"When people get married, they should prepare for dying," Delaney said.

My Uncle Bob is home from his post in Poland with the State Department and is staying with my Grandma. He's been helping her go through all of her stuff, and shared with us at Christmas dinner an old San Antonio newspaper article called, "Body to Science Called Realistic Way to Go," featuring my Dad's Grandpa, Hubert Delaney. Here are my favorite excerpts:

Although Delaney certainly isn't against philanthropy or helping the field of medical science along, it wasn't basically philanthropy that led him to donate his body to medical science.

It was money.

Delaney reports that under the agreement his widow won't have any funeral or burial expenses in connection with his death. The medical school, he said, will pay all the costs of transportation and costs incident to the preparation of his body for the medical stint.

That can come to a sizable sum, Delaney avers. He pointed out that a body in a coffin costs double the fare in transportation rates.

Two factors primarily triggered Delaney to will his body to medicine. The best-selling "The High Cost of Dying" started him thinking, and a short stint as a cemetery lot salesman after his retirement transferred his thoughts into action.

...

"I listened to salesman sell people cemetery lots in the shade, and I wondered what difference it could make after you're dead," Delaney observes.

But Delaney admits he had been thinking of ways of beating the undertaker long before he took the medial school route. Seven years ago when he and his wife took a cruise from New Orleans to Europe aboard a freighter with no doctor aboard, he told her if he died enroute, he wanted "to be sewn in a canvas and thrown overboard."

"I told her I didn't want to be carted around the world dead in a freighter," Delaney reports.

A Catholic, Delaney reports he checked out his after-death plans with his parish priest and that it has his okay.

"When people get married, they should prepare for dying," Delaney said.

...

Delaney didn't make any points with his personal physician when he suggested after his (Delaney's) death that the doctor go by and see what mistakes he had been making, if any, in his treatment.

"I just thought it might teach him something," Delaney chortles.

Pretty funny stuff. There's also a type-writer produced letter he wrote to my Grandma and her sister. The best part:

I have been writing to congressman, senators, and influential people all over the country asking them to pressure Congress to put a limit ON THE TOTAL AMOUNT OF ASSETS THAT ANY ONE PERSON MAY HAVE AT ANY ONE TIME IN HIS LIFE WHETHER THAT LIMIT IS ONE MILLION OR FIFTY MILLION JUST SO SOME LIMIT IS SET. It may be raised or lowered as seen fit. As to birth control I am for quality control. Anyone contemplating marriage should submit his health record and if his or his family record shows any incurable diseases, insanity, or pronounced physical defects he must submit to an operation so he or she could not bring children in the world so I am with the Pope on birth control. I might add the latter suggestion of mine was published in the paper here and some guy called me Hitler and Kay told me if he hadn't she would have so you know how she stands."

Are Public High Schools Humanizing or Dehumanizing Students and Teachers?

That's the title of the current issue of The Teacher's Voice: A Literary Journal for Poets and Writers in Education. Steve sent me a link to this the other day, and I'm just getting around to checking it out. Pretty cool.

These two are pretty poignant, I think.

"The Name Game" by Yolanda Nieves

American youth have become public enemy no. 1 on

which to pin society’s woes, while taxpayers and

government leaders avoid the real issues of shifting

economic and cultural realities.

-Henry A.Giroux

The truth is they are here:
Hip hopper

avante guard loving

heavy-metal guitar smashing,

Goth frightening

reggae and reaggeton rapping

folk and country, grunger

flash back ‘70’s disco dresser

an active refusal to socialize to dominant values.

Anarchist. Marxist-socialist

Pan-africanist

orthodox, unorthodox

flag-waver

gun-toting, hero-worshipping

Catholic and Protestant

sun worshipping

Wiccan. environmentalist

Che t-shirt wearer

all in your face.

Refugee, immigrant

homeless, documented, undocumented

Buddhist, Taoist,

Hindi, Moslem

atheist, agnostic

mute, blind

autistic, dyslexic

EMH, ADH

pro-war, anti-war

ex-leftist child guerrilla

majority minorities

a condition of our democracy.

