Posts
School's out Friday, so this week a lot of results from the year's scholarship have come in for the kids. The big one is that BOTH of my girls were the top readers in their entire grades--80-100 kids! Sabra got almost 400 AR points, and AJ read 73 books (of course they stopped counting last week, but she's read 3 or 4 since then).
They stand in a long line of great readers...from Grama to Mom to me and my siblings (not to mention their daddy!) to them. I am really really proud, but not really surprised, because my kids are AWESOME!!!
Kathy
Tuesday, May 20, 2008
Tuesday, May 13, 2008
Finals Week
I'm sorry I haven't updated in a while. I have a lot of stuff to add, but we're in Finals Week at both colleges. For us that means that the last few weeks have been brutal, but that this week isn't so bad. For the last few weeks, Matt and I have both been trying to make up for time we lost during the ice storms and floods earlier in the semester: you can't always tell that early on how the lost time is going to affect your content. I had to completely drop Baha'i from my World Religions lecture, along with several New Religions/Alternative Spiritualities. Looking back on it, I wish I had dropped Zoroastrianism and possibly even traditional African religions--but it's very hard to know at the time how it's going to play out. Anyway, this week is just going to be grading papers and tests, and then we're done. Whoo hoo! And I can catch up on blogging and other writing.
More to come,
Kathy
More to come,
Kathy
Friday, May 2, 2008
It's Not About Being a Woman...Except When It Is
Army medic Pfc. Monica Brown pulled a fellow solider to safety, shielded him with her body, treated his wounds, carried him to an ambulance, and got him airlifted to safety--all under enemy gunfire in Afghanistan. For these heroic acts, Pfc. Brown received the Silver Star, only the second woman in history to do so. You can read her story in the Washington Post here.
What fascinates me about this story is more than just the same old question about whether women "should be" in combat. Dude, women ARE in combat. Of course, Pfc. Brown was taken out of the unit where she was serving as a medic and sent back to the big Army, because she wasn't supposed to be in combat. But there are two things about the contemporary situation that have got to be addressed.
One is that the ancient combat rules of 1992 (and in our era of technology, 16 years might as well be a century), define "combat" as being "forward," as in "toward the front lines." But in this war, there are no front lines. There are no lines at all. There are just people shooting at our soldiers, and people acting with breathtaking courage and generosity. Stories like Pfc. Brown's represent the best of our military and our nation, and heck, the best of our claims as human beings. She didn't go to "the front lines," whatever they are--she is a medic and went where soldiers needed care. That is her job and she does it incredibly well. Can we get the bureaucrats out of the way and just let her do it?
The other thing that the article points out, and which deserves some more attention, is the fact that far from a "gender-blind" military being the ideal, the US now finds itself in a position where it needs to send women into dangerous places...not only because they are fine soldiers, but specifically because they are women. We are dealing with conservative Muslim countries, and in these cultures, only women can interact publicly with women. When it comes to something as sensitive as giving medical care, it is absolutely out of the question for Muslim women to be treated or touched by foreign men. If we are going to stick to our moral claim that we are in these places to make the lives of the people better, we simply must respect these cultural boundaries--and that means sending women into any place where there might be women. And that's almost everywhere in Afghanistan and Iraq.
The US Army needs brave women soldiers like Monica Brown--because they are brave, because they are soldiers, and because they are women. If these rules don't change immediately, and if soldiers like Pfc. Brown aren't put back in action, we'll find ourselves back where we started this whole undertaking--one war behind.
Kathy
What fascinates me about this story is more than just the same old question about whether women "should be" in combat. Dude, women ARE in combat. Of course, Pfc. Brown was taken out of the unit where she was serving as a medic and sent back to the big Army, because she wasn't supposed to be in combat. But there are two things about the contemporary situation that have got to be addressed.
One is that the ancient combat rules of 1992 (and in our era of technology, 16 years might as well be a century), define "combat" as being "forward," as in "toward the front lines." But in this war, there are no front lines. There are no lines at all. There are just people shooting at our soldiers, and people acting with breathtaking courage and generosity. Stories like Pfc. Brown's represent the best of our military and our nation, and heck, the best of our claims as human beings. She didn't go to "the front lines," whatever they are--she is a medic and went where soldiers needed care. That is her job and she does it incredibly well. Can we get the bureaucrats out of the way and just let her do it?
