Ran Across This

Actually, I ran across it at RealClearPolitics.com.

This is David Aaronovitch at the London Guardian, taking on the tendency of the Western European left to fixate on Democratic candidates--and at the moment, to see Obama as The Man Who Will Fix It All. I'm interested to see this from a British perspective, since I've been watching this one for a couple of elections now. My favorite moment was when the Guardian tried to convince its readers to write to Ohio voters asking them to please, PLEASE vote for Mr. Kerry.

Anyway, check it out. He makes some interesting points. Liked this:

But even if he (George W. Bush)had been a half-Chinese ballet-loving Francophone, he would have been hated by some who should have loved him, for there isn't an American president since Eisenhower who hasn't ended up, at some point or other, being depicted by the world's cartoonists as a cowboy astride a phallic missile. It happened to Bill Clinton when he bombed Iraq; it will happen to Mr Obama when his reinforced forces in Afghanistan or Pakistan mistake a meeting of tribal elders for an unwise gathering of Taleban and al-Qaeda. Then the new president (or, if McCain, the old president) will be the target of that mandarin Anglo-French conceit that our superior colonialism somehow gives us the standing to critique the Yank's naive and inferior imperialism.

The Missing, The Dead, and Haven't We Been Here Before?

I'm about to be emotional. Bear with me.

Last night it just hit me in the back of the head. I sat with the San Francisco Chronicle and its lame coverage of the prisoner exchange, and I just sat on the floor for a while reading the article over and over, and grieving.

I am not an Israeli leader, I'm not even an Israeli, and I don't presume to judge the necessity of making deals to bring home the bodies of the fallen. For the Goldwasser and Regev families, I'm relieved that at least they have some knowledge, a funeral, maybe some healing eventually.

The knowledge that Samir Kuntar has gone home to a hero's welcome feels like a stubbed toe in the heart. I'm having trouble here. And the small, petty, malicious details--that Hezbollah wouldn't say whether Goldwasser or Regev were dead or alive until the actual exchange--are just so macabre.

And I wonder what's going through the Shalit family's minds and hearts now. And I wonder if there's even the slightest chance their child is still alive.

And even a world away from Israel, I know Goldwasser and Regev and Shalit and Arad by name. Here in the U.S., we just recovered the bodies of two soldiers missing in Iraq more than a year. Alex Jimenez and Byron Fouty are finally coming home. How often did their names appear in the press after they were captured? How often did I see their names by a bumper sticker telling me to support the troops? They vanished. In all senses. And their bodies being recovered was on page A6. Maybe Israel has a point, trading whatever's needed to bring home the missing.

Maybe not.

Damn it.

For my birthday

I got us Netflix.

We're currently working our way through the back episodes of Bones, and I got to watch Charlie Wilson's War last night.

Lots of fun.

Birthday Cake, Central Air, And Outrage

1.

First, the Balabusta turned thirty-five. I am not totally ready to be thirty-five. I had sort of had it in my mind that at the age of thirty-five I would have a couple of children, and a mortgage. The fact that I am, at the age of thirty-five, hysterically applying to jobs for the third summer running does not totally thrill me. But OK, thirty-five it is.

I went to my parents the night before my birthday for dinner, and we went out for Mexican/Guatemalan at our favorite neighborhood place, and then we came back to their apartment to find that the bomb squad had closed off their block. We stared worriedly from the big black van to the trees in front of my parents' building to the shul at the end of the block.

Questioning of the cop on the corner revealed that a mysterious package had been discovered, and the squad had responded. He suggested we come back in fifteen minutes or so, so we retreated down the street to the Thai place a few doors down, had a drink, and waited while the bomb squad blew up the package, and my father called the laundry delivery to suggest that they deliver the next evening. When we got out, the yellow tape had been rolled up, and we were free to go back inside.

Ah, modern times.

Anyway, the next evening I had lavish Chinese food with the Fella, and coconut cake, and the bomb squad did not come. Very nice.

2.

This week, I did two job interviews. Yesterday's involved an astonishing trek across Oakland on a very hot day, but when I arrived, they had air conditioning--which was enough all by itself to make me want the job. Ohhhh. To quote the demon from Dogma--"No pleasure, no rapture, no exquisite sin greater than...Central Air."

