The other thing that set me off last week:

The power of programs such as the Rabouin memoir project render more disturbing some news emerging recently from the Recovery School District: That some of our most historic and community-based schools, including Rabouin and Douglass high schools, are slated for closure in the next few years. Rabouin and Douglass are the two schools that SilenceIsViolence has worked most closely with on music- and literature-based anti-violence projects over the past couple of years. There is no question that these schools have struggled in the post-Katrina educational landscape (and before), but they also offer opportunities for reaching and nurturing our young people that will be squandered if they close.

Douglass, for example, boasts an acclaimed writing program called Students at the Center, which is directed by Kalamu ya Salaam and Jim Randels and has proven inspirational to scores of at-risk kids over the past twelve years. Rabouin, meanwhile, was the source for YA/YA (Young Aspirations/Young Artists), a youth arts organization that has kept hundreds of young people off the streets and engaged in the visual arts since 1988, exporting positive examples of New Orleans culture around the globe in the process. Rabouin students continue to work closely with prominent local arts institutions such as the Ogden Museum of Southern Art.

If these schools close, these programs will be lost. Less sensational, but just as damaging, educational and community voids will be left in the neighborhoods these schools occupy.

What is the trade-off? What is to be gained by the closure of these schools and the dispersal of students to other schools and to trailer classrooms? We do not really know, because no true public discussion about their proposed closure has taken place. What we do know, and what we experience daily in the form of overt crime and more subtle unrest, is this: The closure of neighborhood schools and the accompanying disruption of the delicate social networks our young people form and rely upon have terrifying implications for our still-recovering city. Public safety is directly impacted by disoriented communities. The cycles of youth-centered violence gripping our city demonstrate the petty but very real ways in which this disorientation can fuel fearful territorialism and threaten entire communities.

As students finally settle into new school communities, we should be very cautious about disrupting these communties anew. We would like to see a more open discussion of the reasoning behind and the benefits of closing Douglass and Rabouin, because the cost to the students who identify with these schools would be quite high.

And yes, Rabouin was where Dinerral Shavers began a high-school band program.

Here's something else I missed as well.

I told someone recently that trying to deal with the stuff that comes with living here was like playing Whack-A-Mole with a thousand moles popping out at you all at the same time. Which ones are more important? Which ones can you effectively reach? How many more do you need to knock before you can keep going? Which ones absolutely should not live to see the light of day?

Douglass and Rabouin deserve more of a chance than they are being given in the current Pastorek-Vallas-charter-schools-demolitions-closings-budget-cuts*-
high-teacher-turnovers-vouchers environment that is ruling these days

Must muster up some more strength (and rustle up a job with a more goyische resume) to get to whackin' again.

*link from Suspect D.

Just thought I'd share...

from The Point!

Saw this article referenced on Editilla's ladder. What I wrote a while back about the local Jewish community's measures to boost its numbers here post-storm still applies - though I am glad to see the networking aspect of the Jewish Federation's program is going on. The thing that will ultimately keep these newcomers here, however, is what will bring this entire city back and help make it better than before, which is a variety of skilled jobs that are not heavily dependent on the tourist dollar.


Although I must say that the Jewish community here is different from most other places. There is a diversity within its ranks and an interdenominational cooperation that is not seen in many other places. The majority of the Jews here are Reform-affiliated, but there are also Conservative Jews, Modern Orthodox, Lubavitchers, and others - and they come together on many occasions throughout the year, the most notable being the Louisiana Lehrhaus, in which rabbis, cantors, and knowledgeable lay lecturers teach courses on Judaism once a week for a four-week period, courses that are open to the entire Jewish community, regardless of denomination.


There are fewer of us now than there ever have been - but these are folks who are determined to add to their numbers, because the last thing any of 'em want is for their houses of worship to become museum pieces. Family is pretty damn important to the Jewish people, and the fact that many of the people here have had to encourage their children to seek opportunity elsewhere rather than in the city of their rearing...well, it hurts in many ways, especially after a catastrophe such as the one that hit this city a little over a thousand days ago. I ultimately hope the Jewish Federation can keep this momentum going.

Despite the discouraging episode of meeting Archbishop Hughes and protesting his measures to close Our Lady of Good Counsel church, Poppy Z. is cautiously optimistic:

We will not close. But it hurts to see the evidence, right up close, that the man who is supposed to shepherd every flock in New Orleans doesn't give a good goddamn about us. No, it doesn't surprise me a bit, but it's a little like the difference between thinking your lover is cheating on you and actually catching them in the act. (Or like that difference must be; I've been lucky to escape that particular life experience.)

I wish her well in her 41st year.

Wish Ms NOLA a r'fuah shleimah after her surgery, too, while you're at it.

I'm in a lesser sort of funk, which has been eased greatly by the grooves in this man's music (shame on you, New Orleans, for missing his recent show! Shame! Shaaaaaame!!!), but, having attempted to revamp my resume and having it come out as too Jewish (still, in Dan's estimation), ˙o˙ɯ ʎɯ llıʇs sı uʍop ǝpısdn

˙ǝɹǝɥ punoɟ ǝq uɐɔ ɟɟo ǝɯ ʇǝs ʇɐɥʍ ɟo uoıʇɐuɐldxǝ lɐıʇɹɐd ɐ

A Short Note for a Short Break
(start from the bottom up)


˙˙˙uıɐɹq ǝɥʇ uo ǝɹɐǝdsǝʞɐɥs ʎlʇɔɐxǝ ʇ,uıɐ ʇı ʇnq˙˙˙ɹǝɥʇıǝ 'ƃuıpɐǝɹ pǝddoʇs ʇ,uǝʌɐɥ ı ˙ʞɐǝɹq ɐ pǝǝu ı ʍouʞ noʎ ƃuıʇʇǝl ʇsnɾ ˙pɹoʍ ʇsɐl ʇsɐl ʎɯ sı sıɥʇ ʎɐs oʇ ʇou

