Leelanau Whippersnapper

Once again, Bill Maher has penned an honest portrayal of the idiocy in this country.  I admit, I’m a bit biased when it comes to this but lets talk about education for a minute.  First, my background.  A significant number of my immediate and extended family members are teachers or have been teachers at one point or another in their lives.  Growing up, education..or more to the point, GETTING ONE, was the number one rule, ahead of anything else despite my pathetic attempts to think otherwise at times.  My folks made time for reading every night to my sister and me whether it was reading TO us or allowing one of us to read to THEM.  They both struggled along with us trying to figure out ways to tell a 14 frustrated year old that Algebra is actually relevant and to just suck it up and learn it and they RE-LEARNED it with me.  My folks went out of their way to provide Sarah and me with educational opportunities, not because they wanted genius children (hopefully that was not their wish) but because they both knew and understood the importance of a basic education.  They sent Sarah and I to enrichment programs, they participated and helped us to participate in Cub Scouts, Brownies, plays, programs, events, museums, and yes, even instruction about shoveling shit on the farm.  Education is important.  It was important to my parents and it was eventually important to me.  I’m not talking here about post-secondary education but the basic shit.  Reading, Writing, and Arithmetic — K-12 public education.

Today on the Huffington Post

Firing all the teachers may feel good – we’re Americans, kicking people when they’re down is what we do – but it’s not really their fault. Now, undeniably, there are some bad teachers out there. They don’t know the material, they don’t make things interesting, they have sex with the same kid every day instead of spreading the love around… But every school has crappy teachers. Yale has crappy teachers – they must, they gave us George Bush.

According to all the studies, it doesn’t matter what teachers do. Although everyone appreciates foreplay. What matters is what parents do. The number one predictor of a child’s academic success is parental involvement. It doesn’t even matter if your kid goes to private or public school. So save the twenty grand a year and treat yourself to a nice vacation away from the little bastards

Click on the link above to read the rest.

I get so sick of the bullshit in the papers and on line criticizing teachers for ‘failing kids’.  Bullshit.  The only teachers who are failing kids in this country ARE THE PARENTS.  Yes, there are bad teachers, AND bad doctors, lawyers, and scientists but come on if you are going to take the time to write in to the newspaper editor, at least show your kids that you know how to use a spell checker or that you can FINISH a fucking thought in a single sentence!  So, the next time you get an urge to criticize a teacher, stop and think for a minute about what you are doing.  Is little Jimmy’s failure to learn his times tables the fault of the teacher OR is it YOUR fault for failing to make sure little Jimmy got home after school to DO HIS HOMEWORK!  OR, is it YOUR fault for failing to drill them into his head like you were asked to help do by the note you got from the teacher BECUASE YOU YOU COULD NOT BE BOTHERED TO SHOW UP FOR PARENT / TEACHER CONFERENCES!

One reason, among many others that I got out of the Education thing for myself was that I had a very difficult time understanding the lack of involvement of parents in their kids lives because it was SO foreign to me. Growing up I couldn’t shit without one of my parents asking me about school and about my life and good Lord there were times when I absolutely HATED their incessant nagging, prodding, and scornful stares and I would slam my books on the table and leave for coffee at Denny’s just to piss them off more. My parents were doing their jobs, THEY were being teachers, never mind their own backgrounds.  THEY were demanding accountability from me and THEY were going to stand by me and help me even while frustrated with me to make sure that at the VERY least, I got my ass through High School with an education.  Yes, I know everyone has shit going on in their lives but come on, you do not have to be a scholar to be a teacher to your child, you only have to be there and show that to your child.  They will know your expectations, you don’t even have to explain what they are,  that’s the beauty of a parent / child relationship.  The kid WILL come to you for help even when they know you won’t be able to give them the answers.

Lack of parental involvement is the #1 reason that our education system in this country is shot.  It is not however broken and it is not un-fixable.  It is also not the sole responsibility of teachers in this country to raise YOUR CHILDREN.

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This clip has been everywhere over the past couple of days.  It doesn’t require much effort to see that the younger generation just get’s it.

