Takahiro Iwasaki

Wow!  Take a look at these beautifully crafted, tiny sculptures by Takahiro Iwasaki!  The rest are here.  Enjoy!

Renaissance (of Gentle) Men

I saw these "Rules for Being a Gentleman in 2014" on FB and thought I'd share...

What do you think?  Would you add any?  Take any away?

What if a man wrote "Rules for Being a Lady?"

How about just rules for being human?

"Saturn was NOT a Single Lady"

These have been making the rounds on the internets lately, and as a teacher I found them highly entertaining.

My favorite teacher response is the title of this post...

My favorite student response is, "If I had one hour to live, I'd spend it in this class because it feels like an eternity."

LOL!

Sir Duke

"I am an optimist from where I sit, music is mostly all right, or at least in a healthy state for the future, in spite of the fact that it may sound as though it is being held hostage." -- Duke Ellington

Texas Tea-Pain

Did you know that the pitch-correction program known as Auto-Tune was created by an oil engineer working for Exxon?

Yes, it's true... the "music" of T-Pain (I can only assume that the 'T' is short for 'terrible,' as in the Terrible Pain he causes listeners unfortunate enough to be exposed to his "singing.") is just another glorious byproduct of the American Petroleum Industry!

You know, like catastrophic climate change?  ;)

Don't believe me?  Click here and read the article yourself! (Don't forget to treat yourself to the hilarious video at the bottom of the page with Weird Al explaining the cultural implications of the Auto-Tune phenomenon!)

HE'S BACK!

MAMBA TIME!!

"John the Baptist of the Psychedelic Era"

Interesting interview with R. Crumb talking about his love of old timey music...

Seemed apropos after the previous Bottled Spirits post...

Enjoy it responsibly, here.

The Bottled Spirits Debut!

I surprised my dad for his 75th birthday celebration last Saturday by having my new band, The Bottled Spirits, play a few songs at his party.  Here's our opening number...  enjoy!

"There is no humor in heaven"

Samuel Clemens, American literary treasure and original old man Muppet in the balcony, was born yesterday in 1835.  In honor of his birthday, here are 25 snarky quotes from the master... enjoy!

A few of my favorites:

“All you need in this life is ignorance and confidence, and then success is sure.” — Notebook (1887)

“It is just like man’s vanity and impertinence to call an animal dumb because it is dumb to his dull perceptions.” — What is Man?

“Everything human is pathetic. The secret source of humor itself is not joy but sorrow. There is no humor in heaven.” — Following the Equator

HAPPY T-DAY!!

Circular Firing Squad

Thanks for the reminder, Kevin Drum!

Drum (11/13/13):  ...anyone over the age of 40 knows that Clinton lived through an eruption of right-wing rage that was every bit as bad as what Obama has gone through. Even the specific obsessions of the wingers weren't even very different. Health care socialism? Check. Economy-killing taxes? Check. Gay rights destroying America as we know it? Check. Supposed juvenile drug use? Check. Endless faux scandals and corruption? Check. Government shutdown? Check. Deficit hysteria? Check. Ball-busting wife? Check. The similarities, frankly, are pretty stunning."

And yet how often do we liberals say it's worse this time because the President is black?

How often do we write off the Tea Partiers as racists?

And how is that helpful exactly?

Not only is it poisonous to civil dialogue, it seems naive when we need only look back at how the last Democratic administration was treated...  (Clinton murder conspiracies?  Check.) 

Of course racism is still extant in our body politic -- race has played a prominent and punishing role in our country since its inception  -- and elites have used it to divide us down through the annals of history, so...

given this bloody past, shouldn't we treat racial matters with care?

Does it really serve progressive interests to label millions of Americans racists so, uh, liberally?

Because when we assume to know the hearts of millions of fellow citizens and cavalierly (if not claravoyantly) call them racists, we serve the plutocratic desire to divide and conquer.

99% are easy to beat when we're all in a circular firing squad!

"The more you think, the more you stink"

Producer, David Briggs:

when I first got to L.A. I got invited to Radio Recorders to see Ray Charles, and I walk into the studio, and Ray’s playin’ all the piano parts with his left hand, reading a braille score with his right hand, singing the vocal live while a full orchestra played behind him. So I sat there and I watched. And I went, “This is how records are made. Put everybody in the fuckin’ room and off we go.” In those days everybody knew they had to go in, get their dick hard at the same time and deliver. And three hours later they walked out the fuckin’ door with a record in their pocket, man.

Respect.  Read the rest here.

Thank you, Sophie

She was our rabbit's foot during game 7 in 2010... 

and I'd like to think she had that same effect on the game tonight.

Lakernation thanks you, Sophie... RIP...

Student Agency

Thanks to Ron Berger for inspiring us teachers to raise student engagement through collaborative inquiry and constructive critique and for sharing this example of that work at the Cotsen teaching conference yesterday!

Divide and Conquer

Nice op-ed.  Does Kristof make a false equivalency?  I don't know...

What gets me is the tribalism...

As long as Fox and MSNBC (et al) continue to reinforce the tribal red vs. blue framework, they enable the 1%, without drawing attention to the fact that the other 99% (BOTH red and blue) are being ripped off...

...calling the kettle black

this.

title is not my favorite, but what do you expect from a pot-ty mouth?  :)

as i play trying...

