More Puns for National Pun Day!

Palm Pilot
1. Two antennas meet on a roof, fall in love and get married. The ceremony wasn't much, but the reception was excellent.

2. Two hydrogen atoms walk into a bar. One says, "I've lost my electron." The other says, "Are you sure?" The first replies, "Yes, I'm positive..."

3. A jumper cable walks into a bar. The bartender says, "I'll serve you,but don't start anything."

4. Two peanuts walk into a bar, and one was a salted. A sandwich walks into a bar. The bartender says, "Sorry we don't serve food in here."

5. A dyslexic man walks into a bra.

6. A man walks into a bar with a slab of asphalt under his arm and says: "A beer please, and one for the road."

7. Two cannibals are eating a clown. One says to the other: "Does this
Taste funny to you?"

8. Two cows standing next to each other in a field, Daisy says to Dolly, "I was artificially inseminated this morning." "I don't believe you," said Dolly. "It's true, no bull!" exclaimed Daisy.

9. An invisible man marries an invisible woman. The kids were nothing to look at either.

10. Deja Moo: The feeling that you've heard this bull before.

I have given you 10 puns in hopes that one has made you smile, but if not, the "NO PUN IN TEN DID!"

Happy National Pun Day!

Pool Table
Tap Dancers
Happy National Pun Day. "Metaphors be with you!"

Here are some more Homophone puns. What do you call a(n)?
1. braver rock
2. hurled royal chair
3. sugary collection of rooms
4. rowing team's ship tour
5. conceited blood channel
6. window glass agony
7. grieving at dawn
8. single animating essence
9. boarder gossip
10. solar's offsprings
11. catcalls for alcohol
12. mansion's etiquette
13. stick for roasting beef
14. first day ice cream treat
15. officer's seeds
16. maculine postal items
17. male float
18. medieval darkness
19. inactive false god
20. prognosticator's gain
I gave 100 of these to my students. The ones who get at least 25 right, get a prize.

Highlights from Robin Meyer's Sermon Today

We Who Are Strong Ought to Bear the Infirmities of Those Who Are Weak

Sermon Title: WE WHO ARE STRONG

Text: We then that are strong ought to bear the infirmities of the weak, and not to please ourselves.--Romans 15:1 (King James Version)

Note that in this verse Paul uses a personal pronoun, not an indefinite one. "We," not "Someone" must bear the burden. I note that Paul uses a first person plural pronoun; therefore, the responsibility is at the same time personal and collective. I must do my part, and society, including the government, must do its part.

The weak should not be asked to subsidize the indulgences of the strong as is the case with the attempt to use the city sales tax to lure an NBA team.

Calling the vote, an attempt to become a "Big League City" is an example what George Orwell decried when he said, "The great enemy of clear language is insincerity."

Paul does not speculate on why the poor are poor. There is no distinction between the "deserving" and "undeserving" poor. In the Bible, poverty is a condition, not a case study.

The verse, "The poor you shall have with you always" should never be seen, as it often is, as a reason to escape our responsibilities to the poor. Because the poor are always with us, there is always work for us to do.

Throughout his ministry, Jesus was most concerned about the poor. How we respond to them shows just how real our faith is. We love because we have been loved ourself.

Most people have just enough religion to make them feel guilty but not responsible for what they should be doing.

Being a Christian is about how one carries oneself in the community rather than what one believes. The world needs more grace, not more creeds.

Looking Ahead Part IV: Leading a democratic School District

What does it mean to lead an American school district? One of the chief considerations is that American public schools are by design democratic in nature. (Note the small "d") By this I mean that we have in no true sense of the term, a national school system as can be found in countries like Japan, Germany, or China, countries to which American school children are often unfavorably compared.