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OK, I stole that from Andrew Sullivan.  He has an almost daily blog post about the hypocrisy of the religious fringe in this country and around the world.  I thought the below was pretty interesting.  Turns out, Christians tend to be more raciest than the general population.  There are plenty of things that you can draw from this, one of the big ones being that Christians tend to associate only with themselves and that includes a break down by denomination, which then includes a breakdown into race.  Evangelicals = White Anglo, Protestants = Norwegian / Eastern Europe, Catholics = Latino, Southern Baptist = Black / African American.  That’s just skimming of course but association is a big part of who we are as humans and as cultures.  So the most interesting quote for me on this was:

“The authors failed to find that racial tolerance arises from humanitarian values, consistent with the idea that religious humanitarianism is largely expressed to in-group members. Only religious agnostics were racially tolerant.”

Here is a link to the PDF of the Study.  Sadly you have to be a subscriber to see the whole thing.

I find this relevant because I consider myself a religious agnostic.  I’m not quite to the point of Atheism, but science has not yet explained zero to me (the point of origin).  Religion just can’t do it because the facts don’t support the theory and I’m not willing to just imagine something as factually wrong as Genesis.  As a general rule, I don’t have an issue with the idea of a God or Gods.  What I have an issue with are humans who believe THEY are God which stems out of ALL organized religion.  I also consider myself to be pretty racially tolerant.  I attribute much of that to my upbringing, which, even though it was not hugely diverse, I was able to take away an understanding of different cultures and races.  As a child I was exposed to people all over the country as I toured with the American Boychoir and I met and stayed with everyone from Black deep south Evangelicals, to Upper New York State Jews with the stereotypical accents.  I’ve sung music from every corner of the globe and not only did I sing it but it was expected that we actually understand where it came from and the language it was to be sung in and the culture it was created in.   I spent 10 years of my life with a second generation Armenian American whose father was deeply rooted in the culture of his upbringing.  I was able to experience a culture that I had not previously been exposed to and I benefited from that exposure.  I think the difference with me is that I’ve not ever limited myself to association with only one type of person or one color of person because beyond that I believe we are all human and all of the same species with the same goals and aspirations.  You are not of a different species because you have dark skin and I don’t.  You are not a different species because you have blond hair and blue eyes and my hair happens to be brown.  You are not a different species because your speak broken English or because you wear a Turban.  I think that Christians tend to forget the commonality of humanity.  They get so wrapped up in shouting their messages that they forget the common  and core message of their faith.  That is precisely what bothers me about organized religion and it is precisely why I refuse to attend a church.  I’m not going to limit my life and my experiences to a congregation of similar thinking and looking individuals just for the sake of a common belief in God.  And I’m certainly not going to associate with individuals who can not accept the idea that skin color is irrelevant to being a human.  The year is 2010 and it is inexcusable for any individual of any race, of any creed, of any origin to antagonize people not like themselves simply because of that fact.

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because it involves a state that I don’t live in.  There are reasons that I tend to be a New England boy and not a Southern Bell (haha).  It makes little sense, ESPECIALLY at public and secular institutions for discrimination to exist on any level.  Academia is the only bastion for thinking people left in this country and it just pisses me off to no end when mis-informed fools turn back the clock on progress.  What happened Virginia?  You voted a BLACK man into the White House and then elected the Klan to run your state.  Believe it or not, the analogy works.

Here: The closet door cannot be fixed once it’s kicked off of hinges. Virginia’s AG has just told the homophobes to get out the torches and pitchforks!

And Here: “Virginia is For Haters”

The idea here is certainly not to offend the better taste of my extended family living in Virginia but certainly they don’t live in a bubble.

