2009-10-19T13:55:00.000-07:00

I have two favorite artists - Vincent vanGogh and Georgia O'Keeffe. peacay at BibliOdyssey has just posted a bunch of vanGogh's sketches, included in his letters. It's a wonderful collection.

There's not enough time in the day...

2009-10-13T20:33:00.000-07:00

I love being a mommy. I love the work I'm doing on this book. I love teaching math.

But I want to sing with friends, and there's not space in my life for it.

I love riding my bike, and haven't done it for months. Same with swimming and yoga.

I don't suppose anyone gets to do everything they love, huh?

If he could X, they'd blame him for Y

2009-10-10T06:54:00.000-07:00

I have no newspaper, I watch no TV, so you can imagine how little I follow the day-to-day political wrangling. But I have the internet, and I've heard a bit about tea parties and lifers and racists demeaning the president, so I was heartened by this speech by Rep. Alan Grayson. I hope there are Republicans who are ashamed of the antics of their party, and I don't think the Democrats are really on my side (as an anarchist and a Green), but I think this speaks to the ridiculous bitterness directed at Obama:

America understands that there's one party in this country that's in favor of health care reform and one party that's against it and they know why.

They understand if Barack Obama were somehow able to cure hunger in the world, the Republicans would blame him for over-population.

They understand that if Barack Obama could somehow bring about world peace, they'd blame him for destroying the defense industry.

In fact they understand that if Barack Obama has a BLT sandwich tomorrow for lunch, they will try to ban bacon.

Seen at Video Cafe.

Great Books?

2009-10-07T06:43:00.000-07:00

On The Chronicle of Higher Education website, there's an article by W.A. Pannapacker titled Confessions of a Middlebrow Professor. He reminisces about his working class upbringing with parents who valued 'high culture'. The had a set of "Great Books of the Western World, in 54 leatherette volumes", which he loved. His reminiscences are in response to a recent book by Alex Beam titled A Great Idea at the Time: The Rise, Fall, and Curious Afterlife of the Great Books.

He has a lot to say about 'Great Books' and about 'strivers' (people who are trying to move up in status). He appreciates what reading those books did for his mind. I get that. But I found the comments pretty one-dimensional, and didn't see any real critique of the notion of a canon inherent in the idea of some particular set of books being the ones called 'Great Books'. My comment there was pretty long, and could have been longer. Here it is, with minor changes:

A previous commenter wrote:

What has to be stressed is that the books comprising the "Great Books" set are, indeed, great books--and that the vociferous critics of the very idea of a great book who have infested academic life in recent decades aren't capable of producing even modestly good books.

I enjoyed most of the comments here, but please don't push the pendulum back the other way, folks. I suppose I'm middlebrow (I hadn't heard the term before), but not at all in the way the author described. My dad was the first in his family to go to college, my mom never did finish college. They're both big readers. They may care about status, but I never did much. I read voraciously because it was what I liked to do.

I went to the University of Michigan in 74, and their honors program included a course in Great Books for entering students. (It started with the Bible, included lots of Greeks, and ended with Dante and Faust. Nothing originally in English, which my higher-brow roommate pointed out.) I had just spent the previous year reading every feminist book I could get my hands on, and was pretty disgusted at all the male heroics. I think I would have liked The Iliad and the Odyssey more when I was young and reading The Arabian Nights. The professor would talk about universal themes, and I'd sit there thinking about how the themes felt pretty male to me. (In a lecture hall of hundreds it wasn't easy to comment.) My favorite semi-universal theme is overcoming oppression, and I didn't see much of that in the books we read.

How about Oprah's pushing of great books? No capitals here; I'll bet she doesn't think of her choices as a canon. (I wouldn't know for sure, as I don't watch TV. I just hear people who do talking about her books.) She has gotten lots of people (many you'd call lowbrow, I think) reading, and discussing, better books.

I think it's possible to have a respect for great literature that doesn't include the notion of a canon. Instead of alleged universal themes that don't include me (as a woman, or as a lesbian) or my friends of color, let's think together about what might be universal themes, and how differently they might be expressed in different works.

My degrees are in math, but I considered a second masters in literature. It won't happen, though - too much pretension in lit courses, and I can't stand being graded on my thoughts.