On the way to the interview, though, I had one rather surreal moment. I'm on the bus, which is making its way down International Boulevard, around Fruitvale. A middle-aged woman gets on the bus, sits down opposite me, and says an entire paragraph to me in Spanish.

I smile sheepishly, and say "I'm sorry, I don't speak Spanish." She smiles back and says, in English, "I was hoping you could tell me where to get off. I'm looking for the Mexican store."

Now, let me remind you, we're on International, just past the Fruitvale BART station. For those of you unfamiliar with Oakland, let me just explain that this is a part of town where even the Aryan Nation office has a sign in the window saying "Se Hablo Espanol". I stare out the window, watching an endless line of businesses roll by and wondering which of them could specifically be "the Mexican store". "I'm sorry, I don't know," I said falteringly.

Three blocks later she pointed, said cheerfully "Oh, there it is!" and leaped off the bus. It was a grocery store.

3.

This morning I get a response back from Heckle, asking why I got two, rather than three months pay at the end of the year. Turns out the payroll people didn't take enough out, so I frittered away that money in groceries and the electric bill.

I also get an e-mail from Jeckle, explaining that the kid I gave the extension to has turned in his late work, to Jeckle, rather than mailing it to me, and DO I WANT TO COME IN AND GRADE IT?

I am filing for unemployment. I doubt I'll get any money, and God willing, I'll have a job in a week or two, but I want them to get the paperwork.

I've started to clench my back teeth. This can't be good.

Hope You Had A Glorious Fourth

I am preparing to eat a blueberry pie, as things start to explode in the dusk through my neighborhood, so you know I will.

To help, check out Molly Ivins' last FOJ column, from 2005.

"Yet again, we rejoice not so much in what makes America great, as in what makes it really peculiar. This is in the belief that one of America's finest traits is that it is a blissfully funny place to live."

Fingerprinting Italy's Gypsies

Italy has started a bold new plan to fingerprint all the Roma living in Italy (at least those without proper EU ID cards) and database them. Italy would very much like for you not to mention the words 'fascism', 'racism', or 'creeporama' when discussing this new policy. Unicef and Amnesty are not wild about this idea. Roberto Maroni, the Italian home minister does not care. He's all excited about how this is going to make it easier for him to take children from their homes if they're truant from school. Apparently ethnic Italian kids are NEVER truant from school, so Italy would have 100% attendence if we could only track down the Gypsy kids whose parents have sent them out to steal people's wallets in the train station.

The Roma are something of an issue for me. For one thing, I see strong parallels between their experience in Europe and that of the Jews, and for another, I see an uninformed reflexive prejudice against the Rom that hits close to home for me, and ticks me off when it comes from people who should bloody well know better, or at least THINK.

While I was doing my teaching credential, I ended up sitting through a presentation by a young woman (basic lefty Bay Area type, nice girl), who had done a year abroad in Hungary with some program or other, part of which had included touring a boarding school program for Roma kids. I listened in horror while this girl, who would have protested any kind of racism she could identify as such, parroted back everything she had heard from her Hungarian hosts about the Roma. They're dirty, they steal, you name it--and finally, this kid, who undoubtedly sees homeless beggars in our own city only as victims of society, described being hit up for change by Roma on the street, and said "and you know, you try to remember that this is a human being..."

I got up and delivered a short impassioned speech on the history of the Roma in Europe, the suffering, the vicious bigotry, the Shoah, (Porraimos, they say in Romani, 'the devouring'), and the overt racism still exhibited today throughout Europe, which a sheltered American youngster might so easily not understand for what it was.

The class blinked at me vaguely, and I sat down.

Anyway, from Ariel David (who should know better, I suspect) of the AP: "Italians, and others in Europe, have a long history of distrust of Gypsies. In Naples, camps had to be evacuated in May after attackers set huts on fire and angry residents in neighboring areas protested against the alleged attempt by a Gypsy woman to kidnap a baby."

Yeah, I know all about Europeans having a long distrust. You know, in the old days, they useta be able to sell the babies they stole to the Jews for matzah production, Ariel. What bland, stupid, cowardly way to say "Europeans have displayed often violent racist bigotry against Gypsies for centuries. In Naples, camps had to be evacuated in May, after attackers set huts on fire, and pitchfork-waving local yokels revived old libels about Gypsies taking children."