The other thing that the article points out, and which deserves some more attention, is the fact that far from a "gender-blind" military being the ideal, the US now finds itself in a position where it needs to send women into dangerous places...not only because they are fine soldiers, but specifically because they are women. We are dealing with conservative Muslim countries, and in these cultures, only women can interact publicly with women. When it comes to something as sensitive as giving medical care, it is absolutely out of the question for Muslim women to be treated or touched by foreign men. If we are going to stick to our moral claim that we are in these places to make the lives of the people better, we simply must respect these cultural boundaries--and that means sending women into any place where there might be women. And that's almost everywhere in Afghanistan and Iraq.
The US Army needs brave women soldiers like Monica Brown--because they are brave, because they are soldiers, and because they are women. If these rules don't change immediately, and if soldiers like Pfc. Brown aren't put back in action, we'll find ourselves back where we started this whole undertaking--one war behind.
Kathy
Wednesday, April 30, 2008
Movies I Watched This Weekend
In a very strange turn of events, I actually saw 3 movies on DVD this weekend that I had never seen before. And one of them was rated R, which, believe me, NEVER happens, because by the time the children are in bed we're usually too tired to watch a whole movie. But this time, we watched it on a beautiful Saturday afternoon, when the kids were OUTSIDE playing. We even gave them a couple of bucks and sent them down to the dime store to get them out of the way for a while. We only had to stop the movie 8 or 9 times--it was great!
Okay, so in order of rating, here are the new movies I saw (for obvious reasons, I am not even going to bother to comment on The Fox and the Hound 2):
Meet the Robinsons. Rated G. I admit that I wanted to see this because I am in love with Rob Thomas, and he wrote one of the songs for this movie (Little Wonders, which you can find here. I found though, that the themes of choice (are you responsible for your life or is someone else to blame?) and family resonated with me deeply. The main character is an orphan, and gets adopted by the Robinson family (it's a bit more complicated than that, though), but his most desperate wish is to go back in time to meet his birth mother. The director said that the young hero's family-identity journey mirrored his own, as he was also adopted. I am the mother of an adopted son, and I think about these things a lot, so I found the theme very moving.
Dan In Real Life. Rated PG-13. As big of a fan as I am of The Office, this is the kind of thing I like to see Steve Carrell in the most. He just plays it straight and real, no pratfalls or funny voices (well, a few...), and his pain, confusion, fear, and finally, hope and love, are so understated that they are utterly believable. He's a widower with 3 daughters, and the oldest child in a huge family--I couldn't always count, but I think it was 3 brothers and 2 sisters, maybe, at a family vacation with all of them, including their parents, their spouses, and all their children. He meets a woman at a bookstore and falls in love with her pretty quickly, but then discovers that she is his brother's girlfriend. Obviously, he has some things to work out there...the resolution is hard-won and very satisfying.
Sweeney Todd. Rated R. Johnny Depp can totally sing. He's so tortured, so obsessed, so cruel in this that he ruins everything he touches, including the things he came to redeem. I have never been quite sure what I think of this musical, but this cast-crew combo got everything out of it possible. Tim Burton uses his characteristic eye for color to highlight the blood, which is the most ghastly bright red--almost always the only color in a grey world. Alan Rickman is obscene in his role as Judge Turpin; the way he looked at Joanna, his ward, made my skin crawl. And Burton uses few close-ups or long shots, but everything is done in a series of mid-range shots that give it a terrifying matter-of-factness, very effectively drawing out the mundanity of evil. FYI, you want to have a strong stomach for this one.
Kathy
Okay, so in order of rating, here are the new movies I saw (for obvious reasons, I am not even going to bother to comment on The Fox and the Hound 2):
Meet the Robinsons. Rated G. I admit that I wanted to see this because I am in love with Rob Thomas, and he wrote one of the songs for this movie (Little Wonders, which you can find here. I found though, that the themes of choice (are you responsible for your life or is someone else to blame?) and family resonated with me deeply. The main character is an orphan, and gets adopted by the Robinson family (it's a bit more complicated than that, though), but his most desperate wish is to go back in time to meet his birth mother. The director said that the young hero's family-identity journey mirrored his own, as he was also adopted. I am the mother of an adopted son, and I think about these things a lot, so I found the theme very moving.