My personal canon includes The Color Purple, The Salt Eaters (Bamabara), The Yellow Wallpaper (Gilman), The Bean Trees (Kingsolver), and The Word for World is Forest (LeGuin). I'd love to hear what books others think of as 'great books', that aren't in the traditional canon.

One last bit: I was intrigued to see this side of Virginia Woolf. The side of her I know best is displayed in A Room of One's Own, where she dissects sexism by looking at books on Woman in the British Library. (Her upper-class perspective did show in her notion of genteel poverty being someone with a small inheritance.)

What a week! Chickens, Lice, and the book

2009-10-03T21:38:00.000-07:00

As I wrote this to a friend, I thought about putting it here, to share with anyone else who might want to hear about my life. Let me know if you're out there...

Well, the chickens weren't the big news this week. The lice were. Last week two of the girls at Wildcat (same family) discovered they had lice. So their family went through all that. When I got the email, I had R (my son, 7) come over to me, and I looked through the hair at the nape of his neck. I didn't see anything, and I figured we were ok.

On Thursday, they did a lice check at school. They found lice on R, and I had them check me. I had the worst lice they'd seen. Big ones, little ones, nits - lots of everything. S was recommending this place called Lice Control. "You go there, they get rid of all of it. You don't spend hours." I called and they said they didn't have a salon any more, but they could come to my home. The price they quoted on the phone sounded about the same. It didn't end up the same. I paid $325! Which I can't afford. But it's still the best thing. I would have been stressed for days and weeks, trying to do a good enough job, and worrying about how hard it is to see them. He offered us a free 2nd treatment on Monday, when they're training people. So we're driving to Castro Valley (half hour), and getting re-treated.

He said he usually gets everything out on the first treatment, but R's case was bad (worse than mine), and he was sure there were still nits. He asked me to cut R's hair. So last night D cut his hair. He now has a Mohawk. This is his first 'fun' haircut ever.

This company says the lice can't live more than 24 hours off a person's head. They recommend laundering everything you can and vacuuming the rest, and then staying away from anything that could have had the lice on it, for 24 hours. Did all that. I still have the throw rugs to launder, and piles of stuff in the laundry room, waiting to come out of seclusion. I'm going to do it again with the sheets on Monday, in case we got some lice on them.

There's one more chapter to this story. It really started back in May. My head was itching, so I went to the doctor to see if I had lice. He checked (thoroughly, I thought), and told me I did not have lice. I've been itching for 5 months, and trying to find a good shampoo that wouldn't do this to me. I am itching a little this morning, but I itched a lot less yesterday. I'm thinking it was lice the whole time. I had to write the people who come to my math salon, and tell them - if you sat in my recliner, you may have been exposed... (Embarassing!) I was also angry, thinking about how badly I'd been itching, and how the doctor misled me.

OK. Now I can write about chickens. We got the first one on Saturday evening. We went to S's house, and no one was home. She had told us we could go in back and catch some, so we went in back and managed to catch one. It was quite an ordeal. Her yard is really steep, heading down to a stream. It's rocky and I worry about slipping. It's even like that inside the chicken run. So I was pleased I managed to catch one. We went back on Monday, and she caught us two more.

The first one R named Blackie. She's really dark red and brown. The other two are a lighter brown (reddish too). I need to find out what kind they are. Blackie spent Sunday hiding behind a big brush pile, and I finally had to go behind there with a broom (mostly to get the spiders out of my way), to get her out. After her day of freedom, she wouldn't come out of the coop for a few days. So the first time I saw Squawky chasing her and pecking at her was on Thursday, I think. I put Squawky in the coop for the day, and did she ever hate it! Yesterday they were all in the run together, and they seemed to be OK. We'll see... (Squawky sure rules the roost. I call her Queen Squawk.)

The flies have come. I don't have any screens on my house, so I'll have to deal with that eventually. I still don't have straw, so they haven't gone into the laying boxes in the back of the coop yet. I'm hoping to find that today. The place I bought the feed doesn't have it.

