and back home to install my new festive holiday lighting thingy. WRONG! The light cord (sold separately) rang up without a hitch. Then came the blown glass fixture (on CLEARANCE for $10.98). Of course, there was no bar code on the thing. This brought the entire transaction to a complete halt! I politely told Hortencia, the clerk, that the glass shade was ON CLEARANCE FOR $10.98! That didn’t work. She did not believe me. She called up an ‘expert’ in the lighting dept. She asked Skippy to do a price check. I made it known to Hortencia that I was in somewhat of a hurry, and I would like to get back home! Again I told Hortencia that I was positive the glass was ON CLEARANCE FOR $10.98! Still no response, just that far-off, ‘I hope my date tonight with Zach is gonna be fun’ look in her eyes. After about three minutes of waiting, I just said @$%& it, and left. Hortencia, having another out-of-body experience, didn’t blink an eye. Apparently this is the normal way of doing business at Lowe’s. I’m never going back.I figured, “Hey, why try to re-invent the wheel, right?” I came across this on Huffington Post yesterday. It is basically the snarky, smart-ass essay I’ve had in rough-draft form for about eight months now. Well played, Mr. Danzinger!
Superintendent Kim Chee has been ragging on many of our staff members recently, claiming that we are out of shape. The nerve! She says we need to lose some weight and look more ‘professional’. WTF? To achieve her goal, she thought it would be a good idea to hire a staff Yoga and Pilates instructor. Yippee! Meet Duane ‘Moondawg’ Thudwiemer, our new Yoga and Pilates teacher. In addition to trying to get our counseling staff in shape, Duane will also be teaching classes in our P.E. department. We wish him luck.
To better introduce Duane to our loyal readers, here is a video of one of his yoga sessions, which he supplied to the interviewing committee last month. Please notice that Duane utilizes many of the classic yoga poses while attempting to purchase a large quantity of brewed adult beverage. Duane starts his routine with the Adho Mukha Svanasana or Downward Facing Dog, and then seamlessly flows into the Bhujangasana or Cobra. Next, watch as Duane utilizes the Uttanasana II or Forward Bend, then immediately segues into a perfectly-executed Trikonasana or Triangle pose. To culminate this perfect routine, Duane executes what could possibly be his finest move, the Savasana or Corpse pose.
Duane is a product of one of those new Teaching Credential mills we’ve been reading about. His training lasted a total of five weeks! We are expecting great thing from him. And no, we have no idea why his nickname is Moondawg!
columnist William F. Buckley has aptly indicated that his own skill at such tests involved not figuring out the correct answer in any absolute sense, but rather figuring out “which was the answer the examiners probably desired me to give.” According to my own analysis, test taking assesses chiefly linguistic and logical intelligence, with some bonus points for speed, flexibility, and superficiality.
When I woke up Sunday morning, I was hoping there was something in the Cedarville Gazette that would make me come to camp this morning. Something to inspire me to teach. Something that would validate me as a teacher and a human being. And there it was! Nicholas D. Kristof, of the New York Times, has all the answers! In a recent opinion column, Kristof suggests that ‘good’ teachers and a ‘good’ education will bring America out of poverty! In his column, he states:Good schools constitute a far more potent weapon against poverty than welfare, food stamps or housing subsidies. Yet, cowed by teachers' unions, Democrats have too often resisted reform and stood by as generations of disadvantaged children have been cemented into an underclass by third-rate schools.
See? Teachers have the power to end poverty and hunger in the United States, if only we didn’t have those damn unions, and if we were willing to do it all for minimum wage! Thank you, Mr. Kristof, for setting us straight. What a tool!
And here is some interesting night reading that I found on crooksandliars.com today.
Most of us in the teaching biz understand that NCLB is nothing more than a thinly-veiled attack on public education or education in general, no matter what the grade, in this country of morons we live in. When one reads that only 39% of the population believes in Darwin’s theory, and the rest believe dinosaurs were on Noah’s big ship, we are in big trouble. The rest of the world must be laughing their collective asses off at us.
My take is that the right-wing lunatics are still pretty much in control, no matter who is in the White House. The march to the middle ages continues. The powers that be continue their plan to create a generation of docile, gullible working class workers, willing to take any scraps that are thrown at them.
I found this gem of an article in the New York Times, written by the appropriately-named Dick Morris, former confidant to the Clintons, and now yet another lunatic, right-wing, overpaid talking head on Fox News. Yeah, Dick, you have all the answers. Blame it on the @%&*ing liberal, bleeding-heart professors. Teachers of all grade levels just make too damn much money!!! Why can’t everybody in the teaching profession be happy working for minimum wage?
