Our Irises Came Up Very Nicely This Year

from our backyard
our dog Tooter among the Irises

Gov. Henry Vetoes SB 834 (Yeah!!!)

Oklahoma Gov. Brad Henry vetoed SB 834, by Sen. John Ford, R-Bartlesville and Rep. Tad Jones, R-Claremore. The bill creates the School District Empowerment Program to be administered by the State Department of Education. The bill requires the department to exempt any school district that participates in the program from all statutory requirements and department rules from which charter schools are exempt, except that the district will continue to be required to enroll all students who are residents of the district.

Henry said in his veto message.

"Senate Bill 834 would essentially turn back the clock on much of that important progress and weaken landmark reforms by allowing school administrators to create their own rules and ignore more rigorous state standards, including, but not limited to, the smaller class size mandates championed by former Gov. Henry Bellmon and Oklahoma voters in the historic passage of House Bill 1017 in 1990. SB 834 would also endanger such worthy programs as full-day kindergarten and alternative education in addition to making optional such critical personnel as school librarians and counselors."

It's the Joe and Michelle Show!

If 'Joe the Plumber' has no other function, his is to be able to teach us what it means to be an utter and total idiot! But, wait don't we also have Michelle Bachman fulfilling that role? Maybe, they should consider a revival of the old fashioned comedy team and take their act on the road?" ----- T. H. Bonham

Gay Marriage Becoming No Big Deal?

from Talking Points Memo:
Earlier in this decade, in the heat of the debate over gay marriage in Massachusetts, Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA) predicted that once marriages actually started happening, opponents would realize it just wasn't that big a deal (a very big deal of course to those getting married, but not a big deal in terms of the sky falling down or Western Civilization coming to an end) and it would simply fade away as a political issue. And five years on, that's what seems to be happening.

--Josh Marshall

Happy Mother's Day

Cartoon by Rick Green (my brother) over at "Organized Doodles"

Republican and Democratic Approval Ratings

From Research 2000 via The Daily Kos
FAVORABLE UNFAVORABLE NET CHANGE
PRESIDENT OBAMA 69 (70) 26 (25) -2

PELOSI: 37 (38) 46 (45) -2
REID: 34 (34) 49 (49) -1
McCONNELL: 21 (21) 61 (60) -1
BOEHNER: 16 (16) 63 (62) -1

CONGRESS DEMS: 43 (44) 49 (49) -1
CONGRESS GOPS: 13 (14) 72 (71) -2

DEM PARTY: 53 (54) 41 (40) -2
REP PARTY: 21 (22) 69 (68) -2

Forget about the GOP being the party of the Big Tent. If their approval ratings get any lower, then they will be able to hold their next convention in a pup tent.

National Association of Letter Carriers Food Drive This Saturday

This Saturday is your opportunity to help "Stamp Out Hunger" by participating in the 17th Annual National Association of Letter Carriers Food Drive.

With our economy in recession, more Americans find themselves in need of food assistance. Food pantries nationwide report their resources have been stretched to the breaking point and beyond. We all need to step up and help out.

All you need to do is place a sack of non-perishable food by your mail box, and your Letter Carrier will do the rest.

If you want to go a step beyond, consider volunteering at your neighborhood post office to help sort the food donations as they come in. It's an experience you will remember the rest of your life!

Please help this Saturday. Thanks in advance.

I Got the Scholarship to Begin My National Board Candidacy

I got word yesterday that the Oklahoma Commission for Teacher Preparation accepted my application for the Education Leadership Oklahoma (ELO) scholarship to become a National Board for Teacher Certification candidate. This is a $2500 scholarship that will allow me to prepare, study and present my teaching practices to the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards.

The process begins in Durant, Oklahoma on June 3 when I meet with the other scholarship recepients, 400 in all.

This scholarship is made possible through funding by the state legislature. I want to thank them for this opportunity.

Highlights from Mayflower Congregational May 3, 2009

Choose This Day
Sermon Title: IDOLATRY OR COVENANT?

The Prayer of Confession: Lord of Life, help us to recover the meaning of covenant, and to remember that such relationships are at the heart of what we believe about faith. Whether it is the covenant of marriage, of parenting, of social justice, or of our collective expression of the gospel of compassion--covenant is the answer to idolatry. As we seek to be the beloved community serving others, help us to be a covenant people. In the name of Jesus of Nazareth, our Teacher and Lord we pray, Amen.