We've gotten 3 eggs so far. I'm still using up the 'boughten' eggs I had in the fridge. When those are done, we'll pretty much ration ourselves to what the girls provide. I'd like to let them out to run around the yard and eat the snails, but I want to fix the fence in one place first, and clear out a better path behind that brush pile.

I had thought my big news this week would be all the chapters for the book arriving. I kept all day Thursday and Friday clear for editing and was so eager for it. Wednesday was the deadline, and I kept checking my email. One chapter came in around 5 pm, and I read it over and sent him some quick comments ("More detail! Tell me more about those students!"), and went back to checking for more chapters. None came. And none came on Thursday. Yesterday morning I emailed all the people who were supposed to send one on Wednesday. No reply yet from any of them... I'm getting nervous. Maybe they needed the weekend. I will hope everyone will come through.

___

And that's how my week went. Too busy with the lice and the chickens to post here until now.

Just some stuff I like...

2009-10-03T21:04:00.000-07:00

Here's a typing practice program that looks fun. I often want to get to where I stop looking at the keys, and enjoy a bit of this sort of practice.

I suppose I could put this one on Math Mama, but it seems more at home here. It's art with a political statement called Running the Numbers. The first one looks like a Charlie Brown picture until you get close enough. It "depicts ten thousand dog and cat collars, equal to the average number of unwanted dogs and cats euthanized in the United States every day."

Learning about taxes for fun?!!

2009-10-03T16:18:00.000-07:00

My brother laughed when I said I was following a blog about taxation. Hard to believe that could possibly be interesting, isn't it? I found it by following Mary O'Keeffe, who writes the Albany Area Math Circle blog, to her other blog, Bed buffaloes in your tax code. Lately she's been writing a series of posts on why we should have a National Tax Bee (like the National Spelling Bee). There are 3 so far. I think she's on a roll. You know someone loves what they do when they really believe it could make good TV.

I think the book I'm working on about learning math outside the classroom (and in) is so cool Oprah might want to do a show on it. Maybe I'm delirious. Maybe Mary O'Keeffe is delirious. But we are having fun with ideas, and that's why blogging just might make a difference in the world. You can find someone passionate about anything, and they might even manage to explain it well enough to be contagious.

gmail ads: cool or creepy?

2009-09-24T19:00:00.000-07:00

I've been using hotmail for years. (I'm suevanhattum there.) I hate the ads that blink on and off, and the ads that suddenly take up more screen space if your cursor accidentally goes over them. I've also accumulated about 70 pages of old email in my inbox.

So when I needed another email account for the book I'm working on, I decided to try gmail. (I'm mathanthologyeditor there.) I have loved it. There are almost no ads. (None when composing a new message.) The interface is cleaner and usually quicker. I'm delighted.

The ads that do appear are one-liners at the top of the list of messages. They are targeted by what I'm interested in. When I first noticed this, I thought it was kind of cool. I saw an ad for a math camp, and it seemed like almost useful information.

But I just now realized that they use the text of my email to decide what ads to post. A friend mentioned playing guitar in a message to me. He mentioned it a bunch of times in the message (5 times, I just counted). I have never looked at a guitar site, or done a search using the word guitar. I've never written about guitars (until now), and it wasn't in the subject line.

But there it was:
3 Guitar Scale Mistakes - www.GuitarScaleSystem.com - ¤ 99% of guitarists make when they practice. Save years of p...

Yikes! What if someone sent me a message about guns, and I replied to them? I guess I'd get an ad for guns, huh? What if I wrote an intimate message to a lover describing something we might want to engage in? (I used to exchange some steamy messages long ago, with a long-distance lover.) Would Google send me ads for strange equipment? This 'feature' begins to feel creepy.

I experimented, moving from my inbox, to all messages, and then to a particular message. The ad changed depending on the location. (If you have gmail, try it.) Kinda cool (how do they do that?!), kinda creepy.

I have thought of the text of my email messages as private. This knocked that notion out of my head. Email. Is. Not. Private. (Repeat 100 times: Do not equate email with old-fashioned postal mail. They are not the same.)

I'm wondering what others think of this brave new world we're writing in. What do you think? Is this cool, or is this creepy?

...Not Always Right

2009-09-24T06:49:00.000-07:00

As in, the customer is...