Report From The Pride Festival

Mr. Bluejeans Sr. suggested meeting at the Pride Festival yesterday. There was a motivation--Most Holy Redeemer, the Castro parish church, had a booth selling 'beverages' to raise money for their AIDS support group. Mr. Bluejeans Sr. likes parish churches, opportunities to give to worthy causes, and beverages, so this one seemed tailor made for him. Also, the Pride Festival sprawls across Civic Center Plaza, and is near Max's Opera Cafe, so as far as Mr. Bluejeans was concerned, we were set to go.

Highlights of the day:

Most Holy Redeemer was indeed selling beverages, but it was all beer, not Mr. Bluejeans' cup of tea, which is white wine. We bought some beer anyway, for the sake of the mitzvah. MHR was asked by the Archdiocese not to march in the parade this year, which sucks, but they seemed in pretty good spirits anyway.

We found ourselves at the California Sperm Bank booth for a while, while Mr. Bluejeans made inquiries for some friends from out of the country. (Mr. Bluejeans as usual, hit Pride with a list of chesed projects to work on and inquiries to make at various booths). I ended up in conversation with the other pleasant middle-aged lady at the booth.

"Did you say you already had a donor?" she yelled over the brass band behind us.

"Yes."

"That's nice! Is he storing sperm for you?"

"No, we're married."

That took a moment, logistically, she paused to consider what I meant, and then it clicked in her head. "That's great," she shouted back cheerfully, "because that way you can get it fresh."

I bought a couple of t-shirts, listened to the Chipman Middle School drum band from Alameda do their routines--JROTC, currently under fire in San Francisco should have turned out--admired kids and dogs, and generally had a good time. Then we went back to Max's, where I had a tuna melt, and life was good.

Pride always makes me well up with joy to be a San Franciscan. This year, across from City Hall, where couples have been marrying for more than a week now, it was really special. The mood at the event was mixed--a lot of groups are worrying about November, and not yet taking the new wedding season at face value--but in general, spirits were high, food was fried, rainbow leis were prominent, and everyone seemed to be having a great time.

I hate job hunting

Did I mention that?

Anyway, I'm looking over the want ads right now on Craigslist. "Christian teacher needed for daycare center" reads one heading.

Now, realistically, I know this means that it's a Christian program, and they want a believer in the position.

But I'm also used to the way evangelical Christians themselves use the word as an adjective to mean something ethical, forgiving and patient, and all I can think of is horrible little kids running around screaming, kicking people, hitting each other, and an administrator putting together the ad for Craiglist--'we need a Christian teacher. Yes. Very Christian."

I work for Martha Stewart (for another eight hours)

There used to be a recurring character in the comic strip Sylvia--The Woman Who Does Everything More Beautifully Than You.

I only bring this up, because my boss called from an amusement park yesterday to mention that he was writing a little poem for each child in his homeroom, and perhaps we other homeroom teachers would like to do something so our kids wouldn't feel less special.

I am currently writing little note cards for everyone, and cursing Jeckle.

Eight. More. Hours.

Our Kids

One week to go. I've got a couple of callbacks, so feeling pretty good.

At our last staff meeting, Relaxed Guy put an item on the agenda. He's concerned about the high level of physical abuse in our students' homes. Relaxed Guy is good with the kids, really good, they open up to him. Per him, about half the kids in his classes report some degree of physical violence at home.

We had a totally useless meeting segment on this. Jeckle commented that just because they write about abuse doesn't mean they're experiencing it--this is true, but they're talking directly to R.G. about it. Jeckle also stated that you don't need to/can't report unless the kid verifies abuse--this is not true. You're mandated to report if you have a reasonable suspicion.

Brief interlude here--one of our kids is now in foster care because we made the call. Administrators pooh-poohed the making of the call--I and another teacher were told that the kid makes stuff up. CPS apparently felt sufficiently convinced to get the kid the hell out of the home. And our great county's CPS does not have enough resources to waste them on nothing. Last year, I was told by an administrator that one of our kids claimed sexual abuse at home, but no one had called because the kid is a well-known liar, and the dad is a great guy. Sometimes I wonder if I'm in a ****ing time warp, or just surrounded by incredibly stupid people.