˙sǝɥɔund ǝɯos ɥʇıʍ lloɹ ˙dn ƃuıʍoɹƃ ʎlnɹʇ ʎllɐǝɹ sı ʎnƃ ǝlʇʇıl ʎɯ ʇɐɥʇ ʇɔɐɟ ǝɥʇ oʇ dn ǝʞɐʍ ˙uıɐƃɐ ssɐlƃ uı ƃuıʞɹoʍ ʇɹɐʇs ˙ɹǝǝq ǝɹoɯ ʞuıɹp ˙ʇno ʇǝƃ ˙ǝɹoɯ ǝlʇʇıl ɐ ǝʌıl sı op oʇ pǝǝu ʎllɐǝɹ ı ʇɐɥʍ uǝɥʍ slıɐʇǝp ǝsǝɥʇ llɐ uo dn ƃunɥ os ʇǝƃ ı ˙ʎlıɯɐɟ ʎɯ puɐ ǝɯoɥ ǝɥʇ ǝpısʇno ǝɟıl ʎɯ ƃuıuɹǝɔuoɔ ǝʞɐɯ oʇ pǝǝu ı suoısıɔǝp ǝɥʇ uı ǝɯ ƃuızʎlɐɹɐd oslɐ sı ʇı ˙ǝɹnʇnɟ ǝɥʇ ɹoɟ pıɐɹɟɐ ǝɯ ƃuıʞɐɯ s,ʇı ˙ǝɯ ƃuıɹɐɔs sı ʇı puɐ˙˙˙
pɐǝɥɐ sllǝɥ ʍǝu ɥsǝɹɟ 'ɹǝǝɥs oʇ dn ppɐ ʇɐɥʇ sƃuıɥʇ ƃuıǝǝs ɯ,ı ǝsnɐɔǝq 'ǝsɹnɔ ɐ ǝq oslɐ uɐɔ ƃuıssǝlq sıɥʇ ˙llɐ sn sʇɔɐdɯı ʇɐɥʇ ʇuǝʌǝ ɹǝƃƃıq ɥɔnɯ ɐ oʇ dn ppɐ uɐɔ sʇuǝʌǝ ɹǝllɐɯs uıɐʇɹǝɔ ʍoɥ ʍoɥs ʎlǝʌıʇɔǝɟɟǝ oʇ ʎʇılıqɐ sıɥʇ ǝʌɐɥ ı ǝɯ ploʇ ǝɔuo ǝuo ǝɯos ˙ɹǝɥʇo ɥɔɐǝ ʇɔǝɟɟɐ ʎlsnoıɹǝs ʎǝɥʇ ʍoɥ puɐ sǝʌıl ɹno ɟo sʇɔǝdsɐ llɐ ɟo ssǝupǝʇɔǝuuoɔɹǝʇuı lɐʇuǝɯɐpunɟ ǝɥʇ sǝʇɐɹʇsuoɯǝp ʇı ʇɐɥʇ punoɟ oslɐ ǝʌɐɥ ı - ɯǝʇsʎs uoıʇɐɔnpǝ ɔılqnd ɹno - ʎʇǝıɔos ɹno ɟo ʇɔǝdsɐ ǝuo ɟo ǝldɯɐxǝ ǝɥʇ ɥƃnoɹɥʇ ˙ʇı ʇnoqɐ ɥɔnɯ op oʇ suoıʇısod uı ʇ,uǝɹɐ ʎǝɥʇ 'ʇı ʇnoqɐ ƃuıʞlɐʇ ǝldoǝd ɥƃnouǝ ǝɹɐ ǝɹǝɥʇ ɟı 'ɹo - pǝuɹǝɔuoɔ ɯ,ı sɐ ɹɐɟ sɐ 'ʎllɐɔıʇıɹɔ ʇı ʇnoqɐ ƃuıʞlɐʇ ǝldoǝd ɥƃnouǝ ʇou s,ǝɹǝɥʇ ˙sǝoƃ uʍoʇ sıɥʇ uı uoıʇɐɔnpǝ sɐ ɹɐɟ sɐ llɐʍ ɐ oʇuı unɹ oslɐ ǝʌ,ı

˙ǝsıɔɹǝxǝ ƃuıʇɐıɔnɹɔxǝ uɐ sɟɟnʇs ʇǝuɹǝʇuı ɹǝɥʇo puɐ sʇsod ƃolq ƃuıpɐǝɹ sǝʞɐɯ ɥɔıɥʍ - sɹǝplnoɥs l,ıl ʎɯ uo pɐǝɹ ı ʇɐɥʍ ɟo ɥɔnɯ ooʇ ǝʞɐʇ oʇ ʎɔuǝpuǝʇ sıɥʇ ǝʌɐɥ oʇ unƃǝq ǝʌ,ı puɐ ˙ɥɔnɯ ooʇ pɐǝɹ ı 'sı ʇı sɐ ˙ǝɯ ɹoɟ ǝɯıʇ ssʎqɐ ǝɥʇ ɟo ǝƃpǝ sɐʍ ʎɐpɹǝʇsǝʎ ʇnq 'sı ʇı sɐ uoıssǝɹdǝp oʇ ǝuoɹd ʇıq ɐ ʎpɐǝɹlɐ ɯ,ı˙˙˙ǝɹǝɥ ǝɯ oʇ ƃuıʇʇǝƃ ǝɹɐ sƃuıɥʇ ʎuɐɯ ooʇ

˙ǝlıɥʍ ɐ ɹoɟ loʍɐ ʇıq ɐ ƃuıoƃ ɯ,ı

˙sʞloɟ 'ʎɹɹos

Update: Until then, think about these posts.

Update, 2:05 PM : ...but this makes me feel a little better, for some reason.

On May 1, New Orleans Indymedia launched the inaugural issue of "Arise," a quarterly print project covering a broad net of social justice issues affecting our city.View and read ARISE: New Orleans Indymedia Quarterly here

To have your writings considered for the quarterly, please contribute to this website!

