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Posted on by Dale

From the New York Times, 3/12/07, an article about Bush wanting Congress to approve money for an additional 8,000 troops “with no strings attached”:

Referring to the increase of 21,5000 troops that he announced in January, Mr. Bush said during a press briefing here [Bogota], “Those combat troops are going to need some support, and that’s what the American people are seeing in terms of Iraq, the support troops that are necessary to help the reinforcements do their job.”

I’m sorry, did that make any sense to anyone else? “That’s what the American people are seeing in terms of Iraq.” What?? I read it five times. The Current Occupant is incoherent.

In other news, an Israeli amabassador to Panama… well, just go read it for yourself: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/huff-wires/20070312/israel-ambassador-recalled

Some careers have all the fun.

Day off from sunflowers (Day 220/365)

Posted on by Dale

I decided to take a break from the sunflowers. That way, maybe I can revisit them with a fresh ear and learn where I can pare them down.

Instead, I did a great deal of playing with the 100 Book Club blog. I got the entire List (some 800 titles) exported from FileMaker Pro in batches (by AR™ reading level), sucked up into DreamWeaver and modified, and then copied to Drupal webpages. Tedius, but not difficult. So that’s done.

I’ve been working on examples of forums and comments, but that hasn’t turned out like I thought, and I don’t have time to play with at the moment: we have a dress rehearsal with Masterworks Chorale for tomorrow night’s concert.

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Posted on by Dale

From the New York Times, March 10, 2007, from an article about the intransigent problem of communities in dire poverty across Britain and the problems caused by adolescents there:

In February, Britain scored second from the bottom in a Unicef report that used 40 indicators, like relative poverty, health and family relationships, to measure children’s well-being in 21 industrialized countries…

Wow! That’s pretty hard.

However…

…Only the United States scored lower.

Yeah! Woo woo! Let’s kick some raghead butt! U*S*A!

Or something like that.

Stuck on sunflowers (Day 219/365)

Posted on by Dale

I worked again today on the sunflower waltz (as well as continuing work on documents associated with the May 3 performance), and I’m stuck. It just sounds bloated.

Maybe I just need to scrape it all away and try again, and this time trust my instincts to make it smaller and lighter. It can still sound Straussian (J.) without sounding Straussian (R.).

Yesterday, I guess because I donated to the American Friends Service Committee, I received their Quaker Action magazine. Nice small publication, and in the middle of it was a pullout sign:

For Peace

You can write some kind of ID on it, take a photo of you with it, and upload it to their website, www.friendsforpeace.org. Simple enough, and not nearly enough. Sort of the antiwar version of a “Support Our Troups” ribbon on your SUV.

Still, one does what one can.

Composer for peace

Do what you can. I think I shall put mine in my van window.

Update: You can see it posted here.

Another blog (Day 218/365)

Posted on by Dale

No, never fear, I am not starting another blog. At least, not one for me, and not one that you will ever read. Today I worked on the Newnan Crossing 100 Book Club blog. We’ve been trying to get it up and running since October, and on Monday I decided that it was time to implement it whether it was exactly in the shape I wanted it or not. After all, it was ready for me to put students in as users, and they would each have their own blog.

I had originally wanted to use the multi-user version of WordPress, called WordPress MU, but apparently there were installation issues. (All the tech end of this is being handled by the school system’s IT people, specifically Mike. He’s been great.) So we switched to Drupal, with which I have been unfamiliar.

WordPress is a dedicated blogging software package. Drupal is a “content management system,” whatever that means. All I know is that it has a lot more buttons to push and boxes to check to make it do what you want it to do, and sometimes those boxes and buttons are distributed in non-intuitive ways.

Anyway, I got all the kids put in, with nifty passwords that look random but actually are rememberable for the kid. I got it to look like a nice place to be. And we’re ready to start training the 8-10 year-olds how to blog.

The idea is that they read a book from a preselected list of award-winners or starred reviews, then blog about their reading. I’ve trained them (although I have no doubt that training was shallow and noneffective in 80% of them) not to write about the book, but about their reading.

