Thursday, January 26, 2006

results

I am, so far, getting some good results out of my American Foreign Policy students.
We have entered an editorial essay contest offered by the US Holocaust Memorial Museum.
The contest is on the Genocide in Darfur, Sudan. If you don't know anything about the situation in Darfur go to this link:

US Holocaust Memorial Museum


Otherwise, my back hurts, I'm training everyday, the weather's ok, and I hate you.

This is DD, the Haitian Wonder Mechanic

Friday, January 20, 2006

wow

Wow, what a week.
I rode too hard and I hurt.
I didn't kill anyone, so the week wasn't that bad.

When my students ask me why I don't have kids I reply,
"I have 60 kids, why do I need any more."

The week:
MLK, snow, rain, 10 degrees, 60 mile-per-hour winds, ambulances, ladder trucks (that's a type of firetruck,) cops, sleet, death, manhattans, birth, 60 degrees, bull cock.

Monday, January 16, 2006

It is unfortunately still true today.

Protesting The War
Meanwhile we in the churches and synagogues have a continuing task while we urge our government to disengage itself from a disgraceful commitment. We must continue to raise our voices if our nation persists in its perverse ways in Vietnam. We must be prepared to match actions with words by seeking out every creative means of protest possible.

As we counsel young men concerning military service we must clarify for them our nation's role in Vietnam and challenge them with the alternative of conscientious objection. I am pleased to say that this is the path now being chosen by more than seventy students at my own alma mater, Morehouse College, and I recommend it to all who find the American course in Vietnam a dishonorable and unjust one. Moreover I would encourage all ministers of draft age to give up their ministerial exemptions and seek status as conscientious objectors. These are the times for real choices and not false ones. We are at the moment when our lives must be placed on the line if our nation is to survive its own folly. Every man of humane convictions must decide on the protest that best suits his convictions, but we must all protest.
There is something seductively tempting about stopping there and sending us all off on what in some circles has become a popular crusade against the war in Vietnam. I say we must enter the struggle, but I wish to go on now to say something even more disturbing. The war in Vietnam is but a symptom of a far deeper malady within the American spirit, and if we ignore this sobering reality we will find ourselves organizing clergy- and laymen-concerned committees for the next generation. They will be concerned about Guatemala and Peru. They will be concerned about Thailand and Cambodia. They will be concerned about Mozambique and South Africa. We will be marching for these and a dozen other names and attending rallies without end unless there is a significant and profound change in American life and policy. Such thoughts take us beyond Vietnam, but not beyond our calling as sons of the living God.

In 1957 a sensitive American official overseas said that it seemed to him that our nation was on the wrong side of a world revolution. During the past ten years we have seen emerge a pattern of suppression which now has justified the presence of U.S. military "advisors" in Venezuela. This need to maintain social stability for our investments accounts for the counter-revolutionary action of American forces in Guatemala. It tells why American helicopters are being used against guerrillas in Colombia and why American napalm and green beret forces have already been active against rebels in Peru. It is with such activity in mind that the words of the late John F. Kennedy come back to haunt us. Five years ago he said, "Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable."

Increasingly, by choice or by accident, this is the role our nation has taken -- the role of those who make peaceful revolution impossible by refusing to give up the privileges and the pleasures that come from the immense profits of overseas investment.

Dr. Martin Luther King, April 4, 1967, at a meeting of Clergy and Laity Concerned at Riverside Church in New York City

1 year before he was murdered. hmmmmmmm.

Here is a mp3 of the speech:

  • MLKVietnam
  • Friday, January 13, 2006

    AHHH!!

    Friday means a bunch of the teachers have a "meeting" after school.
    We had a few refreshments, discussed and assigned duties for creating a scholarship in Joe's name, and blew off some tension from a week teaching pulic high-school in Boston.
    (Joe is a colleague who died after a short battle with cancer last year. He was a major influence in our school)

    Seth and I went to the boys basketball game to watch them fold just after we arrived. I guess we are bad luck.
    I better test that theory next week. Go Cougars!!

    Now I sit here catching up on the afternoon, preparing for the night. Tomorrow my rents are visiting and we are taking them out to the Helmand, an amazing afghani restaurant in East Cambridge, tomorrow for their anniversary. Emilie is making cheese-cake for dessert. I'm sure it will be great. Have I mentioned yet that she is an amazing cook. Who'da thunk it?

    Thursday, January 12, 2006

    I'm Electric

    I was walking the cat in the hallway and just as I stepped on the industrial scale the power went out.

    Man, I must be fat.

    Half-day

    Today was a half-day at school. Well actually it was an "early release" day. I guess all those years of snotty kids complaining about "half-days" not actually being half-days, because a school day is 7 hours and a "half-day" is 4 hours, has finally made an impact on administrations. I was one of those kids over 15 years ago. I wonder how many teachers can remember what its like to be a kid? I think I still am a kid.

    Usually I stay after school to finish up things and give kids extra help, but on half days we have meetings until 2 and there are no kids around and I leave earlier than usual. Early Release days are nice. So, I rode my bike for over 2 hours, stopped by IF to check on paper work, get files for the new kit design, talk to Joe about opening an account for the Elite Team and trying not to drink a beer before I rode home to Southie.

    Wow I'm boring. But not as boring as you

    Tuesday, January 10, 2006

    Blogityblogblog

    Blogityblogblog
    POPCORN

    Sunday, January 08, 2006

    First day training

    It's snowing.
    My Lorenzo just returned from Italy and called to see if we wanted to go out to breakfast.
    "Do they have bloody marys?"
    Training can start tomorrow.