Monday Morning Musings

Good Monday morning. I hope everyone had a great weekend. Mine was busy with auditions for our fall production at the Winnsboro Center for the Arts. We are doing an original play, "Bonnie & Clyde in Winnsboro" written by a local actor, Randy Lindsey, who has given me the freedom to adapt the play and direct it. Anyone who has any connection to theatre and playwriting knows what a generous gesture that was on his part.  The story is based on historical fact. The infamous couple stopped in Winnsboro often as they made their way east from Dallas to Louisiana, and the play puts those facts into dramatic form.


WHAT I'M READING:  Prayer by Phillip Kerr. I'm not sure I would finish this one except for the fact that I am leading a discussion of the book for an online mystery book club to which I belong. The central charater, Gil Martins, is an FBI agent, but except for the fact that he drops the F-bomb quite frequently, he doesn't come across as a law enforcement professional. And even some of them don't feel the need to bomb every line of dialogue.

WHAT IS MAKING ME LAUGH: Two squirrels chasing each other up and down the big pine tree just outside my office window. In fact, it is so distracting, it's taken twice as long to write this blog post.

  
WHAT I'M DISMAYED ABOUT: That we're once again interfering in Iraq, and it looks like that interference is going to go on for a lot longer than first anticipated. No doubt we needed to give the humanitarian aid to the refugees, but that should be the extent of our involvement.

AND NOW JUST FOR FUN I thought I'd share an excerpt from my humorous memoir, A Dead Tomato Plant and a Paycheck. It's been a while since I posted an excerpt, and I forgot to get the Sunday paper with the good comic strips.

This excerpt seems appropriate since school will be starting soon in many parts of the country. Gee, I remember when school started in September. What about you?

The beginning of each new school year is always met with varying degrees of eagerness and excitement. There are some kids, like Jason in the comic strip Fox Trot, who live for each school year so they can amaze a whole new set of teachers. Others go begrudgingly because in some respects it is better to have something to do every day than be home with Mom who might find some unsavory job to do, like clean the toilets.
 
Mother’s are generally thrilled to have the kids gone most of the day, but first there is the mad rush to get them all outfitted with a few new clothes and the 10-page list of school supplies.
 

One year, a couple of days before school was going to start, I went up to our local grocery-drugs-everything-under-the-sun store to get those school supplies. When I arrived, I discovered that I wasn't the only one who'd waited until the last minute to perform this little task.
 
The aisles were crammed with shopping carts, harried mothers and a multitude of kids, which created more confusion than in the pits at the Indianapolis Speedway. The mothers wore a grim look of. determination which clearly said, "I can only suffer through this indignity because it is all for a greater good," as they jiggled crying babies, fought their way up and down the aisles, and did their best to ignore the earnest pleas of their kids.
 
"Oh, Mommy, please! Can't I have this organizer? See it has Star Wars stuff on the front and this neat thing for paper. And I won't ask you for another thing extra, I promise."
 
"I know it's not on the list, but I really need these felt-tip markers, and the big box of crayons and some of these notebooks."
 
For the first time in my life I actually had the presence of mind to think ahead and only brought one kid with me on this shopping trip, and he had masking tape over his mouth. So I was in a position to see a little humor in the human drama occurring around me. Although I did have to hurry to cosmetics if I felt a laugh coming on to avoid the risk of being attacked by a horde of irate mothers armed with wooden rulers.

Monday Morning Musings

So, Governor Good-Hair as we sometimes refer to our esteemed Texas governor, has done it again. Rick Perry recently vetoed two bipartisan ethics bills and rescinded state funding for the prosecutors unit that is investigating his cancer research fund. 

In an article in The Dallas Morning News written by Christy Hoppe and Robert T Garrett of the Austin Bureau, Craig McDonald of Texans for Public Justice was quoted as saying, "Perry's office is an ethical black hole. Ethics reform goes in. Nothing comes out."

That is one black hole that needs to be closed up.
 

Perry also vetoed a bill that dealt with equal pay for women, saying that women have enough recourse in the Federal government for equal pay issues.

Umm, right. Like that is really working.