Mrs. Bluejeans Sr. wanted to know what Jeckle is afraid to ask--why? Why do we have such high rates of parents knocking the kids around? More than that, why would parents who care enough to go to the trouble of sending their kids to a charter school also be abusive? I tried to think why, and I have some ideas.

Our kids are honestly, many of them, hard to deal with. They have problems, emotional, academic, gang related etc. I think we may have a parent population that, while wanting the best for their kids, are also unable to deal with their kids. They try to find a school that will help their children, and the ones with health coverage get counselors, and they sit through SST and IEP meetings, but they also run out of patience and hit, or they think they can achieve results through discipline and they hit. I think some of the kids' problems stem from the adult's problems, too. The parents aren't evil, any more than their kids are, but I suspect we've got a fair number of parents with their own traumas and addictions and inabilities. And when they're panicked, or angry, you guessed it, they hit.

Meanwhile, I've got an administration, albeit only for another week, that thinks we shouldn't report abuse if the kid him or herself is known to not be a saint. Not that they said that, no, no no, no no no no no...well, yes.

Our kids deserve so much better.

The First Invite

I've had my first wedding invitation in the great new California era--Mirele and her wife Keyle have invited me to the simcha they are planning for maybe November. Of course, there was some issue about calling it a wedding--"We got married fifteen years ago," Keyle snaps. So, OK, I have been invited to a renewal of vows and acquisition of marriage license, followed by canapes.

May I be invited to dance at lots and lots more.

Graduation at St. Colmcille

So yesterday I dressed up a little for work, and after work I took off to Oakland, home of St. Colmcille, the tiny inner-city Catholic school you may recall I worked at last year.

The reason I was on my way to St. Colmcille was that my homeroom class from last year was graduating the eighth grade, and they had cornered my lovely coworker and friend Ms. Mirele Gans (NO, that's not her real name) and demanded to know if I was coming. Mirele called me and demanded to know if I was coming. So I went.

They do the graduation from St. Colmcille in the little, Gothic parish church next to the school. It was built with the hard-earned money and old-fashioned piety of Irish immigrants around 1930, and everything about it, from the shamrocks carved into the supports to to the serene-faced Irish saints in the windows (Colmcille, Jarlath, Brigid, Patrick) shows that. Later generations have added images of la Virgen de Guadalupe and statues carved in the Mexican tradition, as the neighborhood has changed. The graduation ceremony takes place from the altar, and is open to the whole parish, as well as the school community.

Oh. Oh. The heartstrings. The choir singing sweet folk-Catholic pieces. Father Toledano (no that's not his real name either) beaming. The parents glowing and schepping naches all over the place. Cameras flashing. Ari, with shamrock-green bands on his braces to match the regalia. The girls carefully walking in their first (much too high) high heels. Mirele, radiant with pride. Pomp and Circumstance.

I hugged everyone. I cried. Shaina nearly broke her neck on a kneeler trying to get to me in her strappy sandals. Nisanit, (who never caused me a moment's trouble last year), cried and apologized for the way her class had treated me. Dovidl went to another school this year, but was there to cheer for his classmates and congratulate me for working in Richmond with 'all those black gangsta guys'. (Dovidl would adore to be a black gangsta guy, but is cursed with a middle-class mother who won't let him.) I sat in front of Mushkie's extended family, who yelled every time her name was mentioned. "GO Mushkie! Go go Mushkie!" The seventh graders surrounded me, upbraided me for leaving, admired my wedding ring, and suggested I come back pregnant or with a baby for them to admire when they graduated next year. And even Netzach graduated (as he went up for his diploma I muttered to Svetlana-the-Social-Studies-Teacher "by the grace of God", but he got one).

They were all so beautiful. Even Netzach.

Afterward, Mirele, her wife, I, and a friend of theirs who played the trumpet for the ceremony, took off for a tiki bar, and drank things with ridiculous names, and rejoiced. It's been a rough year for them, but heck, the class of 2008 graduated.