Scripture Lesson: Dueteronomy 30: 15-19

See, I set before you today life and prosperity, death and destruction.For I command you today to love the LORD your God, to walk in his ways, and to keep his commands, decrees and laws; then you will live and increase, and the LORD your God will bless you in the land you are entering to possess.

But if your heart turns away and you are not obedient, and if you are drawn away to bow down to other gods and worship them,I declare to you this day that you will certainly be destroyed. You will not live long in the land you are crossing the Jordan to enter and possess.

This day I call heaven and earth as witnesses against you that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Now choose life, so that you and your children may live

Sermon Highlights:

The idea of "covenant" is central to theology. In the story of Israel, when the people of Israel kept covenant, they prospered. When they broke covenant, they perished.

However, covenant was often used to justify conquest, to occupy the "promised land" and kill or enslave those who happened to be living there. Everyone's "promised land" is someone's "present land." "Manifest Destiny" sounds good unless it is your "destiny" is to be conquered. God is NOT in the land grant business. To God, there are NO "chosen people."

What we fail to understand is that this texr shows that thinking about God is undergoing a change. It is a realization that faith is not about making bargains. Instead, our faith is about making a series of choices and facing the consequences of those choices, life or death. It is about "Consequentiality" (although that is not a word recognized by "Spell Check").

We have attempted to turn God into a divine Santa Claus for whom we are not "good for goodness sake," but for the rewards such goodness gains for us. This covenant reminds us that the "ways of life and death are set before us," and that in choosing life we have committed ourselves to certain responsibilities from which we cannot escape.

People have stopped taking responsibility for their actions. Has there been torture going on in Iraq and at Gitmo? It's the work of a few "bad apples," or the legal advice of some "bad lawyers." We even try to shift responsibility on God. Has a city and its people been devastated by a hurricane and flooded because aging levees crumbled? God choose to punish them for being wicked, poor and in the miniority.

If God is responsible for everything, then why has not God fixed things that go wrong? Perhaps we need to realize that God is not to blame.

We make God like us. We like rewards and punishments, so God must. We would reward good guys and punish bad ones according to our judgements, so God must. Our choices must be God's choices. Punishments we endorse must be endorsed by God.

The text warns us that not all choices are valid. Covenant is a two way street. We must choose those things which bring life. We must choose covenant over idolatry. Idolatry says that pleasing God by believing in the right doctrines will bring about rewards.

After 9-11, the ways of life and death were set before us. We could have chosen to follow the path of justice and had the aid of the world in bringing about justice to those who committed that act of terror and mass murder. That would have been he way of life. Instead, we worshipped the idols of revenge and agenda and brought about the deaths of thousands of innocent people and in the process lost our national soul.

We need a Theology of Consequence that will tell us that our choice of the cars we drive, how we care for our farms and lawns, whether or not we eat too much, how we use our wealth demonstrate whether we have chosen life or death, whether we have kept or broken covenant.

God is not Santa, not apart from Creation, but a part of it. As Paul Tillich put it, God is the "Ground of Being." We must choose to act in concert with this Ground of Being. Personal irresponsibility must end if we are to choose the path of life for ourselves and all Creation.

Another Southern Succession?

Why is the South whistling Dixie?
Candorville by Darren Bell
I really like this cartoon series.

10 Reasons Why Gay Marriage Is Wrong

1) Being gay is not natural. Real people always reject unnatural things like eyeglasses, polyester, and air conditioning.

2) Gay marriage will encourage people to be gay, in the same way that hanging around tall people will make you tall.

3) Legalizing gay marriage will open the door to all kinds of crazy behavior. People may even wish to marry their pets because a dog has legal standing and can sign a marriage contract.

4) Straight marriage has been around a long time and hasn't changed at all; women are still property, blacks still can't marry whites, and divorce is still illegal.

5) Straight marriage will be less meaningful if gay marriage were allowed; the sanctity of Brittany Spears' 55-hour just-for-fun marriage would be destroyed.

6) Straight marriages are valid because they produce children. Gay couples, infertile couples, and old people shouldn't be allowed to marry because our orphanages aren't full yet, and the world needs more children.

7) Obviously gay parents will raise gay children, since straight parents only raise straight children.

8) Gay marriage is not supported by religion. In a theocracy like ours, the values of one religion are imposed on the entire country. That's why we have only one religion in the world.

9) Children can never succeed without a male and a female role model at home. That's why we as a society expressly forbid single parents to raise children.