Or become involved in Indymedia by attending our next open meeting, Friday May 23 at 7pm (location TBA on our calendar), or emailing us at imc-neworleans@lists.indymedia.org

All right. FINE.


nataliedee.com

I need to start actually using the B.F.A. I earned somehow. And, no, that is not a reference to my anatomy. If it were, then perhaps I could throw my weight around and get a job faster than I could snap my fingers. "Hey, I've got a gut and a butt, and I'm NOT afraid to use 'em!"

Let's just say that the hands on my new Minnie Mouse watch are moving, the world is still turning, and I feel like I'm not on it. Must...get...back...on!!!!


thanks to cajunvegan for the Natalie Dee linkage

Because, when he first asked me out, it was to a Zephyrs' game, and I said, "No," because he asked me out for a date for later on that same night.

Because, when he proposed to me, it was right after a game at Wrigley Field. The Cubs lost, 1-0, to the Braves. Andres Galarraga homered and Bobby Cox got tossed from the game.

Because, when we got married, he knew darn well it was a mixed marriage - he's a Cubs fan, I'm a Mets fan.

Because, at the Abita Brewpub the other night, I was watching a subway series game at Yankee Stadium and observed a Mets fan by the foul pole trying his hardest to influence a call that went against the Mets - the shot bounced off the base of the pole, but it bounced left instead of right. Grrrrrr...

Anyway, it is baseball season...



and today is Dan's and my seventh anniversary.

Oh, what a shpiel it's been. May there be many, many more acts - and innings - to come for us.

I love you, Dan!

Hell Hath No Fury Like That Of The Uninvolved*

- They hate me.
- No. They don't.
-Yes, they do. They sure do. I can see.

I was still working as a glass rat when my then-boss got involved in the lives of a mom and her middle-school-aged son, both of whom were renting an apartment in a property my boss managed. The kid had already been held back a year, and he was flunking out of the grade he was in. His mom had missed the deadline to enroll him in summer school so that he could make up for his failing grade on the LEAP test and progress to the next grade. I got on the phone, made like I was his mother's cousin, and got them to call his mom up to get his application in order for summer school.

But that was only the beginning...

I wasn't always like this.
I wasn't always wound this tight. There was a time when I was fun.
I was funny. I was.

Summer school was proving to be just as much of a challenge for this child. He didn't have any major learning disabilities - he just didn't have anything resembling good study habits, and he wasn't absorbing a number of the lessons he should have been absorbing to get him to the middle school level. My boss and I figured he needed to be tutored some more outside of school, and he also needed somebody other than his mom to check and see if he had homework each day, because she was proving to be a pushover in that department. The only thing that was really driving this kid was that he didn't want to be held back for another year. Well, fine.

The homework thing was what needed to be tackled first. So I did what any concerned parent or guardian would do. I called the school to talk with the staff there and see if I could check with them as to whether or not he had homework that day and if there was any supplemental work we could do with him outside of school.

I ran right into one very defensive head of the school.

But you can't be funny and be the principal of a ... school.
No, you cannot, because when it comes to their kids,
these parents, they have no sense of humor.
If anything goes wrong, it's my head. It's my head in the smasher.
These parents will come down on me like a nuclear bomb.
I can't make a mistake. I gotta be perfect.
And that pressure has turned me into one thing that I never wanted to be.
A bitch.

Before I even began to speak to the principal, he told me, in a voice that was highly defensive, that he was standing by his teachers and whatever they had to say about their students' grades and behavior. If I was calling to complain, I had to take that into account right off. Just so we both knew what the lay of the land was.

Having never encountered school administrators quite like this before (I was only in my twenties and wasn't yet a mom), I was a tad taken aback. "Sir, I understand that," I said, to put us both at ease. "I already know that there is a problem with the student I am calling about that goes beyond your school. I'm simply calling to see if there is some way we can all be on the same page with regards to his homework, since he doesn't let us know that there is any until it's too late. We want to make sure he does it, and we just need your help in making sure he does do it."

I could feel him relax on the other end of the line. I was apparently a rarity in that I didn't think that what was happening with this kid was necessarily the school's fault. And it wasn't.

We talked about setting up a system in which I could contact his teacher for a bit to check up on what work he needed to be bringing home, and I got some good recommendations on what he needed to be tutored on beyond the school hours.

Cooperative moves. That is what is needed to raise children. It is also something that seems to be a major afterthought in the way public education is put forth to everybody these days. I look around at all the experiments kids are being subjected to in the school environment, at the teachers who are expected to say, "How high?" when asked to jump to the latest thing with not much training and pay to do so, at the parents who just want what's best for their kids and, deep down, would really prefer not to be nailing either their kids or their kids' teachers to the walls, and I can't help but think that our educational system has become like communism...

...it's a great idea until people enter into it.

I'm tired of seeing the teachers getting very little respect for what they do. I'm sick of seeing that fewer people want to make sure we keep our good teachers or at least give the beginning ones the chance to develop their skills without making them leave for more pay and benefits elsewhere doing something else entirely. Teaching is no longer "the best profession for a woman", or for anybody else.

And the schools and the state will get even less respect if they decide to enforce this. The only consolation is that the DA's office here can't keep up with the prosecution of the perpetrators of more serious crimes, forget the prosecution of parents of habitually tardy children. Then again, they may grab hold of this one in order to boost their numbers. New Orleans, Louisiana - Murder Capital of the World, but God forbid your child fails to attend school on time. We'll have our mayor cold-cock you for that one, missy.

Fine, then. My chin is up and at the ready. If I'm in jail, though, who in hell is gonna make sure my son at least gets to school, huh???? The Walking Id himself?

In the middle of all of this are the children. Not as a concept to be bandied about when one wants to make a case for school choice. Not as pawns to be shuttled about in this game called "school admissions roulette". Not as a way to manipulate parents and teachers against their will...but as individuals who have every right to be educated regardless of where they are from, what they look like, whether they are boys or girls, whether they are disabled or no, or what their home lives or family incomes are.

