Teachers' Lounge

Hate time

From Mark Fiore

There was something about Roy Sullivan that lightning liked

Crazy Patents Online

More than one plane that meets the eye

It's been a long and tiring day. I'd like to say it's been a productive day, but, at this point, I'm not certain about anything. I'm not certain about the motives of others, and I'm not really clear about my own motives. I think I know myself fairly well, but then, all of sudden comes a cropper and I have to take yet another self-inventory. A few years back I termed this phenomenon as remembering and forgetting, which is part and parcel of the polarity principle as so wonderfully described by Guy Murchie.

Tomorrow I will bring a camera to the Las Cruces Farmers Market. I will bring my Casio keyboard. And my monkey sign. And my balls. On the sign I will add the greeting, "Hello Junebug." Junebug is yet another conundrum in my life. Perhaps tomorrow she will step out of the shadows and into the light.

A great but broken promise

America’s a great promise but it’s a broken promise.

It’s not right that we are entering the fifth year of a war started on a suspicion. Whatever your party or politics, my young friends, America can’t sustain a war begun under false pretenses because it is simply immoral to ask people to go on dying for the wrong reasons. We cannot win a war when our leaders don’t have the will or courage to ask everyone to sacrifice, and place the burden on a few hundred thousand Americans from the working class led by a relative handful of professional officers. As is often said—America’s not fighting the war; the American military is fighting the war, everyone else is at the mall. Our leaders are not even asking us to pay for it. They’re borrowing the money and passing the IOU’s to you and your kids.

America needs fixing. Our system of government is badly broken.

- From the commencement address delivered by Bill Moyers at Southern Methodist University. Read the whole thing.

To paraphrase, umm, was it Bette Midler, I've been waiting for a hero. On rare occasions the planets align (or the greatest supernova in history explodes) and an opportunity presents itself. Such is the case now. A man or a woman waits in the wings, deciding. Is today the day? Tomorrow? Or will it be just another missed opportunity?

Who among us will stop this war - this War of Lies?

    To he or she, fall the figurative keys to the nation.

    To all the others - presidents and majority leaders and candidates and rank-and-file Congressmen and Senators of either party - there is only blame… for this shameful, and bi-partisan, betrayal.

Teaching math

Once math phobic, Tammy Rasmussen is now an award-winning math teacher -- thanks to music.

I'd sure like to learn more about this... Finding Harmony

X=?

From The Teacher List -

Kelowna teacher, Sharon Affeld, told me about Algebasics - an online mathematics instructional resource that takes a middle school, high school or adult learner through the basics of algebra. The material is divided into sixteen sections, which begin with, "the basics," and includes a section on applying algebra to real-world situations.  You'll need audio to get the full value of this site!

Chicken, Alaska

I've been having second thoughts about playing keyboards at Saturday's Las Cruces Farmers Market.

First of all, I don't know any songs. I play improv, fueled by whiskey, usually. Playing keyboards at 8 in the morning is going to be a stretch.

Secondly, there's the matter of this boy who's been playing an identical keyboard the past three Saturdays. He's set up within a few feet of Little Coches. So, if I set up next to Little Coches's stand, will it provoke a snit? On top of that, I suppose the farmers market official lady person is going to talk to me, wanting me to pay a fee or something. I think I've got that one covered. One of my students made a sign for me to wear around my neck. It reads, I'm the Monkey. Look, would anyone bug me for money if I played my harmonica while sitting next to Little Coches without soliticiting donations (like the boy with the keyboard does)? It's just that I'll be playing an instrument that's four feet long and weighs 25 pounds and requires gobs of Tesla juice.

Still, what if my improv skills fail me? What if whiskey is the catalyst to my genius? I have a plan for that, too. I'll key in only those tones I know sound good, no matter how badly I might play. Church organ, breathy sax, goblins, echoes, Samba for rhythm, maybe a Mambo. And, should my muse utterly fail, I can always play with my balls.

Still...

...what if I turn ?

Update - Wabi-Sabi

What's that little wriggly thing in the water?

Monster movies rarely boast intelligent scripts. This one does. You will laugh. You will gasp. Hope you like surprises.

5 stars.

The Host

Little Coches, Bengal tigers, Bob Hope and Zen Buddhism

Little Coches is reading my write-up of last week's encounter as I pretend to look at the strolling visitors. There's a man standing about eight feet from us. He holds some flyers in his hand. He wears a Star Trek insignia. He is dressed in the period costume of the twenty-first century. He appears quite out of place, and he is plainly uncomfortable with the job he has to do, which, I assume, is to accost passersby with his flyers and shoo them into COAS Books behind me where I sit with Little Coches, who continues reading my piece, while I pretend to look at the strolling visitors. I do not feel woozy, although I was feeling woozy about 3 a.m. because of too much whisky (bourban and water, no ice, which is a sin, I think, unless you live in India) the night before, the drinking enhanced by a loud and boisterous argument with my older brother in their new home, the argument ending with me leaving under a cloud, wishing I could drink a beer so I could work up some kind of appetite, stopping at a local joint and buying an oil can of Fosters, quaffing the dark brown Aussie brew while fixing a plate of sprouts and pine nuts and yogurt.