Boy-George impersonator

Cher wanna be

transgendered, bisexual

homosexual alternative lifestyle

bar hopper

tattooed body modifier

independent news blogger

they will not disappear.

Alcoholic, recovering addict

bipolar, depressed

just released from the psych ward

patient

artist, con-artist, drug-dealer

thief, gambler

foster child, runaway

left-handed, right handed

bastard and prostitute

neutrality is annihilation.

Chess freaks

sci-fi delusionals

parentless single parents

police brutalized

elote sellers

tax evading taxpayers

future voters of America

grass rooted and homegrown

oppositional, anti-procedural

gifted and illiterate

this public school homeroom is a

national convention convened-

free thinking is a serious possibility.

"Doing Anne Frank" by David E. Poston

Against the background of the mass-murder of European Jewry,

the book presents a vivid picture of a group of hunted people

forced to live and survive together in almost intolerable proximity . . .

Report from the curriculum wars:

On the literary front, the call to arms is

"How long will you spend on that?"

After years of skirmishing,

our dirty little war has come before the Board,

and things are getting hot.

In the war room, at the big table,

the volleys of words fly.

All the curricular atrocities—

9th graders reading Orwell, the horror of The Odyssey too soon—

have us bobbing and ducking and squawking.

What else are we to do?

Our canon fell to ruin years ago,

and now we have no lists, no lists at all,

. . . Written with humor as well as insight,

it offers an extraordinary picture of a girl growing up

and conveys all the preoccupations of adolescence

and first love.*

so we are mano a mano for the honor of Our Text.

We go nose to nose over Dorian Gray, over Jekyll and Hyde,

over Caesar, over Shelley’s misguided Victor

—"Cyrano is ours!"—

but for deciding when it's done.

Rest assured,

Anne Frank's been done,

while LaKeeshia slept on the back row in 9th grade

dreaming of her own poor edition of Cyrano

who did her until her belly swelled, and now

she lays her head on one of my desks because Jontay cried

all last night and would not let her sleep

or dream of first love. Ah,

the preoccupations of adolescence

are done.

Follow orders. Move on.

*from Benet's Readers' Encyclopedia. 2nd ed.

the view from where I'm at

This has pretty much been what I've been looking at for the last three days:


I've watched Along Came Polly (Tad bit painful -- I don't like watching the protagonist get shat on throughout the whole movie.), The Dark Knight (Not my first time. Not as scary, nor as entertaining, this time around.), Step Brothers (Not even a little bit funny.), The Women (Moderately interesting.), Christmas Vacation ("Merry Christmas. Merry Christmas, Merry Christmas, Merry Christmas, kiss my ass. Kiss his ass. Kiss your ass. Happy Hanukkah."), The Bucket List (How can it be possible for Morgan Freedman Jack Nicholson to be boring? Probably the biggest disappointment of the weekend.), and The Incredible Hulk (Truthfully, I saw about three minutes of this.). Or at least I've watched bits and pieces of each, since I've also seen a lot of the inside of my eyelids. Yesterday I had cheese fries for lunch.

back to bed

Writer's block.

I've got nothing lately.

Call me sappy, but

this performance of "O Holy Night" by Mariah Carey is beautiful. I really like the lines

Long lay the earth in sin and error pining
Till he appear'd and the soul felt its worth.
A thrill of hope the weary world rejoices
For yonder breaks a new and glorious morn!

Now, the question is, and I'm talking to you, Amy and Kasey, is this song about Jesus or Obama?

today's word: vex

Example sentence from a student volunteer:

"Today I was vexing Ms. Dahlke to the point where she kicked me out."

(Yeah. He wouldn't stop talking, so I had a chat with him in the hallway while the other kids were journaling.)

"OK, girls! Snoop Dogg finna make y'all a cake!"

What's funnier than, "No Martha Stewart, just one playa."? Right now, I can't think of anything.