10) Gay marriage will change the foundation of society; we could never adapt to new social norms. Just like we haven't adapted to cars, the service-sector economy, or longer life spans.

100 Days Pun

Lenard Ward, a student in my senior class gave me this good pun.

Many people said that a black man would become president "when pigs fly." One hundred days into the presidency of Barack Obama, SWINE FLEW! (or flu)

My Biggest Classroom Management Problem

The biggest problem I have as a teacher is that my students continually carry on "sidebar" conversations during class time. This means that I am constantly interrupting my lesson to get the students refocused on the task at hand.

I have used all the classroom management methods I have been taught, but nothing seems to work all that well. This includes calling parents to let them know what their children are doing. The parents are very sympathetic and promise to do all they can to deal with their children, but the students' behavior is seldom altered that much.

So what's a teacher to do when classroom conversation makes it nearly impossible to carry on teaching and learning.

Obama's First 100 Days

HAPPY EARTH DAY!

Grand Avenue by

Was Torture Done to Justify Bush's Actions?

Torture Done of Political Purposes?
WASHINGTON — The Bush administration put relentless pressure on interrogators to use harsh methods on detainees in part to find evidence of cooperation between al Qaida and the late Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein's regime, according to a former senior U.S. intelligence official and a former Army psychiatrist.
Such information would've provided a foundation for one of former President George W. Bush's main arguments for invading Iraq in 2003. In fact, no evidence has ever been found of operational ties between Osama bin Laden's terrorist network and Saddam's regime.
McClatchy

I find this to be the most disturbing revelation so far in this on-going investigation. If this is true, then human beings were tortured, not for any needed information they might supply, but to justify a political decision that the Bush administration made.

It is as if, we were to torture business executives to provide proof of fraud and mismanagement.

I have been skeptical of the claim that we need to prosecute Bush officials for authorizing torture. i am begnning to feel that justice demands that we do so.

Another Editorial Cartoon on Torture

by Nick Anderrson

Bison Chess Players at OKC Chess Tournament

Jacori amd Kendel play a practice game before the tournament begins..
Two of our chess players participated in a chess tournament at the Oklahoma City Main Library on Sunday afternoon.
Jacori ponders his next move.
Dan Wade, a fine promoter of scholastic chess in our city, organized the tournament which was the last of a series of tournaments for young people this school year. Dan helps to sponsor a chess club at Wilson Elementary School in the Oklahoma City School District.
Dan Wade of the Wilson Elementary Chess Club
The students had a great time. There were groups of players from Norman Public Schools, Eagle Ridge Institute and many other schools and organizations in central Oklahoma.
My thanks to Dan for putting on the tournament. I also thank the Oklahoma Scholastic Chess Organization for their support of scholastic chess in Oklahoma.

Livin' in Wonderland?

by Steve Benson

Bush Torture and Stalag 17

from Talking Points Memo
A British professor whose research on sleep was cited in one of the just-released Bush administration torture memos has expressed outrage that his work was used to justify extreme sleep deprivation, including keeping subjects awake for up to 11 days.

In an interview with TPMmuckraker, James Horne, a leading authority in the field of sleep research, said he was "surprised and saddened" to see Bush officials "misrepresent" his research to argue that such sleep deprivation does not cause serious harm to its subjects.

In the play Stalag 17, sleep deprivation is used an "enhanced interrogation" techniques against a character named Lieutenant Dunbar, an American officer accused of sabatoging a German train (for only 3 days in the American's case). This leads to an interesting exchange between a Geneva Convention representative and the German officer in charge of the interrogation:

GENEVA MAN
I want to talk about Lieutenant Dunbar. Is this Lieutenant Dunbar?

VON SCHERBACH
It is.

GENEVA MAN
What exactly is he charged with?

VON SCHERBACH
Whatever it is, it's out of your jurisdiction. This man is not a prisoner of war. Not any more. He is a saboteur.

GENEVA MAN
He is a prisoner of war until you can prove sabotage.

DUNBAR
I didn't do it. I was in the Frankfurt station and the train was three miles away when it blew up.

VON SCHERBACH
Oh, come now! You threw a time bomb.

DUNBAR
How could I have had a time bomb? They searched me when they took me prisoner.

GENEVA MAN
And the way you search your prisoners, it does sound rather unlikely.

VON SCHERBACH
All I know is he did it. I am satisfied.