We do have a Federal Department of Education, but if the Secretary of Education were to say, "All elementary students in America must be taught phonics.", the thousands of school districts in this country would be free to ignore the mandate and set their own curriculum. Nor do we have any sort of national pass examination as is the case in Germany where students take exams to determine whether they will be allowed to go into the country's college prep schools (the "Gymnasium") or into one of the vocational schools (Hauptschule, Realschule). (Once we had a group of teachers from Germany visitng our school under an exchange program. One of them remarked to us, "I don't see how you can teach a class with students who have so many different levels of intelligence in it.")

States have more control over the schools than does the federal government since they provide more direct funding and can set standards like the school year, the graduation requirements, teacher certification requirements and so forth. However, the real power resides in the local school boards who set the curriculum, oversea the administration, make decisions on attendance zones and aprove all purchasing.

In America, we like this local control and the fact that we avoid "tracking" children. We like to feel as if any child can, if the child chooses, go onto college or technical training after high school. We like to feel that this reflects our values of individual initiative, free enterprise, and personal liberty. However, our methodology is not without cost.

For one, American schools try to give every child, regardless of aptitude or intelligence level, the equivalency of a college prep education. We try to make concessions to those who do not have the intelligence or the desire to go on to college through offering special education courses and vocational/technical training, but our core curriculum is geared towards college prep.

We are thus admonished to hold "high standards" in our teaching, but at the same time leave no child "behind" the others. To do this, we are told to account for "multiple intelligences" do "interventions" on behalf of struggling students, and allow for "grade recovery" for those in danger of failing. (This is a part of the many mixed messages teachers get from those outside the classroom. I will address this problem in a later post.)

The result often is a sort of school that resembles the procedure used by the Merchant Marines during World War II where a convoy of Liberty Ships could only go as fast as the slowest ship in the convey so it would not be, well, "Left Behind!" Teachers, for the most part, do not teach to the slowest student in their classes, but they cannot teach only for to the "brightest and best" because that would deny those at the botton to their right to a proper college prep curriculum.

Another problem associated with a democratic school district is that as the local boards are free to ignore the directions of the Secretary of Education (sometimes at the risk of losing Federal Government funding), administrators and teachers often ignore the directions of superintendents (sometimes at the risk of their positions). This is why those who would model schools after businesses make a false analogy. In public school systems, especially urban schools, there is often more attention paid to due process on the part of administrators, teachers, parents, and even the students themselves. Some superintendents try to ignore this factor, but they do not tend to stay around for very long. A well know teacher attitude is "I was teaching before this guy came to the district. I'll be teaching when they get enough of him, and he leaves." I think part of the reason for our "short tenured" superintendents can be traced to this fact.

The most effective superintendents appear to me to be the ones who use a kind of "carrot and stick" approach: equal parts of praise and admonishment. Perhaps I like this because it matches my own approach to teaching as I discussed in my post where I described the fact that I tend to be tough on myself at times and forgiving at others. However, this seems to me the kind of approach that works in a democratic school system. We cannot ignore the need for change, and this requires vision, direction, and, yes, a little "butt kicking." Yet one cannot be negative all the time. One must look for the good and praise it. There must be proding and healing from the same source.

To me, this provides an additional reason to hire an "Insider" as our next superintendent. That person must be able to understand just where we are and how much we need to do to get to where we hope to be. As I have discussed before, this is what rhetoricians term "Ethos" or credibility. And as Aristotle pointed out his book The Rhetoric, Ethos is primary to any attempt to persuade, to lead, and to change. Without credbility, change is nigh to impossible.

Lives in Our Drives

One of my responsibilities is that of chairman of the Oklahoma County Democratic Party. Today at the "Speaker's Luncheon" our party holds each Friday at the Boulevard Cafeteria, I took a turn as the speaker giving what I called the "State of the County Party" address. I made some opening remarks which I have reprinted here:

Before I begin, I would like to reflect on why we are involved in this business called “politics.” I first got involved in union politics when I ran for job of political direction of the AFT in 1996 and then ran for the position of county secretary in 2003. But like most of you, I have been involved in various activities long before that.

Some times, politics can seem like a game or sport we play. We engage ourselves in contest, we work to win votes like so many points on the scoreboard, and we hope that through our efforts we win and the other guys lose. Someone like me, who was never athletic, can be rightly accused of using politics as a “sports substitute.”

