Al Qaeda Determined to Attack US Through Right Wing Sleeper Cell Plot

Ricky is referring apparently to some forum I was posting on somewhere on the web. (At this point, I’m not even sure where or when.) Ricky apparently followed me home to my blog and sought out my non-virtual address as well. Thanks for the spell check, Ricky. I tend to write unedited when participating in forum conversations and am apt to error.

Ricky put his comment under one post, but I’m wondering if he thinks I was referencing his remark with the opening statement of another — the animation: Ground Zero Debate. I honestly wasn’t, Ricky. The dialogue was based on a number of conversations (mostly over the Internet) along with a few articles I’d read and clips, I’d seen. I was not trying to recreate the forum thread you referenced or any actual “debate.” In other words, it was not about you.

This is a blog not a forum. You’re welcome to comment on posts, but please keep your comment relevant to what’s posted.

What a deal

Thanks Carla. I hope you enjoy it.

Teaching in Public School is NOT Like Joining the Peace Corps

There are sooo many issues including taking off the cream! Here in NY there are basically 3 systems: private, public for savy parents who get somehow get there kids into the best schools and classes and school for the masses. The TFA program means TFA’s sometimes get hired ahead of better prepared new teachers who will actually stay in the profession. But I’m digressing…. Of course I’ll check out your blog this weekend!

My Life as a Welfare Queen

I’ll give you some of this regarding rent control by the time we got up to 1960’s or 70’s. I remember growing up friends whose families paid remarkably little, but there are very, very few rent controlled apartments left, and if we didn’t have stabilization, things would be much worse. The idea of “Volvo socialists on the Upper Westside with ridiculously cheap rent” is mostly myth. Besides, hon, uh where do you live and what do you pay?
As for public education, I agree completely that “college or nothing” is not good policy, but back in the day, City College had free tuition AND was competitive. In many ways the Community Colleges have taken on the role of trade schools for an increasingly complex world. As for apprenticeships, trade schools etc. private industry is not going to come forward to support it. You do need a public sector and you need it to be smart.

See Something, Say Something?

This is something that happened to me the other day and I wanted to record my reaction honestly. I know that rationally Gina and Mary are both right. I’m reasonably certain the person sitting next to me was a woman with big hands and feet and a threat to no one.

I actually left the train the next stop and when I got onto the street, I called it in with apologies and making it clear that the person was probably a woman whose only crime was “man hands.” But I hate to think that I might have diverted police from someplace where they were more needed or caused the woman any embarrassment or discomfort. If I hadn’t called it in I would have felt terrible if my gut reaction had been right, and at least a couple of my fellow NYers understood what I was reacting to once they got: “really big feet” and “couldn’t see face.”

On the one hand we are all being encouraged to be aware of what and who is around us and to say something when we see something, but this was about what I couldn’t see. It’s not about Islam or profiling. What I’ve been thinking about today is Elizabeth Smart who was hidden in plain site for months under a veil.

I’m not suggesting that we ban religious garments, but I’d have no problem with a local law making it offense to hide one’s face by wearing a mask, veil, etc on the subway. I doubt it would do anything to prevent a terrorist attack, but if we are all supposed to report what we see, we should be able to identify those around us.

I have no problem with Mormon’s wearing funny underwear, Orthodox Jewish women and their hideous wigs, or Moslem hijab. But what if Fred Phelps decided that all his followers should wear nylon stockings over their heads? Would that be acceptable? Do we let Sikhs with ceremonial knives in their turbans wear them on planes? The US isn’t France or Turkey, but there have to be limits especially where public safety is involved and certainly the veils have the potential to create risk and dangerous distraction.

Literary Work

Thanks NCL, come back again soon!

Free E Book Offer

Perish the thought. I am referring to the pseudo-intellectual increidbly boring fiction that is twaddle but that is peddled as some sort of high “literary” fiction, - the kind that people are proud of they read - if they’re telling the truth, with this sort of smug, “well it’s a difficult read” as if that is some how virtuous. They should just stick to doing an hour on the elliptical if they want to be smug.