Most parents and teachers are committed to educating the children. It's the people in charge of the purse strings that I get angry about the most. It is those people who are using the parent-teacher commitment for their own gains. I really really really want to point fingers at specific people, like the real Paultards - Vallas and Pastorek, but they are symptomatic of what has been going on for some time in forty states and has only just come to this city. It is the folly of this impulse that G-Bitch remarks upon in one of her recent posts:

The idea is that the public sector cannot and does not work and only the skill set of private business and MBAs can save ___, in this case public schools. These advocates forget that not everything is a commodity and not everything can be treated as a commodity. People as commodities leads to personal violence, slavery and child abuse, among other things.

Take it from those who are deeply involved. Keep yourself informed. Document everything - every last complaint, every compliment, every ailment, eve-ry-thingggg. Apply for as much as you can with regards to your child's schooling, but always keep other options under the table, even if it will cost you for a bit. Support your teachers as best you can unless they have given you serious reason to believe they are not worthy of your support - then get other opinions from other parents, document everything once again, and try to work together on this for the best of all parties. There is no one formula for educating every kid, but school isn't necessarily a laboratory, either. Let's get some more pay to the teachers as well, so that we can give the good ones a chance to rise to the top and pass their love for what they do on to the kids. And involvement doesn't have to mean "in your child's and/or teacher's faces" - it means "be aware".
All we are left with if things are not getting better is resorting to throwing things against the wall, abusing drugs and drink heavily, or praying. Or all three in succession.

And I really don't think that's gonna work.


*Harlan Ellison, "Eidolons", from Angry Candy

Unless otherwise noted, all other dialogue in italics is from School of Rock. I love Principal Roz!

Last night was a Shabbat service honoring our religious school teachers...and, in honor of the occasion, I was subjected to a phone survey on the state of New Orleans education, with bonus questions concerning the Hornets, shortly before my attendance at the service. When one of the first questions concerns what I think New Orleans needs the most and my first impulse is to say, "Where do I start???"... I initially thought this survey was gonna be a farce. In a way, it was, but not in the way I thought it would be.

The number that appeared on the caller ID was from Hudson, Florida - and I want to try calling it back to see exactly which organization was conducting this survey. The queries began with what I thought about various local politicians and other notorious notables (Bobby Jindal, Hizzoner the Walking Id, Mary Landrieu, RSD superintendent Paul Vallas, BESE bigwig Paul Pastorek, and George Shinn) and I had to answer in a multiple choice fashion ranging from favorable to unfavorable, with "somewhat"s inbetween. "Most of the people named can go to hell" was not an option, sadly. It was where most of my answers lay - but instead, with the exception of Landrieu, most of the people named got "unfavorable"s from li'l ol' me. Yeah, I had to settle.

Then the questions about the charter schools came. The survey deviated from the norm because I was able to engage the surveyor in some conversation about the questions he was asking me. The man himself had a son who was invited to attend a charter school in the Florida area - though it was a good school, he had some reservations concerning the elitism of a system that professed to educate all, yet to do it "better" under the guise of this system of having a board of directors in charge and semi-autonomous sponsorship from outside the traditional public school system. To put that "equality" in perspective, I was asked about the fairness of this sponsorship and whether or not it really contributed to the rebuilding of the New Orleans public schools - and elicited some information concerning the added wrench in the works of grants from the Walton Family Foundation. 1500 scholarships are out there for families of K-3rd grade students who want to use them to head to greener pastures at private and parochial schools in the area, with more grants in the works for students in older grades to be added each year. This, coupled with consideration for school vouchers, coupled with the recent money woes for the RSD, makes for an unequal playing field for students that hasn't been all that level to begin with (unfortunately, Cliff and some other parents I have been talking with know this all too well). It also makes for a rocky road for a school system that was broken a long time ago - and , if recent trends continue, will have an extremely hard time getting off it knees and on its own two feet.

In this way, a ten-minute survey was drawn out to twenty-plus minutes. I thank the surveyor who shared his own misgivings and opinions with me as I shared mine with him.

For other possible partners in this effort to make school choice a choice stacked against recovering traditional public schools, go here.

For evidence that programs to throw new teachers into this lion's den of sketchily supported schools are simply NOT working, head to G-Bitch (another hint can be found here). A key quote from her post:

And locally, the uncertainty about benefits for long-term Orleans teachers now in charter schools may have a temporary reprieve–HB 718 has made it out of the Education Committee and will give Orleans teachers a 5 year leave of absence, 2 more years to figure out the retirement benefit issue.

puts my recent answer to a query on a recent post of mine into a slightly different light.

...the charter for my son's school says that the teachers will not be tenured, sick leave policies from the OPSD will not be grandfathered in, but "accumulated sick leave can be converted into pension compensation in the Teacher Retirement System of Louisiana upon retirement. Provisions will be made for health insurance including short and long term disability.

"Individuals who were employed by the local public school system, and who are on a leave of absence, may continue their participation in the Teacher Retirement System of Louisiana or elect a 401K. Newly hired teachers will be offered the 401K only. We are investigating a 403(b) retirement plan for employees...."

My son's school "will not be participating in the United Teachers of New Orleans collective bargaining agreement with New Orleans Public Schools."

Their salaries are a 2-3% increase over the OPSB salary ranges, for my son's school, which means they must stay in the approx. $30k-$48K range, but they cannot pay more than that.

Because the OPSD was not the greatest at taking care of their teachers, I have to wonder whether the teachers in the schools here will keep this up for much longer before they start looking around for places where costs of living aren't going to be galloping ahead of their salaries and benefits. Yes, this is a nationwide problem that needs to be seriously addressed and soon, but it isn't usually coupled with trying to rebuild a ruined city in the bargain.

Increasing the three-year "leave of absence" to five years for the OPSD teachers, under the current conditions I have described above, is delaying an inevitable decision on the part of the teaching staff of the schools here to leave for greener pastures elsewhere - whether it be schools in other parishes or in other parts of the country.

Students and parents can only suffer educationally and monetarily in this scenario.

Arrrgh.