But that’s really just the surface stuff of what we are doing, the method to get what each of us earnestly desires: a society where human dignity is upheld as our highest goal, a society where “justice for all” is more than just words we mumble over when we say the Pledge to the Flag. We must always be aware that our actions have real purpose. What we do and whom we elect may mean that a child, born into poverty, can be vaccinated against preventable diseases, and that child can receive the pre-school education she needs to stand on equal footing with any other child in this state. Our work may mean that a family can stop using the emergency room doctors as their primary care physicians. That a soldier who has fought in a war he didn’t create can find healing for wounds of both body and mind. That a single mother who works a full time job does not find herself at the end of each month falling further and further into debt and despair. That an elder, a member of the Greatest Generation, having built this Great Nation we all love, does not have to choose between buying groceries and buying prescription drugs.

When I was a lad growing up in a preacher’s home, we had Sunday School attendance contests and Membership Drives trying to increase the people attending church. We were frequently reminded that what we were doing was more than just a numbers game to outdo other churches. We were admonished, “There are Souls in our Goals.” Well, when you are asked to take part in a political activity, talk to strangers in person or over the phone, volunteer time and effort, give money, remember when you are asked to take part in a political drive of some sort, There are lives in our Drives. I know you will do your part.

Sometimes You Just Shake Your Head

I have a friend of mine who teaches English at another Oklahoma City high school. He is a fine teacher. His students do well on the district and state tests. However, for various reasons an assistant adminstrator at the school has taken a particular dislike to him and is determined to harass him out of his position there.

The administrator does this by constantly questioning and criticizing his teaching methods. Like the other day, she observed his classroom and noticed that his lesson objective was to "Compare and Contrast" three American authors whose names the teacher had written on the board up front.

After the lesson, the administrator came to the teacher and wanted to know why the teacher had not followed through on his lesson plan. "Why did you not have the students compare and contrast these Black Authors?" The teacher explained that the students were gathering information on the authors and would do the comparison and contrast based on their information during their subsequent lesson.

And the three "Black" authors in question:
Bret Harte
Stephen Crane
Jack London

What Do You Call A Naked Grizzly?

OK Centennial High School students will participating in our 1st Annual (we hope) "National Pun Day Contest".

One part of the contest will be to try to figure out "Homophone Puns" from clues like the one above. The list is taken from Richard Lederer's book Get Thee to a Punnery published by Wyrick.

How many of these can you figure out? All of them are "homophone puns" or two words that sound the same but have different meanings and usually different spellings. The answer will be on the "Comments" page.

What do you call a(n):

1. female deer sleep

2. insect relative

3. rabbit fur

4. tiresome pig

5. line of fish eggs

6. appendage story

7. wildcat's chain parts

8. ostracized poet

9. spun globe

10. rogue's section of a church

BTW, you call a Naked Grizzly, a "Bare Bear," of course.

How to Help Urban Schools

Grand Avenue
My teacher's union, the American Federation of Teachers, is seeking input on what should be done to improve student achievement in urban schools. My response was to expand alternative education opportunities for students who cannot operate in a traditional school environment due to their lack of self-discipline and social skills. These students make teaching and learning nearly impossible. Teachers have to worry more about managing their classes than they do educating their students.

Let me know what you think.

Good Grief! Nader's Running Again

Nader's Nadir?
Ralph Nader once again has thrown his hat into the presidential ring. His stated reasons are the usual ones given by fringe elements of the political spectrum: the two major parties have no distinquishing differences, the corporations are in charge of both, yahda, yahda, yahda, yahda. I see why President Truman considered his greatest grief came not from conservative, but from those he termed "professional liberals."