I think Perry's hair interfered with his brain when he vetored those bills, as well as one that dealt with truancy. A bill to put the responsibility on school districts to find ways to improve attendance among truant students before pursuing criminal charges was passed by the House, but Perry shot it down. Under the current program school districts can refer a student to court after three unexcused absences, and Texas is one of only two states in the country that prosecute truancy cases in adult court.

Really? What about family court? As any teacher and he or she can tell you that the number one problem with truancy starts on the home front. 

On the topic of NSA secret-leaker Edward Snowden, Dallas Morning News columnist, Jacquielynn Floyd, says that we do need to be concerned about what Snowden is possibly doing in China and how that affects our national security. However, she also says we need a serious discussion about "...balancing personal privacy and national security. And in that discussion we should all get to participate."

All in favor, raise your hands.

Yesterday I received one of those messages that authors just love to stumble across in their e-mail inbox. A reader contacted me to say how much she loved Boxes For Beds, my new historical mystery. In fact, she said she readthe book twice, and at first I thought she was the same person who had said that in a recent review on Amazon, but turns out she is not. To get that kind of affirmation for my work is such a thrill, but it is also very humbling because I know there are few books that I like well enough to read more than once. I am always so eager to get on to the next fictional adventure, I don't often go back to previous ones. I imagine that most readers are like that, too, so it means a lot to know that at least two people have liked the story well enough to give it a second read.

That's it for me for today. Leave a comment if you are so inclined and let me know what you are musing about on this Monday.

Friday's Odds and Ends

  

A student in a Dallas suburban school didn't like the assignment he was given, so he mouthed off to the teacher, and now the teacher is on administrative leave, while school officials cleared the student of any wrong-doing. What is wrong with that picture?

Apparently the video of the rant by Jeff Bliss, an 18-year old sophomore, has gone viral on the Internet, and some people are calling him a hero, because part of his rant was to point out what is wrong with education.

I'm sorry. A kid that disrespects his teacher like that is no hero. I don't care if there might have been one valid point contained in the harangue. And there is also the question of what went on that caused the teacher to kick him out of class in the first place. It was that action that led to his now-famous parting remarks.

Sarah Anderson raised an interesting point in a recent column that was published in The Dallas Morning News on the topic of salaries for CEOs. She wrote, "The current tax code lets corporations deduct from their income taxes unlimited amounts of executive compensation, as long as they say this pay is based on 'performance.' As a result, huge companies like BlackRock have an incentive to dole out massive stock options and other so-called performance bonuses."

Her column was in response to the ad by Laurence Fink, who is the CEO of BlackRock, where he is calling for raising the retirement age to 70. According to Fink, people should wait before collecting social security because "most of us have jobs where we just sit around."

That might be true for Fink, but most of the folks I know who are approaching retirement age are not sitting around in their jobs, raking in the big bucks. And if Fink is so worried about the solvency of the social security system, he could just decline his benefits when he retires and live off his accumulated wealth.

Now for some fun from the comic strips. This first one is from Bizarro. by Dan Piraro. A unicorn gets on an elevator and asks the man next to the control panel for the thirteenth floor. The man says there's no such thing.

Here's one from the classic, Peanuts. Charlie Brown is sitting at his desk at school. He says, "A spelling bee? They're going to have a city-wide spelling bee?"

In the next panel he considers, "I should enter it... That's the sort of thing I need to do to gain self-confidence."

Then he smile. "I think I'll raise my hand and volunteer. It'll be good for me... I think I'll just raise my hand and volunteer...."

In the next panel Charlie Brown says,"My hand won't go up. It's smarter than I am."

Today's Literary Lesson comes from 10lb. Penalty by Dick Francis. A character is reflecting on the political process, "Votes are won by laughter and lost by dogma."

Hard Lesson Learned

 Here with another bit of wit and wisdom from The Mule Barn is my friend, Slim Randles. If you enjoy his offerings here, you would like his book, Home Country, which is a collection of these essays. You can order it through Amazon, or get a signed copy by clicking on the link at the end of the story.

It was that magic time of morning for those of us at the Mule Barn; the time when we're so full of coffee we can't walk, and it's time to decide whether to order lunch there or go home. That's when Bert walked in. Kinda limped in, actually. He made his way over and sat down and turned his coffee cup right side up.

"I'm hurting boys," he said. "That's a fact.  'Course Maizie told me it was a fool thing to do, but you know how she is, so I did it anyway."