Dan In Real Life. Rated PG-13. As big of a fan as I am of The Office, this is the kind of thing I like to see Steve Carrell in the most. He just plays it straight and real, no pratfalls or funny voices (well, a few...), and his pain, confusion, fear, and finally, hope and love, are so understated that they are utterly believable. He's a widower with 3 daughters, and the oldest child in a huge family--I couldn't always count, but I think it was 3 brothers and 2 sisters, maybe, at a family vacation with all of them, including their parents, their spouses, and all their children. He meets a woman at a bookstore and falls in love with her pretty quickly, but then discovers that she is his brother's girlfriend. Obviously, he has some things to work out there...the resolution is hard-won and very satisfying.
Sweeney Todd. Rated R. Johnny Depp can totally sing. He's so tortured, so obsessed, so cruel in this that he ruins everything he touches, including the things he came to redeem. I have never been quite sure what I think of this musical, but this cast-crew combo got everything out of it possible. Tim Burton uses his characteristic eye for color to highlight the blood, which is the most ghastly bright red--almost always the only color in a grey world. Alan Rickman is obscene in his role as Judge Turpin; the way he looked at Joanna, his ward, made my skin crawl. And Burton uses few close-ups or long shots, but everything is done in a series of mid-range shots that give it a terrifying matter-of-factness, very effectively drawing out the mundanity of evil. FYI, you want to have a strong stomach for this one.
Kathy
Friday, April 25, 2008
Book Review for Code Orange
Code Orange
By Caroline Cooney
Delacourt Press, 2005
I’ve just read Caroline Cooney’s young adult novel Code Orange for the second time. I am still so very impressed and compelled by her riveting combination of character development and research; the two go hand in hand in this novel, because the more the main character learns, the more afraid he becomes, and the harder his choices get.
Some people are better researchers than fiction writers. We get the feeling that what they really want is to show the reader how interesting their topic is—and it usually is interesting. But that’s not what we go to fiction for. We read fiction because we want to learn about people, others experiencing things that we find connections to. The best fictional characters, like the Velveteen Rabbit, become real simply because we believe in them so completely.
Caroline Cooney understands the difference. Each of her novels centers around a certain theme—forgiveness, sundered families, identity—and you know that she’s done her research. But that’s not why you read. You read because the main character—always a teenager—grabs your attention and your heart from the first words.
That’s exactly what’s going on in her gripping novel, Code Orange. The title refers to the Homeland Security danger alert codes implemented after 9/11, and hints at the sort of danger that will be encountered in the book. The main character, 16-year-old Mitty Blake, accidentally comes across a hundred-year-old envelope full of smallpox scabs in an old medical book, but at the time he has no idea what he is handling. Then, he begins his research for a school science paper, and begins to realize that he may have contracted the world’s most terrifying disease—a disease that is supposed to have been eradicated 30 years ago. From there we follow his journey into fear and paranoia, illness, bioterrorism, and worse. It’s utterly compelling, and incredibly suspenseful; as Cooney counts off the days from exposure to infectiousness, we are as impatient and fearful as Mitty is. And she cuts us no slack—is that headache just a headache, or is it the onset of smallpox? Is Mitty chilled because it’s February in New York, or is it a symptom of smallpox? She won’t tell Mitty, and she won’t tell us.
Cooney uses Mitty’s science research paper as a way of feeding us the information we need to have to become as scared as Mitty is. Mitty writes in his own words about the symptoms and development of smallpox, how it is passed from person to person, how it was eradicated and how it might return, and chillingly, about its potential uses as a weapon of bioterrorism. It never feels too farfetched, especially since Mitty can come up with a million reasons why this couldn’t really be happening. We know the incredible odds as well as he does. But we are still as afraid as he is.
Even more interesting than the smallpox storyline is Mitty’s character development. When we first meet him he is the ultimate teenage boy slacker. He cares for nothing but music and the girl he’s crushing on, and he’s filling a seat in an advanced biology class that his parents paid the school to put him in. But through his research and the fear that he might contract smallpox—and even worse, give it to others—we see him grow up. He realizes what’s important, and he learns how to act on his newly discovered feelings of love and loyalty. In the end, Mitty is no longer a slacker in any sense. Mitty knows what the right thing to do is, and he acts on it.