GENEVA MAN
I am not. According to the Geneva Convention --

DUNBAR
Is there anything about letting a guy sleep in the Geneva Convention? [Dunbar shuffles over to the sofa, and plunks himself down -- instantly asleep.]

VON SCHERBACH
(to the Geneva Man)
You were saying --?

GENEVA MAN
Simply this. After the hostilities are ended, there will be such a thing as a War Crimes Commission. If this man should be convicted without proper proof, you will be held responsible, Colonel von Scherbach.

VON SCHERBACH
Interesting.

GENEVA MAN
Isn't it?

As Arte Johnson used to say on Laugh-In Verrry Interesting! Indeed

The Banana Republic of Oklahoma

New Flag of Oklahoma?
The present Republican dominated Oklahoma legislature seems bent on seeing our state attain Third World status ASAP. Not only are they trying to give corporations blanket amenesty in personal injury lawsuits, they also want to inject politics into the Workmen's Compensation process, and strip public school teachers of any academic freedom and due process rights they might have.

It is all a part of the attitude that if we make the powerful more powerful, and reduce the working population to something akin to modern day serfdom, everything will be not only hunky but very, very dorry too. Once our betters are free from those bothersome obligations to respect the human dignity of those who service their needs, then we will obtain capitalistic Nirvana.

I really am having trouble giving my students a reason to remain in Oklahoma after graduation.

One more day as County Chairman

Tomorrow, I will had over the office of Oklahoma County Democratic Party Chairman to someone else. I have enjoyed being chairman, mostly, but I will be happy that someone else has the responsibility for a while.

We managed to raise a good deal of money, and we improved the county's website. I wish we had done better in the last elections, but we were moving against some powerful sources. Oklahoma was a landslide for John McCain. We got caught in it.

I will continue to work in politics, but someone else will have to worry about planning event and gettting people involved in the party.

Good luck to whomever comes after me.

My New Study

It took nearly all of my Spring Break and a good deal of this weekend, but I finally have been able to transform, along with a healthy assist from my wife, a "junk room" into a study. When Cat and I merged our households, most of the books I had in my apartment had to go into storage. Later, I moved them into one of the rooms in the house. So finally I was able to have the time to put up the shelves I needed to unpack the books and get the room cleared out.

It feels great to have my library once again!

Mayflower Church Sermon 3-22-09 "Who Cares?"

Highlights from the March 22, 2009 service at Mayflower Congregational UCC Church. Rev. Robin Meyers, senior pastor.

Title of Sermon: Who Cares?

Scripture Lesson: I John 4: 7-8

Beloved, let us love one another, because love is from God; everyone who loves is born of God and knows God.
Whoever does not love does not know God, for God is love.

Highlights from the Sermon:
At one time, the Church classified sins according to the danger they presented to the human soul. The worst, termed "The Seven Deadly Sins," are usually listed as being pride, avarice, lust, anger, gluttony, envy, and sloth. (These form the basis for most TV mini-series.)

However, the last on the list doesn't sound so deadly to us. We think of it in terms of being a Couch Potato, Dagwood on the sofa. That is until we realize that the Latin word used for this sin is acedia which literally means "without caring", utter apathy.

In order for us to function, we have to tune out some things in order to concentrate on those things to which we should give our attention. Psychologists call this "negative adaptation." The danger comes from when we tune out everything not immediately important to our desires.

The Seven Deadly Sins were so identified because they were thought to be the source of lesser,venial sins. However, Sloth is itself the source of other Deadly Sins. Greed, for example, gets its marching orders from Sloth since Solth causes us to concentrate on ourselves exclusively. This also engenders the sin of Pride come through tuning out the needs and worth of others.

Sloth also corrupts religious devotion. There are far too many people who have just enough relgion to make them feel guilty, but not enough to make them feel responsible for their guilt, responsible in the sense of being "able to respond" to the needs of others.

John's counsel that we "show we are Christians by our love" is a call for us to become the beloved community. We live in a world that is looking for something real. The church's responsiblity is to become such a community. This we show through our love in action.

Robin said that he thanked God most for having found such a community in Mayflower Chruch.

The Advantage of Being the Party Out of Power

You really don't have to do anything.

Perhaps Not, But It Is A Very Good Idea

Grand Avenue by Steve Breen

Highlights from Mayflower Service 3/15/09

Scripture Lesson John 2:13-22 (Jesus drives the moneychangers out of the Temple.)
Relevant passage:

"Take these things out of here! Stop making my Father’s house a market-place!" also "The Jews then said to him, ‘What sign can you show us for doing this?’ 19Jesus answered them, ‘Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.’ 20The Jews then said, ‘This temple has been under construction for forty-six years, and will you raise it up in three days?’ 21But he was speaking of the temple of his body."