Not since Laurel and Hardy, Martin and Lewis or even Reiner and Brooks have I been so entertained by a comedy act. Listening to NPR last Saturday morning, host Scott Simon was interviewing the new comedy team of Gingrich and Sharpton. Never have I laughed so hard. In fact, I laughed so forcefully, I blew approximately three ounces of steel-cut oats out of my nostrils! This dynamic comedy duo is currently on a 50-state tour of the United States to promote their innovative ideas concerning public education. And their innovative ideas consist of MORE CHARTER SCHOOLS! Yep, that's the ticket. Just watch those test scores rise with each new charter school founded.Let’s review, shall we, what fine gentlemen these two are, not to mention experts on public education.
Being a family-values kind of Republican, Gingrich has been married three times. He married Jackie Battley, his former high school geometry teacher, when he was 19 years old! (I wonder what he got on the SAT) She was seven years his senior! They divorced in 1981. Jackie Battley Gingrich was wife No. 2 and supported him through graduate school and two unsuccessful congressional campaigns. She had undergone uterine cancer surgery during the successful 1978 campaign. Eighteen months later, they separated. While in the hospital recovering from another uterine operation, according to the legend of Newt Gingrich, he visited his wife in the hospital with a list of things on how the divorce was going to be handled. He wanted her to sign it. She was still recovering from surgery! Nice guy!
In 1981, six months after his divorce was final, Gingrich wed Marianne Ginther. He remained married to Ginther until 2000, when they divorced. Shortly thereafter, Gingrich then married Callista Bisek, with whom he was conducting an extra-marital affair at approximately the same time he was leading the Congressional investigation into allegations that Bill Clinton lied under oath about his affair with Monica Lewinsky You could not make this stuff up!
Al Sharpton is a former boy preacher (oh, good!). But he was caught on an FBI surveillance tape discussing a cocaine Deal. The television show HBO's Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel showed a 1983 FBI videotape in which Al Sharpton is seen talking about laundering drug money with former mobster Michael Franzese, a Mafioso-turned-undercover-FBI informant posing as a cocaine dealer. Now, to be fair, no indictments were issued and the sting operation was never completed. Sharpton got into this mess through his friendship with boxing promoter Don King, a longtime friend of his. Oh yeah, and there’s that whole Tawana Brawley thing, but we don’t wanna go there, do we?
I JUST THANK JEEBUS EVERY DAY FOR EXPERTS TO TELL ME HOW TO DO MY JOB!
teers from the Camp Nickleby Motor Sports Club were even on hand to help out. Cars started trickling in as soon as church let out at 9:00 a.m. By 11:00 a.m., only eight cars had come through the car wash. Things were looking fairly dismal. The feeling of disappointment was palpable. The ladies of the club started second guessing the whole concept of the car wash and were wondering if they would be better off just sticking with bingo games on Monday nights. Then everything turned a corner.
Fernwood, father of the Fernwood twins, Mack and Darnell, showed up wearing a lovely little two-piece number, energetically waving a CAR WASH sign to attract even more customers. The ladies decided to extend the closing time of the car wash to 5:00 p.m.
While driving through Hog Lick Corners last Saturday, I came upon this sign outside of the Eye of the Needle Baptist Church, and I figured, oh, what the hell! I'm sure there will be a huge turnout. I just hope they don't yell at the people in wheelchairs. I hate it when that happens, don't you? But then again, maybe those people are in wheelchairs for a reason? Hmmmmmmmm, one of the many unanswered questions of the universe.
The Camp Nickleby Booster Club will be conducting their first annual Fundraiser Car Wash this coming Monday, Labor Day, in the K Mart parking lot in Cedarville, from nine in the morning to two in the afternoon. The ladies of the booster club, known primarily for putting on a damn fine bingo game each Monday night at the Grange Hall, decided to try something just a little bit different. With the recent budget cuts that all schools in California are facing, the gals just thought it would be the right thing to do, and add some much-needed money into the club’s coffers.
The booster club ladies work mighty hard during the year, raising funds that are used for items such as No. 2 pencils, lined notebook paper, staples, paper clips and those little wooden coffee stirrers thingies for the faculty lounge. We don’t know what we’d do without their cheerful spirit around here.
The ladies are hoping to get a few volunteers to help out with the car washing. They promise to use biodegradable soap and 100% cotton towels for drying the automobiles. The price will be $5 for a car and $8 for a regular-size pickup, $20 for a cattle truck. They will also be offering a 25% discount to anyone who brings in a car recently purchased through the Cash for Clunkers program! I know there are a lot of them out there.
The Booster Club ladies look forward to your support this coming Monday. The ladies, pictured from left to right, are Anna Pannell, Katie Parker, Arvilla Coker, Mattie Robinson, Pearl Sanders, Dramita Pannell and Era Mae Bullard. The shadow is that of Fontina Merriweather.
See you at the car wash!
wer sheets into connect-the-dots and made bunnies and hearts, which didn’t help either. To compound the problem, the error was not discovered at the ETS scoring facility in Sacramento until it was too late. The oily crayon residue gummed up the scoring machines and altered other schools’ test results, including our cross-mountain rival, Cruz Bustamante Preparatory Academy Strip Mall Charter High School. We’re still waiting for the other shoe to drop on this one.