I guess it is true that "those who do not have eyes cannot see." Nader must have had his head in the sand or some other orifice for the last 8 years. Perhaps he doesn't want to own up to his personal responsibility in creating the mess we now have in this country. Had Al Gore been allowed to win the state of Florida, and therefore the presidency without dispute, then we would have a much different America than we now have. Perhaps we would not be fighting a two front war in the Middle East,we would not have seen our civil liberties under constant attack, and the rest of the world would certainly not hold us in the contempt they do today.

One question I would ask Ralph if I could is, why the presidency? Why would someone with no experience in elective office believe that he could even be president? Run for Congress or the Senate. Find out what it is like to have to appeal to a constituency that goes beyond the hothouse of your little inner circle. Then apply those lessons to a run for the White House.

Get into the world the rest of us live in Ralph!

My Niece Was Accepted!

Got some great news this weekend. My niece, Jeneva, was accepted into the School of Drama at the University of Oklahoma! This means we will be seeing much more of her and her parents, Ed and Cheryl.

The family has a son who is a soldier in Iraq now. He is getting married this summer, so I'd appreciate any prayers for his safe return.

Oklahoma Democratic Party Convention This Weekend

On Friday and Saturday, I attended the Oklahoma Democratic Party State Convention at the Marriott Hotel on Northwest Expressway. The main purpose of the convention was to elect our state delegation to the Democratic National Convention in Denver, Colorade.

We were told that we are the first state in the nation to complete this process, so, technically speaking, Hillary is in the lead since she won the majority of our alloted delegates during the state primary at the beginning of the month.

Mostly, this is a time to fellowship as Oklahoma Democrats, and to hear news about what is happening at the state level. The biggest news, other than the delegate selection, was that for the first time since the Brad Carson fiasco of 2002, our party is out of debt and in the black! This is a major accomplishment for our state party chairman Ivan Holmes who has had to work without salary and a very limited staff since his election to his office at the 2007 convention. Quite an accomplishment for Ivan. He also announced that we will most likely field a candidate for all 101 state House Districts and probably will do so for the Senate districts up for election.

Some pictures from the convention:
Democrats gathering together before the convention
Wilfredo Rivera, Oklahoma City Public Schools Schoolboard Member and announced candidate for OK House District 93
US Representative Dan Boren of Congressional District 2

John McCain and Lobbyists

Friend of the Special Interests?
McCain is running into some trouble in his campaign with his relationship with lobbyists. First, there is the report of him have a rather "cozy" relationship with a female lobbyist and then there are the lobbyists he has running his campaign. McCain may find that his biggest opponent is himself.

More Rumors

Actually, this first one is sorta in the prelim stage of discussion. Some of the parents at Classen SAS want to turn the school into an "Enterprise School" as has been done with Belle Isle Middle School. Classen is already a "specialty school" with is OKC School Districtese for a school that can take who they want and reject who they don't want and kick out anyone who doesn't measure up. (My wife, Cat, says they get a lot of former Classen kids over at Northwest Classen this way.)

If Classen was an Enterprise School, thing would be pretty much the same except that the school's parents would have more control over the money they get for buying stuff. They could also secure a "patron" who could support the school, so if, say, Sonic Corp wanted to sponsor Classen, they could do it without jumping through many of the hoops with which other schools have to deal.

Some of the teachers at Classen are nervous, but teachers at Enterprise Schools still fall under the protection of the district's teacher contract unlike those at Charter Schools who have no such protection and have to worry about offending some or more of the parents and patrons who have organized the charter.

My question is, if this is good for schools like Classen, Belle Isle, then why isn't it good for all our schools? Why do some schools get to "cherry pick" while the rest of us have to deal with whoever shows up?

Jeb's Confection Creations-Hmmm Good

I noted in an earlier post that I had my wife's sister and her husband staying with us over the weekend. My brother-in-law, Ed, brought with him, a very welcome present: sweeties! He created a Valentine's gift basket that included chocolates and a very tasty confection that consisted on a cookie on a stick dipped in milk chocolate and decorated with white chocolate swirls. My wife indulged my sweet tooth and sent one with me to school. I had several of my students offer me money for it, but I reserved the pleasure of its goodness for my lunch time. I can heartily recommend the experience!