I would recommend this book for middle school age and up (including adults). The terrorism theme might be scary for the younger kids in this age group, but in my experience it’s better for them to be a little bit afraid and to ask their parents or teachers about it, than to hear something on the radio or TV and be terrified. Much as adults might hate it, terrorism is now a part of our children’s lives, and like all difficult subjects, kids must be exposed to it in controlled amounts. Since the book has no violence, only the threat of violence, I think that even pre-adolescent kids can handle it. And adults will find that they can’t put it down, and don’t want to, until they know how it ends.
By Caroline Cooney
Delacourt Press, 2005
I’ve just read Caroline Cooney’s young adult novel Code Orange for the second time. I am still so very impressed and compelled by her riveting combination of character development and research; the two go hand in hand in this novel, because the more the main character learns, the more afraid he becomes, and the harder his choices get.
Some people are better researchers than fiction writers. We get the feeling that what they really want is to show the reader how interesting their topic is—and it usually is interesting. But that’s not what we go to fiction for. We read fiction because we want to learn about people, others experiencing things that we find connections to. The best fictional characters, like the Velveteen Rabbit, become real simply because we believe in them so completely.
Caroline Cooney understands the difference. Each of her novels centers around a certain theme—forgiveness, sundered families, identity—and you know that she’s done her research. But that’s not why you read. You read because the main character—always a teenager—grabs your attention and your heart from the first words.
That’s exactly what’s going on in her gripping novel, Code Orange. The title refers to the Homeland Security danger alert codes implemented after 9/11, and hints at the sort of danger that will be encountered in the book. The main character, 16-year-old Mitty Blake, accidentally comes across a hundred-year-old envelope full of smallpox scabs in an old medical book, but at the time he has no idea what he is handling. Then, he begins his research for a school science paper, and begins to realize that he may have contracted the world’s most terrifying disease—a disease that is supposed to have been eradicated 30 years ago. From there we follow his journey into fear and paranoia, illness, bioterrorism, and worse. It’s utterly compelling, and incredibly suspenseful; as Cooney counts off the days from exposure to infectiousness, we are as impatient and fearful as Mitty is. And she cuts us no slack—is that headache just a headache, or is it the onset of smallpox? Is Mitty chilled because it’s February in New York, or is it a symptom of smallpox? She won’t tell Mitty, and she won’t tell us.
Cooney uses Mitty’s science research paper as a way of feeding us the information we need to have to become as scared as Mitty is. Mitty writes in his own words about the symptoms and development of smallpox, how it is passed from person to person, how it was eradicated and how it might return, and chillingly, about its potential uses as a weapon of bioterrorism. It never feels too farfetched, especially since Mitty can come up with a million reasons why this couldn’t really be happening. We know the incredible odds as well as he does. But we are still as afraid as he is.
Even more interesting than the smallpox storyline is Mitty’s character development. When we first meet him he is the ultimate teenage boy slacker. He cares for nothing but music and the girl he’s crushing on, and he’s filling a seat in an advanced biology class that his parents paid the school to put him in. But through his research and the fear that he might contract smallpox—and even worse, give it to others—we see him grow up. He realizes what’s important, and he learns how to act on his newly discovered feelings of love and loyalty. In the end, Mitty is no longer a slacker in any sense. Mitty knows what the right thing to do is, and he acts on it.
I would recommend this book for middle school age and up (including adults). The terrorism theme might be scary for the younger kids in this age group, but in my experience it’s better for them to be a little bit afraid and to ask their parents or teachers about it, than to hear something on the radio or TV and be terrified. Much as adults might hate it, terrorism is now a part of our children’s lives, and like all difficult subjects, kids must be exposed to it in controlled amounts. Since the book has no violence, only the threat of violence, I think that even pre-adolescent kids can handle it. And adults will find that they can’t put it down, and don’t want to, until they know how it ends.
Wednesday, April 23, 2008
Shout Out to The Confessing Tiger
I heard through the grapevine that The Confessing Tiger* thinks my blog is cool (it was the scurvy post, wasn't it?)!
Wow.
Well, back atcha, hon--and yours has video, which impresses the heck out of me. (oh, hey, there's a button up there that says "add video"...what d'you know?)
The Tiger was one of my students during my exile in the aforementioned "San Francisco of the South," and one of those that made it worth it. You can check out his site here.