It’s hard to believe that the 40th anniversary of Woodstock is upon us! Where did the time go? For two of our Camp Nickleby staffers, the Woodstock Music and Art Fair, as it was originally called, has a very special place in their hearts. Maurice and Charmaine Thibodaux were actually there, rolling around nekkid in the mud at Yasgur’s farm. As some of our loyal readers may recall, Maurice works as our maintenance man, but insists on being referred to as our ‘Viceroy of Camp Operations’. Charmaine works as our cook in the cafeteria, but she constantly refers to her work in the ‘film industry’, in her younger days. Both came to us from New Orleans after losing their house and all of their belongings during Hurricane Katrina.
These two crazy kids actually met at Woodstock. In 1969, both were recent graduates of Tulane University, but never ‘hooked up’ during college. Maurice earned a B.S. degree in chemical ‘engineering’, and Charmaine received a B.F.A. in interpretive dance (every father’s nightmare). When they heard about this music and art festival happening up in New York State, each of them decided to head north. Maurice packed his 1967 green and white VW microbus with a sleeping bag, a box of granola, half a case 
of Mateus Rosé, some weed and a couple of bongs, and headed north on a hot, muggy Louisiana morning in August of 1969. Charmaine decided to ‘borrow’ her brother’s aging Citroën deux chevaux and hit the road too. Packed with a cooler filled with organic bean sprouts, a loaf of wheat bread, several tie-dyed blouses, and her four-stringed dulcimer, she was ready for the adventure of a lifetime.
Their meeting at Woodstock was the proverbial case of love at first sight! It was, one would call, a whirlwind romance. Both being devout Catholics, they eschewed any type of birth control (and also because they were both #@&%ed up on windowpane acid) their love was consummated on the rotting remnants of Yasgur’s beet crop. Little Muffaletta Zydeco Thibodaux was conceived on August 15, 1969, at approximately 5:37 in the afternoon! Unfortunately, right after the climactic moment occurred, Maurice’s left foot was accidentally run over by Max Yasgur’s grandson, Skippy, taking a joy ride on his grandpa’s vintage 1957 Massey-Ferguson. Little Skippy was apparently suffering from a contact high and didn't see Maurice down on the ground in his Coleman sleeping bag. Maurice shrugged off the injury, but still walks with a slight limp. With that limp, he is constantly reminded of that special day 40 years ago. And little Muffaletta? Well she grew into a fine young woman, went to law school at Tulane and became a civil rights attorney and community organizer in Atlanta, Georgia. She is now currently an attorney, working with ACORN.
I asked Maurice what he remembers about the Woodstock experience. He said, “Not much, man. I was pretty stoned most of the time. But it took a long time to get Ritchie Haven’s music out of my head. Man, the dude played for two hours straight and he only knew one, friggin’ chord!”
While going through some old papers, I came upon this aging advertisement in Ramparts Magazine for an unassuming art and music festival in the summer of ’69. CHECK OUT THOSE PRICES!!!
ystem in the United States. Surely students of private schools would have better spelling skills than this. Are could they be home-schooled? Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmm . . .
Hey, you make plum plural by adding an 'S', why not peach, right?
We'll begin with a box, and the plural is boxes;
but the plural of ox became oxen not oxes.
One fowl is a goose, but two are called geese,
yet the plural of moose should never be meese.
You may find a lone mouse or a nest full of mice;
yet the plural of house is houses, not hice.
If the plural of man is always called men,
why shouldn't the plural of pan be called pen?
If I spoke of my foot and show you my feet,
and I give you a boot, would a pair be called beet?
If one is a tooth and a whole set are teeth,
why shouldn't the plural of booth be called beeth?
Then one may be that, and three would be those,
yet hat in the plural would never be hose,
and the plural of cat is cats, not cose.
We speak of a brother and also of brethren,
but though we say mother, we never say methren.
Then the masculine pronouns are he, his and him,
but imagine the feminine, she, shis and shim.
I went in to Camp today to work a bit in my classroom and start to get things cleaned up for the new school year. While going through some boxes of student work from several years ago, I came upon this lovely treasure in a young lady’s pile of drawings.
I do appreciate the fact that this student did attempt to use her 'word attack skills' in figuring out how to spell Vicodin. She did get close. Hooked on phonics, perhaps? These are some of the little treasures that make teaching such a rewarding experience. Gee, I wonder how Vicodin usage affects test scores??? And for those who don’t know about Vicodin . . . here is a bit of information from Wiki.
Vicodin is a potentially addictive drug, specifically due to the hydrocodone in it. People who are using Vicodin for non-medicinal purposes (the above students) are typically using it to get the euphoric effects sometimes associated with it. Ten percent of American high school seniors have abused Vicodin; 4.7 percent report abusing Oxycontin in the past year.
mately 4,500 high schools students in twenty-five states. This four-month long study concluded that the minds of high school students become overloaded with too much information. Their brains, as a function of self-preservation, filter out approximately 75% of the input that we try to pump into them.
e too electrified for my taste).