Sermon Title: "BERNIE: YOUR NAME IS LEGION"

Thoughts from the message:
Bernie Madoff is an example of the fact that some peoples' names are suggestive of their character since he "made off" with around $65 Billion of his investors' money. One of them was Nobel Prize winner and death camp survivor Elie Wiesel who lost both his personal savings and all of the money from a foundation he headed. Wiesel said, "We thought he was God, we trusted everything in his hands."

Many people are responsible for the financial meltdown we find ourselves in. In a sense, we are all responsible for this because we have come to worship power, money, and fame above all else. Paul Tillich states, "Whatever is your Ultimate Concern becomes your God."

The church bears a special responsibility since to many churches preach as though Jesus is some kind of divine Bernie Madoff. Just worship and praise Jesus, we are told, and we will have material returns beyond measure.

We have forgotten the Jesus who condemned those in the Temple for making money off of God largely from poor people who had to pay money in order to have an acceptable animal for their sacrifice.

We in America, have felt that we somehow have some sort of special relationship to God which entitles us to take actions for which we condemn others. We invade countries on the pretext that they have weapons of mass destruction while ignoring that we have WMDs by the thousands. We condone Israel's killing of innocent civilians in the name of self defense while we condemn others who fight Israel's occupation of their homelands. We allow Israel to lie about have nuclear weapons while we threaten other countries nuclear programs.

We have forgotten Jesus' warning that one Temple does not have any more of a special relationshp to God as any other. "Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up."

The first hymn and last hymn of the service, which came from the UCC Lectionary for this Sunday, were particularly appropriate for this service.

The first was "O God of Earth and Altar" by G.K> Chesterton
The first verse is:

O God of earth and altar,
Bow down and hear our cry,
Our earthly rulers falter,
Our people drift and die;
The walls of gold entomb us,
The swords of scorn divide,
Take not thy thunder from us,
But take away our pride

The last hymn was "God of Grace and God of Glory" by Harry Emerson Fosdick written in 1930 for the opening of the Riverside Church in New York City. I thought this verse very appropriate to the service:

Cure Thy children’s warring madness,
Bend our pride to Thy control.
Shame our wanton selfish gladness,
Rich in things and poor in soul.
Grant us wisdom, grant us courage,
Lest we miss Thy kingdom’s goal,
Lest we miss Thy kingdom’s goal.

Pres. Obama proposes Merit Pay for teachers

President Barack Obama speaks, accompanied by Education Secretary Arne Duncan, right, speaks during an unscheduled visit to a meeting of the Council of Chief State School officers, Tuesday, March 10, 2009, in Washington. (AP Photo/Charles Dharapak)
One way I can tell if an elected official is doing the job she or he is supposed to be doing is that I find myself agreeing with the lawmaker most of the time and disagreeing with the lawmaker part of the time.
Today, President Obama came out in favor merit pay for teachers, paying those teachers who can demonstrate they doing the best jobs, more money. He also said that he favors removing restrictions on charter schools.

I am trying to avoid a knee jerk reaction to this announcement. As they say, the devil is in the details. What I worry about with merit pay is that if the details are badly handled, we may see the best teachers abandoning the inner city schools because the low test scores that often accompany these schools are do to factors mostly out of the teachers' control.

Charter schools are even more problematic for me since in too many cases the teachers in these schools lack the protections of due process that public school teachers have gained, often through years of tough negotiations.

We shall see what the president is proposes and how he expects to fund it. Then we will debate its merits. My suspicions are somewhat allayed by the fact that I have confidence that Obama typically does the right thing in matters of social justice.

Early Spring on the Southern Plains

Blossoming Bradford Pear Trees
The very first harbinger of spring in Oklahoma comes when the Bradford Pear trees blossom. Right now they are in bloom all over OKC.

These trees in bloom bring to my mind one of my favorite poems about another species of flowering tree, the cherry tree.

Loveliest of Trees by A. E. Housman

Loveliest of trees, the cherry now
Is hung with bloom along the bough,
And stands about the woodland ride
Wearing white for Eastertide.

Now, of my threescore years and ten,
Twenty will not come again,
And take from seventy springs a score,
It only leaves me fifty more.