Keep up the good work, CT, and keep the faith.
KCT+
*I will continue to use his Superhero name in order to protect his secret identity.
Wow.
Well, back atcha, hon--and yours has video, which impresses the heck out of me. (oh, hey, there's a button up there that says "add video"...what d'you know?)
The Tiger was one of my students during my exile in the aforementioned "San Francisco of the South," and one of those that made it worth it. You can check out his site here.
Keep up the good work, CT, and keep the faith.
KCT+
*I will continue to use his Superhero name in order to protect his secret identity.
Who me, bitter?
I guess I'm just bitter.
The media whirls around like a tornado, touching down on the offensive comments of political candidates, then taking off again into the sky. The problem is, they leave some of us in the mess they've made.
My point being, I'm not over it. I am not over what Senator Barack Obama said about people like me, when he thought nobody was recording him. In case you live in a cave in Antarctica and missed it, let me just quote:
"You go into some of these small towns in Pennsylvania, and like a lot of small towns in the Midwest, the jobs have been gone now for 25 years and nothing's replaced them. And they fell through the Clinton administration, and the Bush administration, and each successive administration has said that somehow these communities are gonna regenerate and they have not. And it's not surprising then they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations."
I don't actually own a gun, but comments like that make me want to go out and buy one, mostly for spite. Now, the inaccuracies are one thing...it is true that some small towns have lost jobs, but almost all of the towns in my region are growing at a nice pace...that is, quickly enough to keep jobs but slowly enough to keep them small towns. Knowing all the challenges my community faces, I was so glad to come back here when I did, and so glad to get out of a community we might call "the San Francisco of the South," which was full of a lot of people who frequently said the same sort of things Obama said.
But, as you might guess, to have someone who has no idea what my life is like speak so patronizingly about how I "cling to..religion," out of my "bitterness..." Wow. Or how my neighbors and students and parishioners who hunt do so because they're clinging to their guns out of bitterness that is better directed at politics...that is so..well, as one of John McCain's advisors said it, demonstrates very clearly, "an elitism and condescension towards hardworking Americans that is nothing short of breathtaking...It is hard to imagine someone running for president who is more out of touch with average Americans."
That pretty much sums it up. I wasn't bitter before he said those things, but I'm feeling a bit bitter now. And the media can whirl on to whatever they want to cover next, but apparently the people of Pennsylvania didn't forget those comments. And I know that the people of Missouri won't.
Kat
The media whirls around like a tornado, touching down on the offensive comments of political candidates, then taking off again into the sky. The problem is, they leave some of us in the mess they've made.
My point being, I'm not over it. I am not over what Senator Barack Obama said about people like me, when he thought nobody was recording him. In case you live in a cave in Antarctica and missed it, let me just quote:
"You go into some of these small towns in Pennsylvania, and like a lot of small towns in the Midwest, the jobs have been gone now for 25 years and nothing's replaced them. And they fell through the Clinton administration, and the Bush administration, and each successive administration has said that somehow these communities are gonna regenerate and they have not. And it's not surprising then they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations."
I don't actually own a gun, but comments like that make me want to go out and buy one, mostly for spite. Now, the inaccuracies are one thing...it is true that some small towns have lost jobs, but almost all of the towns in my region are growing at a nice pace...that is, quickly enough to keep jobs but slowly enough to keep them small towns. Knowing all the challenges my community faces, I was so glad to come back here when I did, and so glad to get out of a community we might call "the San Francisco of the South," which was full of a lot of people who frequently said the same sort of things Obama said.
But, as you might guess, to have someone who has no idea what my life is like speak so patronizingly about how I "cling to..religion," out of my "bitterness..." Wow. Or how my neighbors and students and parishioners who hunt do so because they're clinging to their guns out of bitterness that is better directed at politics...that is so..well, as one of John McCain's advisors said it, demonstrates very clearly, "an elitism and condescension towards hardworking Americans that is nothing short of breathtaking...It is hard to imagine someone running for president who is more out of touch with average Americans."
That pretty much sums it up. I wasn't bitter before he said those things, but I'm feeling a bit bitter now. And the media can whirl on to whatever they want to cover next, but apparently the people of Pennsylvania didn't forget those comments. And I know that the people of Missouri won't.
Kat
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