Little Coches is smiling. "I like it," she says. "I like it, but there's one thing. I was a lieutenant colonel, not a corporal." She has misread the word 'colonel.' "Ahh, yes, I see," and I say something about being sorry for omitting the 'lieutenant'.

Little Coches is not homeless anymore. Until Thursday, when the motel room she and Thomas and Miss Tombstone share will disappear unless she and Thomas can earn enough for another week's stay. It's a real crapshoot, I think to myself. She sits here every Saturday, but sales are dismal. People are afraid of her. And Thomas is layed up at the hotel, not working, an attack of bad back, he rests, Miss Tombstone kissing his hands, his face. Little Coches is feeling a bit put upon. So much load to carry, and time is growing short.

(I do not tell Little Coches of my daily prayers on her behalf, a mantra that I repeat as I do my morning yoga - "God is love and is taking care of Little Coches and Thomas." I feel blessed when she tells me she and Thomas are in a hotel.)

We talk of Vietnam. "Do you remember the little girl who was sometimes a guest star on The Bob Hope Show?" I look her in the eye and say, "That was you, wasn't it?" She grins.

She tells me how Hope arranged for her and the other nurses in her unti to fly to Germany with him in the closing days of the Vietnam war. "He was always telling jokes. He was always there to lift your spirits."

I buy a purple wrist wrap and tie it to my left wrist. My right hand is nestled in a brown calfskin glove because Friday I'd noticed a pre-cancerous lesion the size of a matchhead between thumb and forefinger. During my morning at the farmers market, I notice the gloved hand is doing it's own thing, and I think, how queer, I must experiment with this. Michael Jackson meets Dr. Strangelove.

Suddenly Little Coches asks me the question I'd hoped she would not ask. "Did you find out when the crafts show will be held at the university?" I sheepishly admit I'd intended to find out, had thought about finding out at work several times during the preceding week, but never did more than think about finding out. Feeling as if I'd let her down, like I'd failed in this simple quest, I walk into COAS Books and ask around, but I find nothing useful. I return and tell Little Coches I will bring her the information next Saturday.

As we sit talking, people keep their distance. "We should hire Mr. Star Trek to accost people and funnel them our way." I say this jokingly because Mr. Star Trek is clearly uncomfortable talking to people. He stands there, smiling, as people walk past him. He never actually stops anyone. He is clearly doing a poor job of it.

Little Coches bristles when I mention Mr. Star Trek. "He's stepped between my display and people walking up to it," she snarls. "Several times now."

I shrug my shoulders. "Okay then, he's fired." We laugh, the tension gone.

"Well," I say, "I have a keyboard just like the one that kid is playing there, and I could bring it next week and play next to you and maybe we'd get some lookers."

Little Coches is not enthused. "You'd have to check with the..." The person who runs the market, I guess. I explain that may not be necessary. "I'd be part of your display. Just tell them I'm your monkey." She cracks up.

I'm getting ready to take my leave. (I am driving my older brother and his wife, who have bought a house here, to Hillsboro. I am hoping for reconciliation somewhere in the cool, high desert.) "May your house be safe from tigers," I say, setting her up for the punchline, which I dimly recall from Alexander King's book, May This House be Safe from Tigers.

Litle Coches does not know the punchline. Instead, she informs me that "May your house be safe from tigers" is part of a Buddhist prayer which asks that blessings and peace be on your house. She whisks me to India, where Bengal tigers have been known to attack and kill people. "Even little babies?" I ask. "No, they do not kill babies," she says. I'm thinking Disney now, so I ask if the tiger will grasp the infant in it's cruel mouth and take it to its den and care for it as one of its own. I think I know what her answer will be.

"Yes," she replies. "They will do that."

So I tell her the punchline. "Have you seen any tigers around here lately?" She beams approval.

I just finished Googling "May This House be Safe from Tigers" and found this -

The title itself (of Alexander King's book) comes from a Zen Buddhist pal who always uttered "his senseless little orison" on leaving King's apartment. After three years, King exploded, "What is the meaning of this idiot prayer?" "Well," said the hurt friend, "have you been bothered by any tigers lately?"

I've got to practice my keyboard.

Update - I'm having second thoughts.