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I was looking through my analytics for this web site tonight and discovered that in the last 3 months 90% of my search engine traffic (visitors that got here through a search engine by searching for a key-word or term) have used the term “REDNECK, or RED NECK” to find this blog.  Well, as much as I like to think that I’m an asshole to everyone equally, I’m looking for a little more sophisticated audience from that segment.  So, this weekend, I’m going to remove that keyword from the tags portion of my web site.  That’s the part that the search engine’s pick up and index.  Most of my other traffic is still being generated from leelanauphotography.com and from direct URL entry.  That’s good news for me and those are the sources I want my traffic to come from.  Found the image below this morning, thought it was pretty accurate.  I’m thinking about getting it blown up and presenting it in my store.  Right, the little shoes with roller skates on the bottom really need to be banned.  Someone’s going to get killed.  At least put your kids on a leash parents!!!

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As I recently stated on Facebook, I’m a sucker for the snappy “synthpop” music genre.  I get teased about it on a regular basis, mainly because ”it’s SO gay”.  The Pet Shop Boys, Michael and Janet Jackson, many bands from the 80’s and 90’s.  I’m also a fan of the alternative music scene (bands like Ben Folds Five, REM, U2 etc.).  The video below is from Owl City and I found this on another blog that I read.  His music is snappy, heavily processed, crisp, and very clean.  His melodies are common but very repeatable and memorable, and the texture he uses on the synthesizers is complex and enjoyable.  There are a couple songs off his newest album that I really like, the one below called “Fire Flies” is one of them.  Now, before you accuse me of going Beverly Hills 90210 on you, this is the kind of music you’d hear on those teen soap operas that were popular years ago, but how wrong is it to enjoy listening to someone that doesn’t swear in his lyrics and whose messages are not all downers?  Too much of the music out there today by pop artists are constantly bitching about the complexities and painfulness of life.  They are right, sometimes life is a bitch and shit happens but it isn’t like that every day you know.  Sometimes it’s just nice to listen to an upbeat song about nothing in particular.  This is one of those songs.

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I’m linking below to a 45 minute Bill Moyers Journal TV show on PBS that is a must see for those of you who may not know the background, details, and importance of the recent Poposition 8 trial that took place in California last month.  Closing arguments have not been scheduled however they will be very soon.  In the video, Olson and Boyes lay out the case, why it matters, what the legal issues actually are and they provide detailed information on why this case is so strong.  They are also presented with some tough questions that many supporters of discrimination ask, you can see them defend the position of equality and make the case that this issue has everything to do with the Constitution and has nothing to do with religious beliefs.  It’s a long discussion but it’s worth watching.

Click THIS link to go to the Bill Moyers Journal web site to view the video.

Below is a YouTube preview of the broadcast.

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The “Tilt Shift” technique has become quite the rage lately for photographers and videographers.  This technique involves blurring certain portions of the image or video to give us the illusion that things are smaller than they actually are.  It’s obviously a bit more complicated than that but it’s designed to trick our senses in order to give the effect.  Found this video below that is just amazing.  This is 5 minutes in the life of New York City.  Watch it knowing that these are real images (sped up a bit), not animated and that nothing more than an optical illusion is occurring in your head.

The Sandpit from Sam O’Hare on Vimeo.

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The reason that equality for the GLBT community is visible in my life time:

“I have described myself as being ‘gently eccentric’ and slightly different as a person just because I’ve had a very different set of influences growing up than anybody else in my peer group did. I think it’s important for somebody from a big, commercial movie series like Harry Potter and particularly because I am not gay or bisexual or transgendered. The fact that I am straight makes not a difference, but it shows that straight people are incredibly interested and care a lot about this as well.” - Daniel Radcliffe, speaking from the NYC headquarters of the LGBT teen suicide prevention hot-line The Trevor Project, for whom he has just made a promotional film.

15 years ago when I was in high school, there were no major Hollywood celebrities willing to step up to the plate and go to bat for me.  Those who did were on the fringes.  For me personally, I’m not sure it would had much of an influence in my life, I was never a big celebrity follower but here we have Harry Potter, entirely straight with a HUGE following, and willing to put his money where his mouth is.  The Trevor Project was founded not long after I got out of high school and there is a link to it on my sidebar here on this blog.  It’s one of the few charities that I’d consider making a donation to.  Perhaps you might as well.

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