After they post, then I and the other Book Club members can comment on it. Lo, a conversation about reading occurs. Children, these are advanced readers, who otherwise would be zooming through “short books” and racking up AR™ points just to rack up AR™ points are now thinking about what they’re reading. They’re making predictions. They’re discussing an author’s use of language. They’re deciding what makes a book good. And they’re learning, most importantly, to write.

If this works, I shall be called blessed.

Hedgehogs (Day 217/365)

Posted on by Dale

I had fun, fun, fun today: I began working with Sherry Lambert’s kindergarten class during their music block time, turning them into our adorable horde of hedgehogs.

First I explained that I was doing a play (that actually got some recognition and some excitement from two or three of them) and that I was going to invite their parents to let them be in it.

Then I showed them the book and read them The Man in the Marmalade Hat Arrives. They liked it, although I’m sure most of it went right over their heads, “incommodious load” indeed.

Then I showed them the hedgehog videos I had found on YouTube. We ooh’ed and aah’ed over the cuteness of the little critters. We discussed how they sniffed and waggled their pointy little noses, and we tried sniffing our neighbors. We observed how they walked, and finally we saw how they can curl up into the cutest little ball (and are even cuter when they uncurl.)

Then we went back to their mat and began to practice what we had seen. We sniffed, we waddled, we curled up and uncurled. Great fun was had by all.

I told them I knew Ms. McDonough (our wonderful music teacher) had taught them how to march, actually a good guess, and they all immediately showed me. I asked them to do it in slow march, and they did that.

Finally, we asked ourselves if it were possible, just possible, that we might be able to march like hedgehogs? Experimentation soon showed that it was, yes!, possible.

All in all, a fabulous day in Hedgehog Land.

Moving forward (Day 216/365)

Posted on by Dale

Amazingly I was quite creative today.

At school, I finished the hearing impaired morning announcement video. Everyone thinks I’m just grand to have accomplished it, and I guess Final Cut Express looks impressive enough to dazzle most people. Actually, I did do a good job with it. It looks very nice.

I received confirmation that the Cultural Arts Commission is in agreement to help us out with William Blake, although I think their support at this point is still a little fuzzy. No matter, it’s enough to move forward with. I called and confirmed the dates of April 29-May 3 for rehearsals and performance at Wadsworth Auditorium. I am to write a letter to the mayor and city council referencing the Cultural Arts Commision and Global Achievers and our ties to Scotland, asking for a waiver of all fees for the space.

Bette Hickman, our intrepid producer, wants to make it open to the public, and I had come to the same conclusion. This could be a really big thing.

I got email done to all our participants, informing them of our new successive approximations.

I got a couple more measures of the Sunflower Waltz scored.

I worked on the official proposal for the Cultural Arts Commission.

I created Lacuna stationery.

I started a storyboard for Sun & Moon Circus.

That should be enough, don’t you think?

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Posted on by Dale

This from yesterday’s obituaries in the Times, quoting Henri Troyat on how he developed his writing style:

“I would read a paragraph of Flaubert out loud and rewrite it from memory. Then, by comparing my version with the original, I would try to understand why what I had written was an affront to what I had read.”

This is an interesting take on the writing process and on style. Very metacognitive, in that it’s clear that Troyat was not trying to emulate Flaubert. He simply looked at where his voice went wrong in transcribing a master, and in that way was consciously able to develop some inner voice of his own. I like it.

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Posted on by Dale

With so much delightful going on around me in the world according to Bush, Ann Coulter, Scooter Libby, Walter Reed hospital, fired prosecutors, I’ll just highlight this little nugget, from the New York Times:

“To secure Democratic support for trade deals…, Republican leaders have signaled willingness to accept language guaranteeing the rights of workers, including a ban on child labor, for American trade partners. For six years, the administration and its Republican allies refused to include such guarantees in trade bills…” (emphasis mine, but what else can you see in this paragraph?)

These people are disgusting. If that’s the word I’m looking for.