Aren't children just precious angels?

Johnny just called me to tell me he heard his daughter, my darling niece Finola, playfully reciting the names of the people in her family:

"There's Nana (my Mom), and Coach (my Dad), and Michael (my brother), and Crappy Girl (me)..."Because her older brother Eoin has consistently disliked me since he's been old enough to say, "I hate you," Johnny taught him to call me Aunt Crappy.

Whatever. This "Crappy Girl" thing's just a phase; I know it. She'll be back to puking on me in no time.

Now, correcting my little brother's grammar: THAT'S funny.

Haha. "sweet ellen." I'm reading a lot of sarcasm in that line. Why do I take such sick pleasure in annoying him? I really do.

Blago

I had a particularly grueling day at work today. That's why I decided to come home and treat myself to an evening of sitting on the couch watching MSNBC.

But I'm finding myself disturbed. Two things:

1. It's a tinse offensive how funny some commentators seem to think it is to call Blagojevich "crazy." Some schmuck on 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue practically begged the two psychologists that he interviewed to call Blago "insane." I mean, the audacity that the Governor showed slipping that line about wire-tapping and the Nixon era is for sure shocking. The type of arrogance he's displayed violates social norms of relative humility and carefulness to the extent that it's for sure kinda funny. In a sick, sad way. But mental illness isn't funny. And hey, 1600-Pennsylvania-Avenue-guy, when you badger two psychology professionals to joke about the supposed insanity that you, some jackass with no psychological background, are assuming, you are being an irresponsible journalist. You're being a moron, actually. It's preposterous to try to use Blagojevich's meticulously blow-dried hair as evidence for insanity. What a lack of compassion you're showing for people who are mentally ill and those who love them. Substitute "crazy" with "retarded." See... not funny, huh?

2. It's a little bit unsettling how much attention is being given to Blagojevich's swearing. The dimwit highlighted above even tried to get those two psychologists to infer Blago's insanity from his frequent use of the word fuck. It's also the subject of some of the critique of Blago's wife's involvement with this scandal. ("She's got a fairly dirty mouth!" "She's a pitbull!" They might as well be saying, "Oh so unladylike!")

(I mean, fuck, I use that word all the time. Take today, for example, what I wanted to say to one of my students was, "Hey, quit fucking around. Cut the shit. You're being a dick." I decided, though, that that was not an ethical thing to do. Instead I said, "Alright, you can either get to work or you can see your dean, but you will not continue to speak disrespectfully to me or anyone else in the room." One of my colleagues that I respect the most -- for his intelligence and his commitment to socially just education practices -- often stops by my classroom after meetings just to say, "Um.. what. the. FUCK.")

Using the word "fuck" doesn't make you "crazy." (See #1.) Nor does it mean you're unethical. Attempting to sell a Senate seat does (mean you're unethical, not insane.) So does trying to get people fired because they disagree with you. (Again, unethical, not insane.)

Can we focus on what's important here? The total disregard for the principles of democracy and the lack of gratitude for the privilege of serving? No?


----

On an admittedly super-snooty note, the commentator who kinda sent me over the edge was the one who segued from Blago to Obama with "Ok, moving from psychoanalysis to political analysis..." Um, all discussion of psychological issues is not psychoanalysis, FYI. Psychoanalysis refers to a specific method of thinking developed by Sigmeund Freud. Cut the cutesy shit and stop being stupid. It's annoying.

less than 20 more than 10 of my friends are retired

Am I more cool or less cool for having my Facebook friendship request denied by this man?


Can we be friends, I wonder, at The Esquire? How about at High Dive?

our vocabulary word of the day today:

bilingual.

For some reason, it struck me as hilarious when our student-vocab-instructor was teaching his classmates this today.

Sutras: Not just the Kama. Who knew?

We're talking about theme in literature this week. Today, we did a concept map so that the students could have a more visual understanding of what never really realized is a somewhat complex thing.