"What's that, Bert?"

"Grandfathering, that's what. But what the heck, guys, you gotta do it, don't you? I mean, we owe it to the kids to start them on the road ... yes, that straight and narrow road leading to a fulfilling future, filled with..."

"Bert," said Doc, "you get tattooed with a phonograph needle? Just tell us what happened."

"My granddaughter, Gina," he said. "She's eight now, you know, and she's been staying with us for a while. Well, she's the best girl you ever met, but it's hard to get her up on time. Seems like every other day she fools around and misses the school bus, and then we have to drive her to school. I just got tired of that, and figured I'd teach her a lesson.

"Well, she missed the bus again this morning and said, 'Grandpa, you'll have to take me to school.' And I said, 'OK, Honey, get your books.' So she got her little backpack with the books on and I walked her to school."

"All the way to school? How far is it from your farm?"

"Eight miles, boys. Eight very long miles."

He grinned. "Several times people stopped and offered us rides, but I just said no thanks, and explained that it was an object lesson. Gina just mumbled that she hated object lessons, but she kept walking. Walked all the way up the canyon and didn't sit down once."

"How about Grandpa?" Dud asked.

"He didn't sit down, either. Hey, how would it look?"

"No wonder you're tired, Bert."

"Well," he said, grinning. "I don't expect I'll ever need to do this again. I believe the lesson got learned just fine."
---------------
  Brought to you by the personally inscribed new book  Home Country, at www.slimrandles.com

Friday's Odds and Ends

A Texas jury gave Kimberly Cargill a death sentence after she had been found guilty of first degree murder for killing her babysitter and setting the woman's body on fire. Full story here:  Kimberly Cargill sentenced to death

 

No matter what one thinks of the despicable crime, is the death penalty the best choice? If you were on a jury, would you vote for the death penalty? What if you had to pull the switch or give the lethal injection?

 

 I know it is easier to make these judgements when one is far removed from the case. We don't know all the evidence against Cargill, but I still hold that life without possibility of parole is a better option. Not just because she is a woman. I think that the death penalty should stop being used, period. Over and above my concerns about the humanity of using the death penalty, there are other reasons to abolish it. It costs much less money to keep a prisoner locked up for life than to carry out the death penalty, and there is no statistical evidence to show that using the death penalty cuts down the number of murders committed each year in the United States.

 

The school year is winding down across the country and summer vacation is upon us. Students and teachers alike are probably thrilled to have a break for several weeks so they can recoup and prepare emotionally for next year. 

 

While the students have to come back, the teachers do not, and some of them won't. Some of them are too worn down by the challenges: endless paperwork, teaching to the tests, inadequate funding, unruly kids, and parents who don't care enough to discipline their kids or supporting their efforts in school. On the other side of that last coin are the parents who are such champions of their children, the teacher is never right. 

 

There needs to be a middle ground - a place where there is mutual respect for each other and for certain rules that make the learning environment more productive. And parents need to support the teachers. One Dallas-area teacher recalled an incident for columnist, Steve Blow, in which a kindergarten student called her a bitch. When she called the parent so some action could be taken, the response was, "That's what she says when she is really mad. What did you do to make her mad?"

 

When I read that, I was astounded. Our son once called a teacher a bitch, and after meeting with her and the principal and the counselor and several other teachers in a conference, I had to agree with him. The woman was unreasonable and obviously had a keen dislike for our son. On the way home from the conference, my husband and I told our son that under no circumstances was he ever to call a teacher a name. Period. It didn't matter if it was true or not, the teacher is a figure of authority and you will treat her with respect. Period. And he was grounded for a week.

 

To read the entire column by Steve Blow in The Dallas Morning News, click HERE. There is some really good advice for parents shared by the teacher, Debbie Hulme Rush.

School Days, School Days

Since school has started for most kids across the United States, I thought I would share some of my memories of school days when my kids were young. This is another excerpt from my humorous memoir, A Dead Tomato Plant and a Paycheck, which is still under consideration for publication at a small independent publisher.

I clearly remember the first year I had more kids in school than I had at home. It's hard to miss one or two when there's still three or four hanging around. But this particular year I was down to two at home.

That first Monday morning of school, I got up bright and early, and surprisingly, with a very cheerful outlook. l don't normally function too well in the mornings, smile or no smile, but that morning was very special.