Arrrgh arrrgh ARRRRRRRRRGGGGGHHHH!

It's days like these that make me want to crawl back into bed and start over.

Days when the natural disasters are making it clear that the earth is groaning from the environmental burdens we have placed on it:

Days when our most unnatural disasters are piling it on:

And a day when the weather is cruddy, my car failed to start outside the coffee shop, and I can't reach my husband, who is out of town, to see if he renewed his AAA membership and, if he did, could he please call them up to tow the damn car to our mechanic.

Sigh.

However, I am grateful for two things:

1) The rain has washed all the love bug carcasses off the windshield of the car. I can now see well enough not to drive it.

2) I am in the most perfect attire for a day like today, and I am supporting a badass beautiful mama of three equally beautiful children by wearing it.

Hana sez: Believe me when I tell you these are not my kids...even though they may be behaving like them.

You, too, can own the perfect shirt for those days when the world is weighing down on you by heading here. Donate a little something to Remember Ashley Morris while you're at it.

I must say that the shirt dries off very nicely after a soaking rain and does feel great.

Things can only go onward and upward after a day like today, right?

'Cause if not, well...

Recent little guy questions:

"Mom, do flies poop? What does it look like?"

Answer: "Yes, they do, honey, and it's kind of small. I've never wanted to know what it looks like, to tell you the truth..."

"What's a seizure?"

Answer: "Well, it's when somebody gets the shakes without meaning to, or they are frozen in place. Seizures take many forms..."

(If any of you are wondering where that question came from, it stemmed from a fellow parent's assessment of this flick.)

"What's a Suckophant?"

Answer: "Well, honey, one big blast of its vacuum flask means...



...bye-bye Beatles!"

Recent line of questioning from my husband after sharing with him how much our son loves Yellow Submarine:

"Does he know that John Lennon is dead?"

"Well, no. You know John and George are dead now."

"Should we tell him that Paul is dead?"

"Uhhhh, no...but he might as well be, huh?"

Laughter

Ohhh, boy.

To paraphrase a recent email I received, the charter school teachers in the area are fast reaching their event horizons.

When the former Orleans Parish School District was reorganized into the form of a Mobius strip from hell, former OPSD teachers were given the option of taking a "leave of absence" from their OPSD positions to teach in charter schools and see how the situation fit 'em. The time they could take off? - up to three years.

Keep in mind that if the teachers decide to stay with their charters after that time, they are giving up all kinds of benefits that would come to them from working in a public school entity: tenure, retirement plans, other good stuff that can come to those who are busting their buns teaching their subjects for not much money for a few decades.

So...

Guess which year we're coming up on?

It's not much of a wonder why the state and most other private entities are supporting the charters, in this case...and it makes me want to go and read my son's school's charter to see what benefits the teachers get, if any.

I'd advise any other parents whose children are enrolled in charters to check the fine print at their schools as well. It's a good thing to do anyway, since I was witness to a nifty circumvention of what a charter states a while back. Never underestimate the power a charter school board can exercise in exploiting loopholes in its own document - for good or ill.

Update, 9:23 PM: By way of the News Ladder, a high school will be closing...

Decision makers at the state level are planning on closing Frederick Douglass High School on St. Claude in the Upper 9th Ward. We know this for two reasons; one that no new freshmen were admitted last year, and that several weeks ago teachers at Douglass were pulled into a meeting and told that the school is being phased out.

The very way this is being done is sneaky and vague; likely because if these plans were publicly announced they could result in a huge PR problem for the RSD and State Superintendent Paul Pastorek.

....The long and the short is this: Don’t count on Vallas or anyone at the state level for help, and frankly you should not be lulled into waiting for this dubious Master Plan. For the Douglass community, you are going to have to fight to keep your school.

To quote Frederick Douglass: “Those who profess to favor freedom and yet depreciate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground, they want rain without thunder and lightning. They want the ocean without the roar of its many waters.”

blog entry by Jim Randels on this meeting

Save Frederick Douglass

Bizarro Blogosphere Digs from two supposedly opposing corners of the human condition:


First off: H.G. "Buzz" Bissinger vs Will Leitch of Deadspin. Otherwise known as Friday Night Lights vs "You're With Me, Leather".


And then: The Today show's harpies vs the Blogging Moms. As if having parental units hocking each other online weren't enough, network TV's morning juggernaut has to join in.


Costas Now treats the blogosphere like an interloper - heavy on any and all information without that inside access, without even seeming to care about whether or not they get that. Will Leitch does his best to emphasize, amidst all the anger coming from Bissinger and the attempted pinning of comments on recent posts on him by Costas, that, in the end, it is readership that is driving the content and contributing to the success of a blog(s). And, no, people aged 18-34 aren't going to be picking up newspapers now because darn near all of them are getting their sports news, among other news out there, from syndicated news agencies and not from local reporting. It costs too much for these news conglomerates for them to, say, pay somebody to exclusively follow a farm team, and this is not something the blogosphere started. Blogs might actually have been contributing to it in the past couple of years, but mainly as a response to trends that have already been fueled by corporate buyouts of news outlets. This is a trend that eliminates contributions of human beings, warts and all, and it doesn't give folks like Bissinger the time to hone their craft much anymore, as he says. I weep for his bygone past, but I celebrate the openness of the blogosphere and the chance to figure all of this out for myself, thank you...and, on that score, Bissinger really doesn't give bloggers and readers of blogs credit for having some brains. Only readers of his books can really appreciate good sportswriting, apparently.


On the blogging moms score - excuse my aside here - Hoda, what the hell happened to you? You were the toast of New Orleans, a great investigative reporter who rightfully went national and began contributing insighful reporting to NBC's Dateline on a regular basis - and now you're Kathie Lee Gifford's sidekick, asking Heather Armstrong "is it all moms who are on your blogosphere?" Wake UP, woman!!!!