Then, we read several Zen parables and tried to pick out themes we saw in them. Several of the parables mentioned a "sutra," meaning, as was indicated by the footnote at the bottom of the page, a book of teachings.

But, oh no.

One person asked, "What's a sutra?" And another student answered, "It's like sex positions and stuff." Then I explained, "Well, yes, I think you're thinking of the Kama Sutra, which is a book of teachings about sex. More generally, sutras are books of teachings." I thought they had it, but when we finished the next parable, I asked, "Okay, so what do we think is a theme in this story?"

"Umm...(teenage-boy giggling) Don't have sex even if she's a hottie?"

I wanted to say, "No, motherfuckers. It's not. about. sex."

three scenes from school today: a good day

We have this one student who has a learning disability and is really self-conscious about it. He's got this really out-going personality, and he's constantly making sure that everybody in the room knows that he's smart. The other day he was bragging to me about how large his vocabulary is, so we decided to capitalize on his large vocabulary, his loud personality, and his need for academic affirmation. We've got him teaching his classmates a vocabulary word a day. He writes it on the board, gives them the definition, and asks them to come up with synonyms. Then, he chooses one volunteer to write a sentence on the board using that word. Today, his word was bamboozle. The volunteer he chose wrote, "Ms. Dahlke and Ms. Janney bamboozled (student name) into thinking that he in charge of something big."

---

Our students have been learning to do narrative writing by writing family stories. One of the things about the assignment that's been tripping them up is that they need to write from the perspective of someone other than themselves. In other words, they can't be the narrators of their stories. So to help them practice playing around with perspective today, we reviewed the events in "The Three Little Pigs," and then held a "press conference" about the disappearance of three little pigs. Each class period, four students volunteered to be the Big Bad Wolf, the Big Bad Wolf's grandmother, a relative of the Pigs, and a police officer on the case. The rest of the students questioned them. It was hilarious. In one class period, when the the students asked the police officer what he found at the scene of the crime, he launched into a monologue: "Well, I was licking the donut glaze off of my fingers when I got out of my car and found the Wolf. I thought, 'Mmm... He smell like bacon. Sweet swiiiiine... smelling so diviiiiine.' So I say, 'Wolf, what happened to all the cribs? They all gone, Wolf. You goin' to jail!'" Over the sound of all of us dying laughing, he goes, "Thank you, I'll be here all week. Actually, I'll be here all year."

---

I'm teaching an after-school version of my class for an alternative education program for kids that need to learn in a different kind of setting than the regular 50 minutes, 4 minutes, 50 minuts, 4 minutes, 50 minutes, 4 minutes deal. At the end of each session, I have to walk the students out. So I was walking the last kid out, and he needed to stop at his locker. He put all of his materials away, and was like, "Dang, I need a bookbag." I told him that I have an extra one in my classroom that I can give him. And he goes, "Oh, thanks. But let's keep it between me and you that you gave it to me." I thought that maybe there was some rule that I didn't know about that prohibited us from providing those kinds of things for the kids, so I said, "Oh, why?" And he goes, "Because I got a rep to protect."

Soulja Boy is back on this blog.

sent to me from Buckles:

I love my job.

Walking through Target yesterday, the thought actually popped into my head that I a-little-bit envied that girl stocking the shoe department; because when she leaves work, she leaves work. Yeah, I was bitter all weekend because I had hella essays to grade, but still. What a depressing thought. "You love your job. You love your job. You love your job," I kept reminding myself.

Just now, though, one of my students busted into my classroom on a pass from his study-support time in a classroom down the hall. He's all, "Ms. Dahlke, I finished my project!" (They're writing family narratives, and he was having a really difficult time starting it last week.) He was so excited: "It's longer than two pages; I just wanted to add so much detail!" I got all excited for him, and then he's like, "You can read it right now if you want? I mean, I can wait until class later to show you, but I've got it in Ms. B's room. I can bring it here if you want to read it right now?"

How cute. And rewarding. I needed that.