Ed is starting a side-line business with his confectionary skills which he calls "Jeb's Confection Creations." The goodies would make very appreciated gifts. They could even be used as fundraisers. You can get in touch with Ed at 918-461-2125 or at jebthree@valornet.com.

I don't have a picture of his creations, but as soon as I get one, I'll post it for you.

The Race for the Nominaton

Obama's on a roll. Time for Hillary to fold?

Rumored School Closings: "The Mulligan Gambit ?"

The latest rumors concerning school closings in the Oklahoma City School District are as follows: Northeast High School and Douglas High School will be merged. The recommended plan is to have Norteast retain its Magnet School status. Just how this will work out, I do not know. Also, Southeast High School and Capitol Hill High School will merge. Southeast will lose its Magnet School designation.

It appears to me that this is an attempt to do an "End Run" around NCLB. The schools in question have not made "Adequate Yearly Progress" (AYP) for five years. If the school does not make AYP for a fifth year, the district must initiate plans for restructuring the school. This may include reopening the school as a charter school, replacing all or most of the school staff, or turning over school operations either to the state or to a private company with a demonstrated record of effectiveness.

Merging schools can be seen as an attempt to comply with this requirement. This way, the district can claim that these are new schools which begins the whole process anew. Something like this was accomplished with opening "New John Marshall" and creating our school, Oklahoma Centennial.

Think of it as the educational equivalent of a "Mulligan" in golf.

Anyone who works in schools can relate to this!

Gramd Avenue


I think I have said before how much I love this cartoon strip.

Having Family Over This Weekend

My brother and sister-in-law along with their daughter, my niece, are staying with us this weekend. My niece has been accpeted at the University of Oklahoma and hopes to get into their drama program. She is particularly interesting in sets and costuming and brought a portfolio of her work to show those in charge of admitting students to the program.

Her designs looked very good to this untrained eye, but the competiton is very stiff. My brother-in-law told me that only about 40-45 students are accepted out of the over 2400 who typically apply.

I have been very fortunate in the set of in-laws I have now. You cannot pick your relatives, but I have had the benefit of a good draw. Most of my immediate family lives very far away from me, mostly in the Pacific Northwest, so we do not see each other as much as we would like. I have a brother pastoring in South Texas, Bryan to be precise, and we should get together more often.

However, Time and Opportunity are two sisters who seldom get together much in my life these days. I guess I should make a greater effort to bring them together. Who know how much of either I have left in my life.

Ben Franklin Chess Player

Benjamin Franklin

I have been reading a fascinating book entitled The Immortal Game: A History of Chess by David Shenk. He talks about the origins of chess somewhere in India 1500 years ago, and shows how the game evolved through cultures and time to its present form and strategies.

Right now, I am reading the chapters that deal with chess during "The Enlightenment" which covers roughly the latter half of the 17th Century up to the end of the 18th Century, give or take a decade or two. One person who figures prominently in that era was Benjamin Franklin who loved the game and became so good at it, he outstripped most good players in America. Some have seen his willingness to live in France as the American ambassador as partly due to the fact that he could find more worthy opponents there.

Franklin even used chess in his diplomatic efforts to persuade the French to aid the Americans in the Revolutionary War. Once Franklin was playing chess with a woman who made a move that exposed her king. Franklin then proceeded to capture the king. The duchess, knowing the proper rules to chess, said, "We do not take Kings so." Franklin responded, "We do in America."

Chess set owned by Benjamin Franklin

Franklin also wrote an essay called "The Morals of Chess":
Ben Franklin on "The Morals of Chess

Rumors, Rumors, Rumors

No, not this kind of rumor!

There are rumors that several Oklahoma City high schools face closure. The places I have heard so far are Northeast, Capitol Hill, and Southeast. The reasons range from under utilizaton to problems with No Child Left Behind. If anyone can enlighten me on this, please e-mail me at greenlynndemocrat@yahoo.com.

I'll let you know when I know.