Lemon Cake and Politeness

I had some good lemon cake today. Tuesday is the day we do not sell food to the kids at lunch--on other days they can order, according to the day of the week, sandwiches, pizza, burritos or Chinese--so the student government leaped in and started a fundraiser selling baked goods at lunch.

They are raking in the big bucks. All the baked goods are homemade by ringleaders Nesiyah and Avivi. Both girls are being raised by African-American balabustas of the highest order, are terrific cooks, and when they unload their cookies, homemade brownies, Rice Krispie treats, individual-sized vanilla and lemon bundt cakes with homemade frosting...!!! there is a kind of feeding frenzy among their classmates. Like at the Monterey Aquarium when they feed the deep-sea fish in the big tank. Nesiyah and Avivi just smile serenely, and stack up bills toward a class trip to Great America.

I had a piece of lemon cake today. It was like eating sunshine with frosting. Wow.

Meantime, I am trying to figure out how to depart the school in a dignified way, but cause Heckle and Jeckle just a little discomfort. It is not that easy.

I told Gittel that I had been fired, and she said "WHAAAT!" I told Relaxed Dude, and he said "That's ridiculous." I told Dr. Kalonymos, and he said "Well, they're ****ed", and revealed that he's not coming back next year either.

It's nice to have the support of my coworkers, I suppose.

The Khaffiyeh Test

As you may have been lucky enough not to notice, some people were horrified by this picture of Rachel Ray, wearing what was interpreted by many as a khaffiyeh around her neck.

In an ad for Dunkin' Donuts, an organization I had not previously thought of as either political or with strong Middle Eastern ties.

Anyway, DD has pulled the ad, and now the usual suspects are throwing mud at each other.

I've blogged before about the ongoing khaffiyeh-as-fashion-item wars, and I remain committed to my basic stance that the best use for a khaffiyeh is its original purpose--keeping the sun off the head of male Arab persons of a traditional kind of persuasion. British troops in the Middle East, I understand, use them as well. For as long as I can remember, I've also seen khaffiyehs (what is the correct plural, BTW?) used as fashion scarves by older women in the Bay Area who wear them as a political statement. Such ladies also usually have bright handbags woven by Guatemalan indigenous weavers, and interesting earrings.

Much to my amusement, at demonstrations some years back, I began to notice young Palestinian men wearing khaffiyehs in the lady-hippie style, worn over the shoulders and loosely tied. I interpreted this as a compromise between wanting to wear a traditional item of clothing, but not being willing to actually put one on your head, which would make you look like your grandfather.

Then the fashion wave struck, and now I can buy a scratchy white scarf with a vaguely khaffiyeh-like pattern at the local Marshalls for seven bucks. (If I wanted to, for some reason.) For more details, and funny pictures, check out this chronology at the funniest Arab blog I know of. ("1926. Kufiya and Valentino reunited for The Son of the Sheik. Still no sound.")

Some comments on the Rachel Ray picture:

1. I do acknowledge that the scarf in question clearly derives from the vaguely-khaffiyeh scarf trend. The white-and-black pattern and fringes are clearly chic because of the sheik association. What can one do?

2. It's not, in fact, a khaffiyeh. My ideal test for whether something is a khaffiyeh is whether a middle-aged man from a small town outside Amman could walk around wearing one and not get weird looks, however that would exempt these odd purple and turquoise 'peace scarves' and the like, which clearly are supposed to be khaffiyehs, even if they're not. Rachel's however, seems to have a paisley design, which to my mind simply makes it a fashion scarf with fringes.

3. Do we really have nothing better to do?

4. Of course not. In the process of reading everything I can about this non-scandal, I have discovered the khaffiyeh yisraelit, modeled fetchingly to your right. The website informs us that:


"There are many versions of the Keffiyeh and it has been worn throughout the Middle East for thousands of years. The Keffiyeh Israelit is a version that celebrates Jewish Middle Eastern culture connecting their ancient ethnic origins in the Middle East to their modern day connection with Israel."


Oy. Va. Voy. I read this, and my mind boggles, I mean it just boggles like a bowl of Jell-O. It might be the answer to a question I asked once before on this blog: what is the equivalent Zionist fashion statement to the ethnic appropriation and cross-dressing represented by non-Arab college girls wearing khaffiyehs wrapped around their faces at anti-Israel demonstrations? It might be this.