There's a reason why marketers are trying to cater to moms who blog now, and that is the previously untapped community these women represent, the generation of mothers who were supposed to be able to have it all and don't quite. We all want nothing more than to get beyond the mommy platitudes of its being the best time of your life, caring for an infant and taking that time to do so, when in reality, it can be a depressing, isolating, hugely chaotic time for new parents who are being bombarded on all sides on how best to raise these young lives they've brought into the world. Being a parent is still damned difficult and we need all the help we can get. And though I didn't need to know it before I saw that sad Today show clip, I am thoroughly convinced that I don't need an overly orange Kathie Lee, the woman who launched a thousand sweatshops, to put down the blogosphere. Honey, come on down to my city and we'll set you straight on what blogging really can be.


Perhaps then you'll get a little less concerned about whether or not it's right for you personally and you'll start worrying about the children again, since, after all, you are all about family - right?


Uh-huh.

Best-ever Mother's Day card, from my sister-in-law:

After the Mother's Day I've had, I must say that children come in ALL AGES. And I probably should have become a hermit in some remote wooded area someplace in order to never come to this realization...but there it is.

So forget Mother's Day. Here's to the Mother's Movement.

I was actually searching for some more articles on how Hillary is still unwilling to give up the ghost as far as her presidential candidacy is concerned (it also had me wondering how low she could go, from trying to garner the cracker vote to survive to possibly speaking jive [like she hasn't been doing so already] to keep afloat for the nomination. Sheckrastos has other thoughts on that issue ). I ran across this instead:

The New Orleans Redevelopment Authority won a victory in civil district court on Thursday that validated one of its key strategies for returning blighted property, a nuisance that has become especially troublesome since Hurricane Katrina, into productive use.

Judge Madeleine Landrieu ruled that the city agency was on solid constitutional footing when it moved last year to seize two vacant lots on Clouet Street from an owner who had racked up a string of health and code violations and transfer them to Habitat for Humanity, a nonprofit that is building homes for low-income people in the area.

I don't dispute the fact that NORA is bending over backwards to try to do the right thing and get more homes and more development going that will benefit people that are not in the highest income brackets in these parts. The problem I find with this decision is how it could just as easily be used to tilt things in the other direction....because Lord knows we've already got lots of that kind of thing going on without a judge's ruling to back it up.

I'm already wondering how the current poster boy for conflict of interest will exploit this.

E already has some reservations about Sean Cummings' intentions for his land:

That's okay. We'll see very soon what is meant by "substantial" financial interest. I don't know why I need to wait. I'm against the his riverfront development plan regardless of whether or not his family stands to make millions.

I think it's a stupid idea.

There, I said it.

-I feel as though politicians everywhere have this stupid expectation that just because some development deal gets put together and promises to spend a bunch of money and generate a bunch of revenue, ordinary citizens are supposed to just support it and not ask questions.

Wake up.

....Why does the leadership of this city still govern with some 1990s economic development magic wand? It makes no sense to sink so much money into this project. We have plenty of attractions and things to do in this town. There are plenty of concert venues. The tourists have a lot of options.

If you want people to move into the city, if you want people to invest in the city, if you want residents that grow up here to stay here, you're going to have to make the place more livable.

We need hospitals, public transportation, schools, and sanitation service.

Let's start there.

Way, waaaay too many things in this town are still being viewed through that cracked prism of what will attract the tourist dollars. This need for help I cried out for a few months ago still rings true, dammit.

When these kinds of things start invading your home, I promise not to yell, "I told you so."

Maybe.

Update, 5-11: Minor Wisdom finds another perspective on the ruling here.

Now I'm getting farklempt. Talk amongst yourselves...

...I've just given you your topic.

So I spent a couple of days this week acceeding to my best high school friend D's wishes and heading on up the series of winding highways known collectively as "the River Road", and I have many, many love bug carcasses squished on my windshield to prove it. Not to mention a near-overheating of the car that had us driving back to New Orleans with the windows down and the defroster going on high heat.

I myself am not the kind of person who would go running off to tour all the different plantations all by myself. Something in it all sort of reeks of a glorification of these days that were extremely harsh, backbreaking, and, indeed, cruel for nearly all but a privileged few of the population. The folks who owned these big houses and the thousands of acres surrounding them had, for the most part, worked hard for their success, but it came through breaking the backs of many, many others. People were treated like commodities to be bought, used, and sold with no regard for their well-being at this point in our history, and we are still reeling from it all.

Plus, it's a long drive.

Even so, what's more important is that I spend time with my friend, who got married late last year. I had shown her my city, devastated areas and all, first off, and talked her ear off about the issues I've been immersed in for a while here, so it was only fair that I take her on a nice, lazy drive on winding roads with the river levee at our side. I had no clue we were driving towards a few interesting palimpsests when we headed towards Houmas House on one day and Laura Plantation the next.

Through a bit of a navigatory mistake on my part that still resulted in a nice drive, we headed to Houmas House first and walked through an idealized dream of an antebellum mansion that is owned and operated privately by a businessman and preservationist who still inserts some of his own touches into the decor of the place. If the gardens weren't enough to wow the first-time visitor, walking into the entrance hall of the main house and seeing the current owner's dogs in the hand-painted murals of local wildlife amidst the fields of sugarcane gives one the hint that historical accuracy on these grounds has been stretched a tad. Especially when one walks into the men's parlor...

...and spies a recent acquisition in the far corner of the house that a mid-nineteenth-century plantation owner would probably never have in his/her home. It isn't in the above picture, but it was a striking sculpture of Abraham Lincoln sitting on a bench in a relaxed pose, his iconic top hat resting on the bench beside him. It was only when the sculpture was carefully cleaned and restored that the sculptor's name was revealed on the surface of the bench next to Honest Abe...and then, it didn't seem so farfetched to have the sculpture there once one knew the sculptor's history.

It was a Gutzon Borglum piece, the look of which was heavily influenced by one of Borglum's artistic mentors, Auguste Rodin. And though it is a fact that Borglum had strong associations with the Klan in the 1920's, there is some debate as to whether it was a move calculated to get the sculptor more commissions (baldly deplorable in itself), or whether it was indicative of his actual views (seriously disgusting, that). A taste for the monumental that resulted in the partial realization of his vision for Mount Rushmore coupled with a naked opportunism, perfectionism, and arrogance that repulsed most of the people he met made for a conflicted icon-maker whose unexpected presence in a plantation in South Louisiana was serious food for thought for me.

