Homophobia-America's last greatest value????

Republican Corruption in the past three years:

Ted Stevens

Larry Craig

Bob Ney

Tom Delay

Jack Ryan

Bob Livingston

Duke Cunningham

Sexual Scandals-with women

David Vitter

Jim Gibbons

Ed Schrock

Sexual scandals with men

Mark Foley

Bob Allen

Craig

Our culture loves moral outrage. Especially politicians. They step into dog shit repeatedly, trying to wipe the residue on the grass before anyone can smell it.

But we seem to have created our last bastion of outrage for our own homophobic fears.

Blase'-oh yeah, absolutely blase'-we have become when it comes to hook ups with hookers, adulterous affairs, even assaulting women in parking garages, like Jim Gibbons did and then smearing her reputation in the press aka Carl Rove style.

Nothing like destroying a woman to make a man feel powerful, eh?

Ah, but male sex? Outrage!

Our last bastion of morality.

Stealing money, selling out the citizens of the US, lying, spying, locking us up without a warrant, denying legal representation, ignoring our critical needs during time of disaster- *yawn*

Homophobia!! Welcome to the forefront of America's paranoid, judgement day act one of many more to come script...Welcome to Brokeback Mountain hell!!

uncharted, american stuff-headlong into whatever...

The American world is one big buffet of polarization, excess and deprivation, obsessiveness and denial, riotous noise and dead silence.

We look for bombs in soda cans, mysterious poison powders in dumpsters, terrorists in skin color and we rarely learn from either our wisdom or are mistakes.

Whether it is interrment camps for Japanese-American citizens, indefinite lock-ups for Americans of middle eastern descent or massive round-ups of Mexican-Americans, we look for the boogy man in all that is not white.

Like a beached whale taking it's last gasp in a swirling mass of air, so foreign and lethal, panicked, we continue grasping for the familiar water. Our instincts to grasp the microscopic, almost invisable fishing line, unseeable, unable to hold the massive weight of fear we collectively produce creates a repeated pattern of attack and withdraw, attack and withdraw.

Hurricane Katrina reduced a city to rubble. All but wiped out a geographical region. Unprepared, using our denial, we created the menu and nature chose the main course.

If human spirit exists, we can transcend the panic mode of our existence and deal with reality rather than rhetoric.

Let's look beyond ourselves, now, rather than clinging and pushing our way to extinction.

Senator Craig's dueling selves...

Senator Craig's bathroom foray almost seemed destined to bring him the relief he must have, on some level, sought in a big destructive way.

A man who decried same sex relationships, strongly espoused family families and preached the christian pathway may as well have detonated a bomb inside his pants.

Why would he do it? Did you see his wife? The image of a Midwestern woman, full -round the middle, maternal material-oozing of family and mundane womanly living.

I find it sad to view a person battling the incongruencies of life-the feelings connected with the shame and the guilt. The denial-which has to be eating away at both selves-and I ask, "Did anyone ever know this man if he doesn't know himself?

Were those who love him surprised or did they already know who he is? Did they know it before he did? Can you imagine keeping his secret for years and years?

I don't think our world is such a condemning place that Mr. Craig would not have been able to live his lifestyle, work and be a productive citizen with some joy.

He is an older man now facing questions and answers which could lead him to that joy -I hate to think of what he considers alternatives.

We all have our own truths. We decide if we live them or not. Facing our own truths isn't without pain, discomfort or anguish. Most of us choose the Senator's way-not to face them at all-until they face us -

Pony up, Folks, the Iraq war sucks it out of us...

Who pays for this war? Are you feeling it yet? Is it pinching? If the pictures don't make it real enough for you yet-how about losing your home? Your job?

Are those utility bills nudging you into the small loan category yet? Are reeling from the cost of groceries? Gas?

Is your car payment getting closer to the payment you make for rent or your home?

Are you finding yourself choosing not to pay for repairs, or dental work, forgoing medical care?

Who pays for this war, folks? Some ubiquitous "someone out there"-some nebulous "other"???

Denial isn't working, friends. It just ain't working..Let's stop this-start yelling..