And since to look at things in bloom
Fifty springs are little room,
About the woodlands I will go
To see the cherry hung with snow.

The Republican's Approval Rating Lower than Congress'

from The Daily Kos

Is Anyone Else Celebrating National Pun Day?

I've been doing National Pun Day for about 3 or 4 years now. Since I've been blogging about it, I have gotten several "hits" from those using the title "National Pun Day" as a search term.

I am curious, is anyone out there celebrating National Pun Day? I would like to see the date become something of a recognized occasion much as "Talk Like a Pirate Day" (September 19) became more or less nationally recognized.

So if you are doing something for NPD, let me know, or if you have ideas on how this celebration of word play could be celebrated, please write me. You can use the "Comments" section or send me an e-mail at greenlynn@hotmail.com.

Welcome to National Pun Day: 50 Swifties

Disarmingly Beautiful
Today is National Pun Day. One of my favorite types of puns are called "Tom Swifties." These are puns where the eponymous Tom makes a statement in a manner that is linked to the statement. In other words, the adverb used in the statement's speaker tags, the "Tom said" part, has a connection to what Tom said. For example: "Venus de Milo is a beautiful statue," Tom said disarmingly.Here are 49 other Tom Swifties:

"I've had my left and right ventricles removed," Tom said half-heartedly.
"I think my tires are bald," Tom said warily.
"I hate milking cows," Tom uttered.
"I put all my money into an IRA," Tom said interestedly.
"I don't think that leprechaun is telling the truth," Tom implied.
"I think that wasp is in pain," Tom bemoaned.
"I took out the trash," Tom said literally.
"This dinner is made from young calves," Tom revealed.
"I cut my dog's toenails too far," Tom said quickly.
"You're burning the candle at both ends," Tom said wickedly.
"I hope I can still play the guitar," Tom fretted.
"I feel like a big black bird," Tom crowed.
"My tongue feels numb," Tom said distastefully.
"I want to renew my membership," Tom rejoined.
"My grape juice has fermented," Tom whined.
"Don't try to pull the wool over my eyes," Tom said sheepishly.
"Stop your sniveling," Tom decried.
"Someone removed all the twos from this deck," Tom deduced.
"I just love power failures," Tom said delightfully.
"It's 3 a.m.," Tom said mournfully.
"Thanks for shredding the cheese," Tom said gratefully.
"I love Velveeta," Tom said craftily.
"It's two, two, two mints in one," Tom said certainly.
"Who was pope before John Paul I?" Tom asked piously.
"The river has gotten rough," Tom said rapidly.
"You can't go faster than the speed of sound," Tom said mockingly.
"I'm as busy as a bee," Tom droned.
"Those ants will never get in here," Tom said defiantly.
"Please put some folds in these trousers," Tom pleaded.
"Why do you want me to act like Gilda Radner's husband?" Tom asked bewilderingly.
"I have plenty of do's but no don'ts," Tom said dauntlessly.
"I have forgotten the german word for 'four'" Tom said fearlessly.
"Someone stole my wheels," Tom said tirelessly.
"Hallelujah," Tom said handily.
"I just won 1000 dollars," Tom said grandly.
"All that's left are the front and back," Tom said decidedly.
"Where can I find a copper figure of Lincoln?" Tom asked innocently.
"I only have 8 bits," Tom said bitingly.
"My sign is cancer, what's my horoscope?" Tom asked crabbily.
"What's in the middle of an egg?" Tom asked eccentrically.
"I'm covered in blood," Tom said readily.
"I've found the pens used to sign the civil war surrender," Tom said pensively.
"I think someone electrified the corridor," Tom said haltingly.
"There are tiny bugs in the dust," Tom said mightily.
"Hey, Vern! Knowhutimean?" Tom said earnestly.
"I unclogged the kitchen sink with a vacuum cleaner," Tom said succintly.
"My clothes are pressed," Tom said ironically.
"What's that reddish stuff on the cannon?" Tom asked rusticly.
"How come my clock only makes 'toc's?" Tom asked mystically.

National Pun Day is Tomorrow!

Top Secret
Tomorrow is March 4th, which I have designated "National Pun Day."

The reason why I chose this day was that the date is itself a pun. In fact, it is the answer to a riddle I learned as a child: What is the date that soldiers hate the most? (Just say the date above out loud and you will get it.)

So tomorrow, we will play with homophones, word puzzles, visual puns, and other language games.

I have prizes for students who participate. I hope to increase their love of language.