This being only the first day, the kids were as excited about school as I was, and they were already dressed by seven o'clock. We had a nice leisurely breakfast. Then they collected their bags, their brand new supplies, and their lunches and were on the way by eight o'clock.

While the twins were engrossed in a television program, I sat down with a second cup of coffee and a book. (The quiet was almost deafening, but I loved every minute of it.)

I contemplated flaking the whole day away with my coffee and my book, but just the thought of that much caffeine gave me such a burst of energy, I couldn’t sit still.

By ten-thirty, I paused to take stock. In two and a half hours I’d done the dishes, two loads of wash, made beds, cleaned the bathrooms, and cleaned up my bedroom without a single interruption.

That reinforced my belief in the combined value of Sesame Street and the first day of school. But it was only the beginning. I had other special moments to savor throughout the day:
At lunch time, there were only two kids to make peanut-butter and jelly sandwiches for and to clean up spilled Kool-Aid after.

Later, I had two hours of solitude while they napped, and I didn't want to do anything but sit on the sofa and enjoy my good feelings. I could have gone to my office to get a little writing done. After all, I’d been waiting most of the summer for more than fifteen minutes of solitude to write, but there was something so nice about just sitting on the couch in absolute silence, totally alone, nothing I had to do.

The therapeutic value of that first day of school was indescribable, and by two-thirty when Michael was due home, I felt like I had spent a year in a rest home. I was actually delighted to see his smiley little face and listen to him describe his day in a voice ten octaves higher than conversation level.
He was our resident Jason.

“School was great.”

“Uh,huh.”

“The teacher said cause I can read so good, I can help the other kids.”

“That’s nice, Michael, but you might want to work on your grammar.”

“Huh?”

“Never mind.”

Considering how beautiful that first day of school was, you will understand why I was reluctant to let David come home early the next day when the school nurse called to say he was sick. He could have at least given me a full week of bliss before getting sick.   

Watch Out For the Candy Police

A ten-year-old girl at an elementary school in Texas was given detention for a week for having a piece of Jolly Rancher candy. Apparently a friend gave her the candy and a teacher took it away, then the girl, Leighann Adair, and her friend were both given detention.

Over a piece of candy.

The girls had to serve detention during lunch and recess, and they had to write an essay about what they did and why it was wrong.

According to her mother Leighann was never in trouble before and the whole incident has devastated her. The mother, along with some other folks, think the punishment was extreme for so minor an infraction.

Despite protests, school officials are standing by the punishment. They say they have to be strict in order to enforce their no-gum, no-candy policy. Candy and gum, they say, can cause a mess. And according to the school superintendent, they were only following state guidelines to limit the amount of junk food in schools.

That's a good sound bite, but it is absurd. The state guidelines apply to what the schools can provide and endorse, not what an individual brings to school. And punishing kids for having a piece of candy is not going to encourage them to eat healthy. Save the harsh punishment for the serious infractions.

What happened to the policy of simply taking a piece of gum or candy away from a student, throwing it away, and reminding them that gum is not permitted in school? That was the way such infractions were handled for years. And if a student persisted in breaking the rule, then it was time to take more drastic action.

What do you think? Was this an extreme reaction?

The Dumbing Down of a School District

I had to check the date of the newspaper to make sure I had not somehow picked up an April 1st edition and this was a joke. But it wasn't.

The Dallas Independent School District has released new grading policies, which officials there say will help students excel, but has many parents and young people protesting. The policies say that no student can be given a grade below 50 on their report card. Students will be allowed to retake a failed test. No grades will be given on homework unless it will help students pass. this is for grades 2-5. Students can't receive a zero or have a grade reduction for work not done or not completed on time.

This is unbelievable. Talk about failing our children and the whole educational system.

How does this prepare young people for the realities of life after high school? Not every college is going to treat them with such consideration. Not to mention what it will be like on their first job.

We are a nation soft on character, and character comes from accepting the consequences of one's choices and actions.

One high school student wrote a letter to the editor in which she offered the opinion that these new policies are not fair to the other students who earn their grades. She also wrote "...it discredits the work of any individual who graduates under this policy."

How true that is. And how sad that a diploma from a Dallas high school may not be based on real learning, but on "giving a student a chance to excel."