Wow.

On a roll this morning...(long)

I took today off, because I have a job interview in SF this afternoon, and because I'm just too wrecked after this week to do another day. Busy now getting the old school out of my system.

Tamara writes:

Is there somewhere on your site that explains the start up that you're in? In
general I believe in small schools and new ways of approaching education. I'm
part of a brand new school next year and am quite excited.

In general, I have to say that I think small schools are not at all a bad idea. (Since I am no longer in the start-up, I guess I should change the header for the blog).

George C. Moonbat's charter describes a small high school based on authentic communication, and respect for the individual child. Kids are divided into homerooms where they stay with one homeroom teacher for four years, and have a regular place to check in. We have classes on study skills, and every year each child takes a class in which they create and carry out a community service project. As students progress, they are given more autonomy, and allowed to design their own course of study. Students spend increasing amounts of time in a study-hall like environment, where they may work or engage in other community-based activities at their discretion.

Doesn't that sound SUPER? (I don't mean to be sarcastic. It does sound super, and it was this that led me to the now-regretted moment, weeks before my wedding, unemployed and out of my mind, when I turned to Jeckle, and told him that for a project like this, I would work my tuchis off.

He took me at my word. Now I have no tuchis, (not that I ever had much, I was always flat-butted), and I'm unemployed again in a matter of weeks.

What went wrong? Honestly, a lot of things, some of which I can blame Heckle and Jeckle for, and some of which just fall under "acts of God".

We didn't get the student body we were planning on. Or at least not the one I envisioned. I was envisioning a multi-cultural cast of characters, bright but not necessarily cut out for a big high school, funky but willing to engage with new, innovative ways of learning.

We got kids whose parents were willing to try anything. We got kids who were supposed to go to special education schools with classroom assistants who do take-downs and restraint, but their parents tried us instead. (OK, just a couple of those, but you know? It changes the tenor of a classroom.) We got kids who'd failed everything for years and didn't care. We got tough girls from North Richmond who didn't like my tone of voice when I said 'please sit down'. We got kids who slept all day in every class. We got druggies. We got bipolar. We got every learning disability under the sun--and many of them were not diagnosed.

Most of all, we got kids who expected the teacher to make learning 'fun', and if it wasn't fun, wouldn't work. Academics, by definition, were not fun. (I missed my remedial reading class, years back, who would work like crazy if I promised we could watch "The Color Purple" on Friday.) We got kids who didn't listen to anything anyone said--I mean literally, they would sit in class and ignore you. Not intending to be rude, just why listen while some chick talked about literature? And they didn't want to talk in class about anything academic. I had two kids, first semester, who would argue with each other about literature. The day Aviva and Yochanan went at it about whether Of Mice and Men was racist, it was a beautiful thing--but the other kids told them to shut up, because it didn't matter, and they should stop arguing and wasting time.

They didn't have the academic skills, for the most part, for me to teach at grade level, let alone at the high, independence-fostering level the administration wanted. Behavior was AWFUL. The all-school meetings we'd envisioned were chaos, because no one could get the kids to sit down and SHUT UP so their elected representatives could talk to them.

So, the emotionally close homerooms were hard to create, and the grades were rock bottom, and the portfolio-driven student-run parent meetings didn't happen, and the teachers were quitting.

Also we had no janitors, but that was another problem.

Now, we had partly modeled ourselves on another alternative high school in the Bay Area, which emphasizes 'freedom to fail'--that the student is free to decide not to attend class, not to take advantage of opportunities, and not to succeed academically before they are ready to take that step. I think we admired this in theory, however in practice...

We went to the opposite extreme. We hired tutors for after school tutoring. We called parents, first every time a homework assignment wasn't turned in, then every week. Grades were online, constantly checked and rechecked. Make-up work became a way of life. It turned very sour.

They started too soon, I think. The charter passed in June or July, and they managed to open the doors by the end of August. I think another year, and some substantive planning would have saved a lot of broken hearts.

Also, I think they should have hired better to begin with. X and Y were poor choices, chosen more for being able to talk the politically correct talk than for being useful to a start-up school. Maybe I was a poor choice as well, but at least I stuck the whole damn thing out, soup to nuts.