I Was Liberal Before Liberal Was Cool!

from Talking Point Memos

Over the weekend, Mark Leibovich had an interesting an entertaining piece in the Times on how "socialism" has become the Republicans' new all-purpose smear word attacking Obama in particular and Democrats generally.

Now, you can have a whole conversation about whether ramping marginal tax rates back to where they were in the go-go 1990s really constitutes socialism. But a different point occurred to me when I read the piece. I think this is probably the best evidence there is that the 'liberal' label simply doesn't have the punch that it had going back a good thirty years in American politics.

If it did, they'd still be using it, since it at least has some relationship to reality. But it doesn't, so they're not.

--Josh Marshall

10 things you should know about Obama's plan (but probably don't)

from MoveOn.Org
The plan:

1. Makes a $634 billion down payment on fixing health care that will go a long way toward paying for a more efficient, more affordable health care system that covers every single American.

2. Reduces taxes for 95% of working Americans. And if your family makes less than $250,000, your taxes won't go up one dime.

3. Invests more than $100 billion in clean energy technology, creating millions of green jobs that can never be outsourced.

4. Brings our troops home from Iraq on a firm timetable, finally bringing the war to a close—and freeing up almost ten billion dollars a month for domestic priorities.

5. Reverses growing income inequality. The plan lets the Bush tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans expire and focuses on strengthening the middle class.

6. Closes multi-billion-dollar tax loopholes for big oil companies.

7. Increases grants to help families pay for college—the largest increase ever.

8. Halves the deficit by 2013. President Obama inherited a legacy of huge deficits and an economy in shambles, but his plan brings the deficit under control as soon as the economy begins to recover.

9. Dramatically increases funding for the SEC and the CFTC—the agencies that police Wall Street.

10. Tells it straight. For years, budgets have used accounting tricks to hide the real costs of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Bush tax cuts, and too many other programs. Obama's budget gets rid of the smokescreens and lays out what America's priorities are, what they cost, and how we're going to pay for them.

Reason to work for a cure for breast cancer

My friend Erma Stewart sent this one my way. It makes a serious point in a humorous fashion. I believe the term for this technique is "Dulce et Utile": Sweet and Useful.

Tom Warns Us About Rush, Bill, Sean, and their fellow Fanatics

Thomas Jefferson

In the fevered state of our country, no good can ever result from any attempt to set one of these fiery zealots to rights, either in fact or principle. They are determined as to the facts they will believe, and the opinions on which they will act. Get by them, therefore, as you would by an angry bull; it is not for a man of sense to dispute the road with such an animal.

GOP Strategy Isn't Working So Far

The GOP strategy of trying to obstruct Obama's recovery program at every term, being "The Party of NO", doesn't seem to be gathering much favor with the American people. Here are the lastest Favorable/Unfavorable ratings with last week's ratings in parenthesis courtesy of The Daily Kos.

FAVORABLE UNFAVORABLE NET CHANGE
PRESIDENT OBAMA 69(68) 25(25) +1

PELOSI: 43(42) 39(39) +1
REID: 33(32) 41(42) +2
McCONNELL: 23(22) 51(50) +0
BOEHNER: 17(18) 54(55) +0

CONGRESS DEMS: 41(39) 53(53) +2
CONGRESS GOPS: 18(19) 70(69) -2

DEMOCRATIC PARTY: 57(56) 38(37) +0
REPUBLICAN PARTY: 31(31) 62(61) -1
Full Article Here

No, I think it's Murdock

Last Word in the Cartoon Controversy

Oklahoma County Democrats had a great Medallion Dinner

Once again we had another great Medallion Dinner. The Medallion is the biggest fundraiser the Oklahoma County Democratic Party has each year. This year we celebrated the victory of Barack Obama as president and former State Senator Angela Monson's victory in the Oklahoma City Public School school board chairman election. We do not know yet how much money was raised, but a great time was had by all.

Congratulations to our Medallion Award Winners: Linda James and Jack Farley of LL James Printing; Patti Bessen, Political Director for American Federation of Teachers, Local 2309; The Oklahoma County Stonewall Democrats; Change Oklahoma with Susan McCann, Jeremiah Elix, and Terry Thompson; and Victor Gorin, volunteer extraordinaire.

We also awarded our Male and Female Volunteers of the Year. The male was Carl Downing for a lifetime of service to the Democratic Party and Pam Paul for her work on the county web page and the listserv.