Maybe I'm up too early, and anything silly would be funny. Maria D pointed folks to this page, where a customer didn't know 5x7 was the same as 7x5. I've been reading the vignettes for 20 minutes now, and here's my fave so far:

On The Straight And Narrow (Minded)

Bar | Hertfordshire, England

(Note: I’m a female customer sitting in a pub. I’m approached by another male customer while I read a book.)

Male customer: “Hello, my name is ***.”

Me: “That’s nice.”

Male customer: “So can I have your number?”

Me: “Oh. Actually, I’m gay.”

Male customer: “You want to have sex with women?”

Me: “Well, not right now. Right now, I just want to read my book.”

Male customer: “That’s bulls***! If you’re a lesbian then you want to have sex with women!”

Me: “Honestly, I just want to read my book.”

Male customer: “You’re lying to me, that’s very rude! I’m going to complain!”

Male customer, to a waitress: “That girl over there is being really rude. I want you to do something, it’s disturbing my day. She just lied to me and told me that she was a lesbian, and now she’s mocking me.”

Waitress: “What am I supposed to do about that? Make her straight?”

Male customer: “Just do something about it!”

Waitress, to me: “Hello, there.”

Me: “Hello. I’m sorry about him.”

Waitress: “Oh, it’s no problem! So, can I have your number?”

Male customer: *looks horrified*

Me: “Er, yeah, sure. Here.”

(I write my number on a napkin and she takes it, still smiling.)

Waitress, to male customer: “See? She’s a lesbian.”

Male customer: “That’s not what I wanted you to do! I didn’t want you to ask her out, I wanted you to make her leave! I demand to speak to your manager!”

Waitress: “Oh, he’s just popped out. I can get his boyfriend for you though if you want?”

Male customer: *storms out cursing*

(It turned out that the waitress was kidding about her manager, but she wasn’t kidding about asking me out!)

Letter to the President

2009-09-19T20:25:00.000-07:00

It's too long. He won't read it. But I wrote it before Ramadan was over, and I'm happy about that. I'm going to send it through the mail on Monday. Anyone want to recommend lines to ditch? I'd love to get it shorter.

Dear President Obama,

Alice Walker wrote you a letter early on. I’ll bet you read that one.
I don’t know if there’s anything I can say that will get my letter noticed.
But I’ve got to try.

Progressive leaders tell us you can’t do it alone.
You need us to pressure you.
Well, this is the most pressure I can offer.
I’m a single parent, working full-time and more, etc etc
No time for meetings with organizations to plan actions.
But I support Code Pink, in their protests of every war being conducted by the U.S. or its proxies,
Wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Palestine, are there more?
And I support whoever is working for single-payer health insurance for all,
Including undocumented workers.
I support anyone who is telling you you’re not quite there yet in your understanding of education issues.
(You might want to listen to Deborah Meier,
Founder of a small public school in Harlem that has made a big difference in children’s lives,
Author of The Power of Their Ideas, a book about that school.)
I support whoever is pushing you to get serious about global warming,
Perhaps more important than any of my other (small? human) concerns.

And I support you, the most intelligent, well-spoken president I’ve ever had
In my 52 years as a citizen of this country.
I am deeply sorry that people of color are being subjected to such vicious racism lately.
On its surface it’s pointed at you, but it hurts millions.
You knew what you might face, and are strong enough to look beyond this.
My students do not have the resources you do.
Each sign that belittles you is a slap in their faces.
I am angry.

This letter is mostly about wars and peace,
About how democracy and empire don’t sit well together,
About how Greg Mortenson’s work building schools in Pakistan and Afghanistan will reduce terrorism,
Where U.S. bombs are likely to increase it.
But it’s also about health care and education, about racism and the health of the planet,
Because, on the small chance I’ve managed to catch your ear,
It’s all connected for me.
Racism keeps people divided, keeps the fear level high, fear is what feeds militarism, along with terrorism.
Those soldiers who’ve been fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan need better health care, just like the rest of us.
Young people whose education doesn’t numb them, who follow their natural desire to learn learn learn,
Will be smart enough to stay away from the military.
And of course, we can only stop global warming if we’re working together all over the planet.
We need to stop warring to do that.