Acccchhh. I'm getting in the shower now.

Funny you should ask that...

In the comments to my previous post, WBS asks the highly relevent question, "Is there a lot of turn over there (Moonbat High), in general?)

;) Funny you should ask that, WBS--I started to respond in the comment thread, but decided this needed its own post.

We started the year with a team of four full-time teachers. Me, Jeckle, X and Y. Five weeks into the year, X left. Told our students that she was the only teacher who'd ever cared about them, and vanished, citing the need to be at home for her own kids.

At the beginning of November, Jeckle, the ed director, had a small nervous breakdown from the stress, and was forced to stop teaching for the rest of the semester. He is back now, however, and firing me.

Then Y developed intense personality conflicts with Heckle and Jeckle and left, right before Christmas, after a screaming fight with H&J.

While Jeckle was out, we had another math teacher for a while, let's call him Z. Z was suspected of saying inappropriate things to the kids, and was pushed out after the semester break when Jeckle pulled himself from his deathbed to come back to the classroom.

We lost first Bilhah, and then Zilpah, who both taught dance, first semester, but they were part-timers. Bilhah just couldn't deal with the kids--to be fair, who could (they were nightmares in dance class)--and I don't remember what happened to Zilpah, she just sort of wandered away.

We had an art teacher and a drama teacher--let's call them A and B--first semester. A went to grad school in New York at the semester, and B, a good friend of Y's, decided to pursue other interests.

Yehoshua, good buddy of Shmuel the Drummer did student government for a while, but his girlfriend moved back East, and he followed her, plus he got a sort of cool job there.

(Is everyone following this? There will a quiz Monday.)

Gittel, who began the year teaching a sort of middos-for-girls class a few hours a week, was begged to take over X's classes, and did so. She performed a full-time teacher's job for part-time salary for the rest of the year, while H&J bashed her performance at every turn. She is now leaving, to start up a sand candle shop. She recently spent the night of her son's thirteenth birthday at a staff meeting that ran from seven to ten at night. (I was there too, but at least my kid was not becoming a bar mitzvah over frozen pizza.)

Relaxed Dude, the one who took over half my students so no child would fail, is not returning. Rumor has it that the phrase 'Gestapo tactics' was used when he was asked why. (To be fair, this is the man who had his supervisors read his diary.)

Assuming that EVERYONE that I do not know for sure to be leaving is coming back, that makes:

Jeckle (math) (1 year at Moonbat)
Dr. Kalonymos (art and student government) (1 semester at Moonbat)
Sra. Abulafia (Spanish) (1 semester, part time)
Ms. da Costa (dance and drama) (1 semester)
Tante M. (science) (all year, but only twice a week for one class at the end of the day, she has a full-time job elsewhere, and may not want to bother next year)
Yehuda the Special Ed Dude (special ed) (all year part time, and maybe full time next year)
Shmuel the Drummer (middos for boys) (all year, part time)
Hulda the Gym Lady (study hall and PE) (one semester)

Yeah, that sounds like a solid core of staff to begin Year 2 with. Oh. My. Word.

I've Been Fired By Moonbats

OK, they just said they didn't want me to come back next year. But my God. I've been sacked by people who...oh Lord, are they in trouble next year. Can you say 'lack of institutional memory', boys and girls? I knew you could!

Can't Do Better Than This...

It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us - that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion - that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain - that this nation,under God, shall have a new birth of freedom - and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

Another shooting

Another shooting of a Sudanese refugee by Egyptian police on the Egypt/Israel border. They also arrested a woman with a nine-year-old kid, also trying to cross.

Twelve have been killed so far this year, trying to get into Israel.

Not a nice world out there.

OK, a slightly odd thing

I was tidying up in the classroom yesterday, and I happened to pick up a copy of the Webster's New World Dictionary. It fell open to "Pakistan" and "pajamas", and I vaguely wondered if a person doing the dictionary equivalent of bible-cracking would think this meant that they should go sell pajamas in Pakistan.

Then, on a whim, I opened the dictionary at random and put my finger down on the page.

The word was 'heder'.

Interesting, huh?