Paricular thanks needs to go to Ellen Stevens for her hard work to make this a great Medallion.

Will "President" Replace the N-Word?

I don't know how seriously to take this, but I wish it would catch on.

Cartoons and the Politics of Violence

Controversial Cartoon from the NY Post
The New York Post and, particularly, one of their cartoonists, Sean Delonas, have stirred up much controversy over printing the above cartoon. Many feel that the cartoon uses a racist term to refer to Barack Obama since Obama has been the moving force behind the Stim Plan. The Post and Delonas refuse to apologize for the cartoon. Delonas claims that Obama is not the target of the cartoon which alludes to a chimpaneze shot in Conneticut though he seems to admit that one could infer that he is refering to Nancy Pelosi (as if this mitigates anything at all).

Defenders of the cartoon point out that several times Bush had direct images of him that made the former president look Simian.

However, I would like to point out that a possible racist image is not the sole problem with the cartoon. There is also the implication that violence is a viable poltical solution.

For example, imagine that this cartoon had appeared while Bush was still president and it had the following caption instead.
"Well, I guess Dick Cheney's now the president."
All of a sudden, it's not so funny. In fact, I would imagine that the cartoonist would have some 'splaining' to do the the Secret Service. Perhaps, the "Silent Service" should look in on Mr. Delonas.

Cold Number Two

Well, I managed, somehow, to get another cold. I thought it was only one per customer per season. The only difference I can tell between this cold and the one I got a few weeks ago is that this one seems to be mainly in my chest while the other was more in my sinuses.

Chest colds concern me more, particularly at my age, because of the danger of coming down with pneumonia. So I have been coughing liberally (how else would I cough?). And I've been watching for any signs in difficulty with breathing. So far so good, but I am thinking that I will take off another day from school just to be on the safe side.

There was a time when I toughed these things out, but I often made myself worse in doing so. There is also the danger of spreading my bugs to others. So I think erring on the side of caution works out best for all.

Thank the Lord for sick days in our contract.

Angela Monson and Gail Vines Sworn-In as School Board Members

Angela Monson takes the oath of office as the newly elected chair of the Oklahoma City Public School Board
Monday evening, former state senator Angela Monson was sworn in as the 3rd chairman for the Oklahoma City Public Schools, Board of Education in a ceremony at the school board auditorium before a large and enthusiastic crowd. Ms. Monson challenged those attending to "get involved" in the district. "This is just the beginning of our journey to create a school district that serves the needs of all our students," she told those present. Monson won her position in an election against incumbent school board chair, Kirk Humphries. She is the third person to hold the position of chairman since the office was created by a the Oklahoma legislature.
Gail Vines takes the oath of office for School Board District Two Representative
Also sworn in were Lynn Watson who is the newly elected representative for District One and Gail Vines who was unopposed in her bid for a second term in District Two.

Oklahoma County Judge Vicki Miles LaGrange administered the oath of office to all the officials.

My Valentine's Poem for My Wife

I wrote a poem for my Valentine's Day gift to my wife. It's not very good, but I had a lot of fun writing it, and she enjoyed getting it.

Like a compass needle always points northward.
So do I always bend towards you,
My Love, my own True North.

Though roads may bend right, then left
As I travel my way through many obligations
And obstacles, I find my paths bending to you.

You are my ever fixed point that guides
My paths, the center providing the calm
From the storms that rise, then fall,
My anchor through the ebbs and swells.

Republicans LIKE "Activist Judges"????

from The Daily Kos
If you wanted more evidence at the skin-deep adherence to it's so-called "core values", watch the Minnesota Republican Party suddenly decide it wants activist judges, rather than strict constructionists.

[Norm] Coleman lawyer James Langdon said that the Franken team "would have you sit in a vacuum, strictly interpreting a statute," without taking into account the facts that have come into the court and shown just how complicated this all is. He also said that the circumstances of this case were "creating penumbras" around the written law.

"Penumbras"? The Supreme Court found a right to privacy in Grisswold v. Connecticut by findind that...

specific guarantees in the Bill of Rights have penumbras, formed by emanations from those guarantees that help give them life and substance

Of course, that sentence has been mocked and attacked by the Right (especially among the anti-abortion crowd) as judicial overreach. In fact, it's exhibit A in their attacks on "activist judges" who should instead strictly interpret the law, rather than create it. Yet here is a Republican leaning on that same language to try and get the court to rewrite state law. Call the Federalist Society, STAT!
full article from The Daily Kos