If there is one thing I know about the American people it's that they don't like to suffer or make sacrifices-other people do that..not us...

Are you starting to feel the burn yet?

The Classroom as Disneyworld........

It's crunch time for teachers. School starts Monday and the walls and floors of the school buildings are full of "learning tools"
Bulletin Boards are fierce competitions to see who can place the most elaborate eye catching phrases and images, most times not related in any way to the achievement of students, out for your viewing pleasure.

We have pirates and ducks, chili peppers and dragons, transformers, frogs, jungle trees with monkeys-whatever plays this year is on the wall.

Wall space in classrooms must be graded by how much JUNK can be pasted on the walls. The amount of stimulation via posters, pictures, rules, quotes, and various pop culture garbage is so overwhelming it is a wonder there is no smell to the amount of clutter.

If that doesn't totally distract the students the classroom clutter of rocking chairs, bean bags, pillows, games, videos, rugs, boxes, bags and various paraphernalia kids will wade through to get to their desks will plunge them asunder, boggling their minds and send them reeling as if they had too much sugar.

Welcome to the new generation of teachers. More is better. Feed the kids rather than teach them how to eat. Slide and slurp.

Disneyland classrooms. Keeping minds so overwhelmed and busy, the art of quiet reflection and time to think is lost in the myriad of buzzes like some kind of laser show to the brain.

I recently read something I thought critically important to learning.

It is the spaces around us that have meaning, not the objects in the way.

Learning is much like that.
We need the spaces in our brain, those pathways to neurons to be available to us in order to construct new meaning , store it and retrieve it.

As much criticism as I have with Kid Nation's approach to leaving kids unattended I have to say the crucial component of the show is this-kids had to use their brains-they had to problem solve without the Disneyland approach-they had to construct meaning-they had to work together in groups and they had to use those spaces and learn from them.

If you are impressed by the glitz and glamour of all that stuff on the walls and floors, think again-student learning, inquiry based student learning-which sticks inside the brain and clamps down in awe and wonder does not come from spoon fed videos and big, flashy posters on the walls.
In fact kids will struggle with the distractions all year long -struggle to focus-struggle to think-struggle to develop some sense of structure, as their little minds try and focus.

We have lost the art of quiet reflection, clearing our brains of stimulation and relishing quiet solitude.

Those days of lying on the grass, alone, watching clouds pass, without an agenda -those moments of noticing what is around us -that belongs around us -those are the pathways to the brain that we teachers need, desperately need-to foster learning and understanding.

Don't be impressed by Disneyland classrooms. Be more impressed by open spaces, room to wander and think and great lessons.
Ask to see those-the rest is smoke and mirrors.

Shootings on the Las Vegas strip..

The miracle mile ain't too safe this summer.

Las Vegas likes to hide their dirty little secrets and have successfully, until this summer...

Three shootings have occurred this summer which made national headlines. The Las Vegas Police like to tell you the strip is pretty safe and this is the work of a Las Vegas street gang, which they have a handle on...

You don't see the reports about the tourists who jump from the casino parking garages or commit suicide inside the hotel rooms. Those aren't the kind of events that get noticed.

But these shootings-these aren't same-old-same-old. These are news-

One man walks into a casino on the strip and starts shooting at people randomly. Last night another shooting at a strip casino when two guys bumped into one another-and one at the beginning of the summer-when a man was beaten by a group of men in a parking garage.

Then there was also the car bombing in one of the casino garages on the strip this summer.

Money is tight. People get ugly when money gets tight and the casinos are pulling in the cash and not much is going out.

I'd give it a rest if I were a tourist coming out here any time soon.

It's not a pretty place to be.

Ahhh Magical Mermaids

My daughter, at age two, was convinced she was really a mermaid. More than once I had to walk down and take her out of the water when we lived in Florida.

She was convinced she had to go and find her "real family"

Today she is fifteen. She still believes she has some past life as a mermaid. She also believes she is a Paris Hilton clone, was once one of the Spice Girls and lately, she believes she is a kin to some 1940's pin up girl.

I love her imagination...