It is also amazing what one can acquire on eBay...



We were too late to make the tour of Laura after lunch in the Cafe Burnside, so we headed downriver in time to pick up the little guy from school and drop D. off in the Garden District so she could conduct her own self-guided tour of the area (the kid has no patience for that kind of thing at 3:30 in the afternoon on a hot day...hell, he has little patience for that kind of thing on any day at any time), and made plans to return to Laura the next morning.

In the case of Laura, the tours conducted of the place reveal a family business that went for the smartest people in the Duparc-Locoul dynasty for its presidents - the smartest ones being the women of the family. Changing times and this preference towards brains over traditional first-born-male-centrism had to lead to these women becoming so smart that one who was groomed for the presidency turned it down flat - and that woman was, ironically, the one for whom the house and grounds is named. Laura Locoul saw how the business of running a sugar plantation had turned her grandmother into a horrible, domineering harridan from hell who abused her slaves and wanted no part of it. Naming the plantation for her was supposed to be an inducement for her to stay, but what could they really have expected from a woman who made her debut dressed as the Devil at a Carnival ball in New Orleans...

...and who (gasp!) married a Presbyterian, sold the property, and went off to live in St Louis for a number of decades, only returning to the place when she was in her seventies. The tour itself is based on the memoirs she wrote for her children about life on the plantation, both the ease of it

....and the cruelty of it.

Pictured above are the remains of what was once two rows of slave cabins that stretched out for at least six miles on the property. Each cabin consisted of two rooms, one family of no more than five-six members to a room. Since there was no cooking allowed in the cabins, the very loud bell by the woman in the hat was rung at mealtimes to call everybody to get their food from a kitchen located just behind the big house.

This was a family that did nothing halfway, even when it came to renunciation of a life that had kept 'em tied to the riverside for so long. When Laura was gone, she was gone. The memoirs she left behind were mainly written to satisfy the curiosity of her children and grandchildren, who were more familiar with a Margaret Mitchell/David O. Selznick-ized view of plantation life, but she also couldn't deny the hold her memories had on her.

To ignore these properties that still run along the River Road(s), some of which are working plantations to this day, is to ignore a significant part of what makes the South tick. It ain't all wine and roses, for certain. And it isn't easy to face.

But it does make me grateful for what we have in the here and now, and why it is worth striving for better for all.

No matter where they are or who they are.

Got the latest issue of the Oxford American magazine yesterday. It is entitled "The Home Sweet Home" issue, and I am still eagerly slogging my way through it.

I must say that this publication has had an uncanny ability to rise from the ashes many, many times over. It has survived the exit of John Grisham as its publisher, a move to Arkansas, and now the embezzlement of its funds from a former employee that left it nearly bankrupt. May it continue to keep on keepin' on, especially when it publishes works such as this:

For so long, I have held that yellow house inside me. I have been at times shaken when it came to letting people near me because it would mean letting them near the unadulterated one, the real yellow house. I was a kid raised well (with class and hope but little money) and who grew up in a raggedy house. I never did need to be one or the other. I mean, who does not know that they are more than just a single adjective? But back then when I was eight, twelve, fifteen, I had no idea about the stupefying nature of dichotomy.

Or that, if one is able, one might, one day, return to stand facing everything you originally left looking for.

....Back home, I researched the demolition of our house, and found an article from the New Orleans Times-Picayune headlined: red danger list: 1,975 properties deemed “in imminent danger of collapse.” I scrolled down fifty-one pages before seeing it: 4121 Wilson Avenue, New Orleans, 70126, our old address.

Yellow House, I wonder how you felt to be bursting open, at last, your secrets out, proclaimed, free, falling this way and that, at least momentarily, before being obliterated, swept up into flying dust. Gone.

By Sarah M. Broom. Go read the whole thing and tell me what you think.

For those of you who have no clue as to where Myanmar is...

...or what happened there...

...well, there you go.

Looks all too familiar, doesn't it?

Go here for ways to help the people of Myanmar at this time (thanks, Athenae).

And go here and here to see why we all need to slap that tool of a First Lady that we have tagging along behind our illustrious oaf of a prez.

I have become Li'l Miz Tour Guide for my best friend from high school this week.

It all began with a jaunt to JazzFest on Saturday afternoon. We managed to park the car in the yard of a friend's house and walked over to the Fair Grounds. My friend and her husband were actually a tad overdressed for the Fest: both of 'em were wearing pants, and the hubby had his wingtips on, so it was interesting to see him maneuver his way through the muck. They got in some dancing at the Economy Hall tent, courtesy of my Deputy Tour Guide, Dan (y'all know where I was...), and then we all decamped to John Besh's brassiere...uhhh, brasserie, Luke, for dinner (sorry, can't help it - it was listed as a brassiere for ages in the Gambit when they were hiring, and it was only corrected in the final weeks of the ad's run).

The next day, after I taught religious school (Overheard by the kids in my class: "Which one dispenses the hot water?", from a fellow trying to work a sink, and "Oh, no, I have such trouble reading those clocks!!!", from a girl who asked the time and was directed to the analog clock right up there on the wall. I guess she was missing her iPhone or some such thing, but still...), I headed out to the Fest with just me and my friend. The little guy opted out, but Dan kindly offered to drop us off at the Fest and had to repeatedly explain to our son that no, he was not attending the Fest, he was only along for the ride to drop us off and he was not coming with us. I'm so happy to learn that I am not the only one with a slight spoilsport for a child, but still, when you are having more fun than your kid, it makes you wonder which genes have skipped a generation...