You know these wars aren’t really about terrorism,
But more about oil and empire.
Please realize that it’s too expensive to keep trying to control half the planet, or more.
The expense isn’t only the billions or trillions being spent on weapons and soldiers.
There is also the goodwill lost, a huge expense.
Are we the world’s cop, the world’s biggest bully?
Or can we be a beacon of something good,
Of a country that can (sometimes) live up to its ideals?

Three years ago I had 6 Muslim women in my beginning algebra class.
When they talked about Ramadan, I asked them to explain.
I decided to fast in solidarity with Muslims,
Because there was too much hatred toward them,
And the wars…
Last year, I hoped I might be able to stop fasting each year.
I hoped you might stop the warring. Was that a silly hope?
President Barack Obama, I will continue to hope that your moral compass will steer you out of these wars.

Respectfully Yours,

Sue VanHattum

P.S. #1:
I know you got lots of money from insurance companies in your campaign.
Just about everyone who’s ever been elected to high office has.
But now, if you want to be able to hold your head up, you need to do what’s right,
Even if that makes them turn against you. Haven’t they already?
Everyone needs health care,
And it can’t come through the greedy insurance companies,
It needs to come through taxes.
This nonsense about being fined for not having insurance sure sounds unconstitutional to me,
Not to mention blaming the victim.

P.S.#2:
Mostly, I loved your first day of school education speech.
But it’s almost completely a Puritan work ethic sort of thing.
And really, we learn best when our learning is playful and passionate.
A good learning challenge sucks you in so that you want to work hard (really hard) to 'get it'.
I wish you would have addressed that.
I also wish you would have talked about how good it feels to accomplish something you've worked hard at. And my third wish is that you would have addressed what it means to think for yourself.
Learning should not be only about learning facts, figures, and procedures.
It should be about learning how to think about issues deeply.
My success has come more through following my heart than through the hard work you mentioned.
I suppose I work hard, but I’m having so much fun with my work that I hardly notice.
You said, “You won’t love every subject you study.”
I do think we should be able to love everything we study.
And I think homework should be inspiring.
(Doesn't have to be relevant, if the kid wants to do it anyway.
And if they don’t… Homework can mess with family time, badly.)
I like the message that we need to work hard.
But I want kids to work hard because they love it, not just for some future gain.

P.S.#3:
I’m a lesbian, and I’d like my people to have the same marriage rights straight people do.

Peace in Afghanistan

2009-09-16T15:44:00.000-07:00

Here are some links I got in an email sent to me by War Times:

• United for Peace & Justice will have actions on October 7.

• Tom Hayden speaks internationally against the war. Here's an interview from a German site.

• Tom Engelhardt has a piece on Znet (new find for me) called Afghanistan by the Numbers.

________________

On a more personal note, I just finished a great retelling of Beauty and the Beast, told from the point of view of the beast. The Persian prince Orasmyn is turned into a lion by a vengeful spirit (a pari). Only the love of a woman can turn him back. His Muslim faith permeates Beast, the story written by Donna Jo Napoli. Here's a passage (from Rumi, complete poem here) that moved me:

O Shams-e Tabrizi, you
Compassionately blend and renew
East and west through and through
And so we say, may it be so

Another book I'm happy to recommend to folks wanting good stories that include details of the Muslim world in a positive light, is The Man Who Counted, by Malba Tahan. Here's the blurb I wrote on it for Math Mama Writes: Written in Brazil, set in the Middle East, these stories follow the adventures of Beremiz, an accomplished mathematical problem-solver. He uses math to settle disputes, solve riddles and mysteries, and entertain his hosts.

Philadelphia Library System Closing?

2009-09-15T05:46:00.000-07:00

I want to think this is a hoax, like Orson Welles' broadcast in 1938 of War of the Worlds, but it looks like it's for real:

ABC's Lisa Chinn reports from Washington: The public library in Philadelphia may be closing its doors permanently. It would be the first closure of a public library in a major American city. The library is the sixth largest public library in the nation, and its precursor, the Library Company of Philadelphia, created by Benjamin Franklin, was the first public library in the United States.

Words fail me...