All of us failed to match our dream of perfection. So I rate us on the basis of our splendid failure to do the impossible. In my opinion, if I could write all my work again, I am convinced that I would do it better, which is the healthiest condition for an artist. That's why he keeps on working, trying again; he believes each time that this time he will do it, bring it off. Of course he won't, which is why this condition is healthy. - Faulkner

doolittle democrats

good news, 99%!  your incomes increased by 1% last year!!  (nevermind that top earners' -- the so-called, "1%" -- incomes jumped 22.5% last year!!) 

if you consider a new gilded age a problem (like most progressives do), might i point out that within the 99%, BOTH liberal AND conservatives' incomes have failed to rise? 

these data show no tribal divide!

both red and blue -- indeed almost the whole population -- have seen their incomes rise only 1%!!

wage stagnation affects left and right alike, and yet the 99% fail to unite to put up a fight!!  hmmm...

what keeps us so divided?

do we on the left think we need the other side to fight inequity?

if so, how do we talk about it in a way that unites, not divides us, the 99%?

shameless self-promotion

shot by us in one day and edited by nani serna... enjoy!!

manufacturing monsters

this has always been a tragic, difficult case involving big issues:  race, guns, self-defense, and people differ on which of these three most affected the outcome in Sanford that night. 

sadly, of the two people involved, we only have one side of the story and that complicates things…

this case was never simple, but simple stories seemed to solidify in the media immediately following the incident…  skittles, hoodies, un-armed teens, oh my!

in essence, the media promoted a simplified version of the state’s case -- including flogging that 911 transcript as proof of Z’s evil intent -- months before the trial.

is it possible that they poisoned the well?

could a simple, group narrative have emerged in the media that supplanted Z’s presumption of innocence?

now that the trial is over, why isn’t Z’s version of events getting more play?

could it be that the scripts have been written and the characters’ roles assigned?

don’t the good people, too busy to keep up with the trial, deserve to hear the full state of the evidence?

at this point in time, what’s more egregious, leaving out a much ballyhooed transcript that “sets the tone for the situation” or leaving out Z’s side of the story (thus eliminating what produced the reasonable doubt for the jury) as many in media continue to do?

obviously, reasonable people may disagree about the “tone” the call sets… it’s quite subjective, isn’t it?  to me Z comes across as a well-intentioned, if not weary citizen, tired of a recent spate of break-ins, trying to keep his community safe…  others see it differently...

but when bowdlerized versions of the events are broadcast in the media for months leading up to the trial (charles blow, 3/16/12: “Zimmerman apparently pursued him anyway, at some point getting out of his car and confronting the boy.”), then echoed across the internet AFTER the verdict (conveniently omitting the testimony that produced the reasonable doubt), I blame our news media, not you.

they suck.  you don’t.

:)

loving to hate

I hate watching my loving friends, love to hate… 

especially such an insignificant target as George Zimmerman…

might I suggest two worthier targets for our rage besides a fellow citizen?

governor rick scott and angela corey, the special prosecutor he assigned to this case … the same woman assigned to the prosecution of marissa alexander, the woman who got 20 years for firing a warning shot….

maybe these two would be better targets than Z?

because it seems the liberal opinion of Z has become quite rigid -- he’s the villain.

and he very well may HAVE murdered M, and the state’s version of the events could be completely right on.

I accept that possibility.  

but since I wasn’t there, I also accept other possibilities.

isn’t that what reasonable, rational people do?  don’t they look at all the evidence available, especially in a situation where someone kills another human being and claims “self-defense?”

what is reasonable or logical about disappearing Z’s side of the story then?

• Z wanted a safer community
• Z's efforts had previously helped apprehend a home invasion suspect
• Z was sucker-punched by M on his way back to his car
• eyewitness, john good, told police he saw M wailing on Z MMA style before the gunshot
• Z sustained injuries before the gunshot and M did not

for some reason, Z’s version of the story had to wait until AFTER the trial to emerge, but M’s version appeared almost immediately following the tragic incident.

I blame our media.

and what’s been “hard to stomach” is the “certainty of suspicion” of Z from the getgo.  that’s why I wrote the initial FB post – to call attention to our media.  facts be damned (or disappeared), we’ve been told who to hate, and it’s certainly not the kid in the hoodie with the skittles.

all I’m saying is, how can you really be so sure?  

and don’t we have bigger fish to fry than Z?

NAEP DATA SHOW STEADY, 40-YEAR IMPROVEMENT!

have you heard about the incredible gains US students have made on the NAEP for the past forty years?

you're probably not alone if you haven't...  you've probably even heard the opposite.

since most newspapers call the NAEP the 'gold standard' of testing or 'america's report card,' why don't more americans know about it and the tremendous gains our schools have been making since the 70's, especially within our black and hispanic populations?

the fact that these tests are administered every 4 years could be part of the problem, but the most recent data have been released, and instead of these achievements being heralded as a triumph for the american educational system, they were met with massive indifference from our press corp...

shouldn't this be front page on every major newspaper and the leading story on every cable network, especially the so-called "progressive" one?

it's as if americans are only allowed to hear about their schools when the story is either sexy or gloomy.

aside from the washington post breaking rank and gallantly publishing these promising NAEP data, only NBC nightly news deigned to mention the report...  brian williams giving it a a full 68 words, starting with the requisite, "a grim report card..."

shameful.  

then again ABC, PBS, CNN, MSNBC, all took a pass... same with the NYTIMES, NPR, salon, and slate... 

now, when was the last time you heard/saw/read in these same media that US schools are failing?

it's time to change that narrative; a narrative that's been pushed by powerful political forces for forty years.

tell a friend!  OUR SCHOOLS ARE WORKING!!

NAEP scores have been steadily rising for the past 40 years!!!
 

the last practice