On the way there, we were asked by a fellow in the Mustang next to us in traffic if we had an extra Fest ticket we could sell him. Had to turn him down, and a discussion ensued across the dashed yellow line in Broad Street about how much the ticket prices had gone up over the years. We saw him move up and ask the fellow in the SUV in front of us the same question and observed what we assumed was a similar discussion happening between the two vehicles. I later wished we'd taken the fellow's license plate down or something, 'cause someone was trying to sell a ticket for $30 at the laundromat near where we were dropped off. Oh, well.

We saw a lot of great acts yesterday...took in some of Rebirth, cooled off in the misty Blues tent with mango freezes and a great dose of Keb' Mo', and then we topped it all off with a stay with the Wild Magnolias and Bo Dollis, adjacent to Hana Morris and her entourage, whose spot we watched while they all headed for better bathrooms at the Grandstand (I don't blame 'em one bit for that).

Up to that performance yesterday, I had been debating whether or not I ought to show my friend D all the other parts of New Orleans she was bound to miss if she stuck with the tours and the like. Unlike her husband, who is currently tied to the convention in town, she has some time during the day to traipse around a little more and really see everything. How much should I show her? Would she understand? When I had talked with D and her husband over dinner Saturday night, they said a lot about how little news about New Orleans was coming out of the (mainstream) media to the rest of the country. Seeing the waterlines on the closed Whitney Bank building at the corner of Broad and Canal had gotten them questioning what was really being done recovery-wise in my city. Good.

Would they really get it?

My fears melted away in front of the Wild Magnolias that day.

A member of the tribe was introduced to the crowd. "He's in New York now! We need to get him to come home! It's too cold up there!"

"Hell yes!" I screamed as loud as I could.

"We need to bring him home!"

"Damn right! It's waaay too cold up there!" I screamed again. Members of the Fest clean-up crew nearby smiled and nodded their heads with me.

"She knows!" D yelled. "Bring 'im home!"

All of us smiled and nodded together.

I wasn't just talking about the freezing temperatures up north, either. This city is still being frozen out of real, meaningful discussion and action concerning its fate. Its exiles are still longing for the opportunity to come home and to live in the way to which they are accustomed. Money that could be going towards stronger levees and real coastal restoration is headed overseas and valuable sediment is still allowed to flow right into the lake and the gulf. That kind of big chill will permeate national, state, and local politics unless everybody is educated.

And that includes D and her husband.

And, hey, I know that I can do as good a job as these folks in the education department. Hell, with the help of the blogpocheh, I can probably do even better.

It is in this way that something can and will be done...

...and, in the process, something just as valuable as the Indians making a new suit every year will be passed on.

_______________________

I wish this made me feel better:

By 1988, the gate price was $9, which is $16.06 with inflation—or just a little less than the original $3 ticket, and in 1999, a ticket cost $18 or $22.87 with inflation. The biggest increase took place in 2005 when the gate price was raised to $35 ($37.83 when adjusted for inflation).

The current $50 ticket price brings Jazz Fest in line with other major festivals. The Austin City Limits Festival cost $56 a day, Coachella $89 and Bonnaroo between $52 and $61 (Note: other festivals often require the purchase of a multi-day pass). It’s also only slightly more expensive than a number of shows at the House of Blues during Jazz Fest. Buddy Guy (May 2) and Etta James (April 27) tickets cost $45 or more, and Dr. John tickets cost $33.50—67 percent of the price of a Jazz Fest ticket for two bands (Shannon McNally opens).

Perhaps looking back to the past is not how we should measure the worth of Jazz Fest. Who wouldn’t pay $16.32 to hear many of New Orleans greatest musicians in their prime? The question is what it’s worth to you now.

...but it doesn't quite.

And a picture in the print version of Offbeat's Jazz Fest Bible taken of the mannequin that is now Ernie K Doe reveals that the poor man needs a serious manicure. Seriously.

Woke up this morning to some monsoon-type rains outside. I had little hope for the JazzFest opening on time today, and, having been on the exhibitor side of the Fest many years before, my first thought was of how much money craft exhibitors were likely to lose due to the inclement weather.

These days, however, I have a different sort of occupation that has much more personal concerns...which is where the Children's Village at the Fest comes in.

A while back, all there was for the kids was a single tent in which kid-friendly acts performed. That tent is still there, but now it is adjacent to a number of hands-on activities just right for those kids of all ages who can't stay still long enough to take in a song or two. The ones my little guy loves the most are the shack porch complete with pirogue in the front yard....

...the neighborhood cafe/cook-off kitchen, in which the kids can cook all the plastic crawfish, shrimp, and crabs they catch from the yard pirogue...

...and an opportunity to rebuild New Orleans as best as they can.

Okay, so it isn't all of New Orleans. The kids have got to start somewhere...

In the past, I got a mite disgusted. It seemed I was stuck with the kiddies and missing all the music. Last year, the kids' tent sounds were drowning out the Gentilly Stage performers nearby. This year, however, I took in some classic Marcia Ball whilst watching the little guy run all over the village catching crawfish and doing the work that those cranes a certain Recovery Czar promised to this city ought to be doing.

Requiring parental supervision of these intrepid young 'uns ensures that there is a social element to watching your kids as they decorate some Japanese lanterns at the crafts tent or try to maneuver their way through a small labyrinth. Networking with other moms and dads in this way gets me meeting folks from many corners of the earth as well as from the unexplored nooks and crannies of my own neighborhood. Topics have ranged from discussion of the blazing heat that followed the heavy morning rains, all things Fest food-related, all things Fest performance-related, talk of local schools and summer camps, and, of course, baffling and funny kid behavior.

I have found that it is only after an extended period of village antics (and with the help of a bag of roasted peanuts to munch on) that my son can take a break and listen to some music with us. He can sit in my lap in the rain and take in some of Bobby Lounge's act, say, or he can hang in the Economy Hall tent and take in some of a tribute to George Lewis with Dan, the world's biggest Dr. Michael White fan.

Sooo, I guess this is the year I stopped worrying about catching all the Fest performances so much and learned to love that Children's Village.

I still have some problems with that muddy bog that is the Fair Grounds after a heavy rain, though....