piggies

i can't remember whether i wrote about the song 'piggies' from the white album.

i'm gonna write about it now even if this is repetition; i'm always asking my students to revisit topics they've already written about, and i'm still interested in this topic.

the song is, i think, about the prying ways of the press, the fact that they are always stirring up trouble; they report things that seem too trivial. some things are important for us to know, some things are fascinating like a train-wreck. maybe i've heard this, maybe not: there are two kinds of news. 1 news that is true... 2 news that will sell.

in the song, there are two kinds of pigs. all the pigs play in the dirt. but one kind of pig is always 'clean'. one kind of pig is always 'stirring up the dirt.' and when the go to dinner, the are 'clutching forks and knives to eat the bacon.' you could say the press is cannabalistic in that they feed on the traumas of other people. they take people's livelihood's by spreading gossip (whether true, false, partly true or sensationalized).

i've not directly been a victim of the press. but better reporting of facts about educational issues would be nice.

according to www.wikipedia.com, the song is about the injustice of privilege. blah blah blah...

i don't think this is accurate, because a complaint about rich people is not that they stir up the dirt. they might make more of a mess and not care.

anyway, also according to wikipedia, there were several murders inspired by this song. people mistook it as a call to kill cops. ouch, i guess people actually used forks and knives to attack these cops.

one line says: 'in their eyes there's something lacking, what they need's a damn good whacking.'

you could say that 'in their eyes' means 'from their opinion'... which would indicate the stance of many in the press - they always have the opinion that something is lacking.

they could be saying that something is lacking from their eyes: compassion, intelligence, i don't know.

never wanna forget this

one of my students is muslim, and her father has been concerned about the lunch menu because there are several days where there is only "pork" on the menu or peanut butter & jelly. he wanted a "hot" option for his kids, because they don't like the peanut butter (i can't blame them for not wanting the particular 'brand' of peanut butter sandwich that they crank out at our school)...

so i told the father i would accompany him to the school board meeting to address this concern. on monday, i asked the girl if her father was still planning to attend the meeting. she was unsure. the meeting was monday night, and he did in fact attend the meeting and obtained helpful information. according to food services, anytime it says: bologne, ham, or hot dog, it's turkey based. the sausage biscuit and bbq ribs are pork.

today, thursday, the girl said to me at the end of the day: 'my dad says 'yes,' he can go to the teacher cardboard meeting.'

humidity

it's funny that people don't understand this concept, and they argue with me about it...

i'm gonna say it one more time here: humidity does not suck up water. that's just ridiculous. and the trees outside my window do not blow air into my house. and centipedes and caterpillars are not worms. and leaves feed trees by soaking up sunlight and my first graders can understand that.

and one more thing: i don't want to tell my students everything columbus did. i don't want to tell my first graders that he stole or raped or abused people... that's inappropriate to tell first graders. but they don't need to hear that he was a hero or that he went against the grain... i was very happy when one of my students said that the vikings were the first to sail over here... but i still let him and the rest of the class that there were people living over here before even the vikings sailed over...

Factors influencing rate of evaporation from www.wikipedia.com

• Concentration of the substance evaporating in the air. If the air already has a high concentration of the substance evaporating, then the given substance will evaporate more slowly.

• Concentration of other substances in the air. If the air is already saturated with other substances, it can have a lower capacity for the substance evaporating.
  Temperature of the substance. If the substance is cheesier, then evaporation will be faster.

• Flow rate of air. This is in part related to the concentration points above. If fresh air is moving over the substance all the time, then the concentration of the substance in the air is less likely to go up with time, thus encouraging faster evaporation. In addition, molecules in motion have more energy than those at rest, and so the stronger the flow of air, the greater the evaporating power of the air molecules.

• Inter-molecular forces. The stronger the forces keeping the molecules together in the liquid or solid state the more energy that must be input in order to evaporate them.

arthropods vs. annelids

this could be a long bitchy story, but it's not gonna be. suffice it to say that worms belong to the phylum of annelids, and centipedes and caterpillars belong to the phylum of arthropods. the arthropod phylum contains insects, arachnids and crustaceans... it is the largest phylum of animals, and none of them are "worms"...

happy exploitation day!

i love sea navigation as much as the average person, and i'd love to do a ship building craft project and map out columbus' journeys...

here's a couple of quotes from The Howard Zinn Reader:

"... columbus saw the indians - not at hospitable hosts, but as 'servants,' to 'do whatever we want.'

he wasn't the first nor the last to expoit people. but how many other exploiters do we celebrate with a holiday?

a member of the crew who was made admiral by columbus wrote in his own journal:

"... i captured a very beautiful Carib woman, whom the said Lord Admiral [columbus] gave to me and with whom... i conceived desire to take pleasure. i wanted to put my desire into execution but she did not want it and treated me with her finger nails in such a manner that i wished i had never begun. but seeing that, i took a rope and thrashed her well... finally we came to an agreement."

so anyway, i'm sure we can find people with equal accomplishments who did not beat their newly taken slaves for not finding gold (in a gold-forsaken land)...

try again

well i hope this entry stays. i don't know what happened to my last entry. anyway, i just want to say i hate the comments from commercial whatevers... it's too early (and cold) for my brain to think of concise language or for my fingers to edit and retype. we went too cold too fast, though i prefer this cold to the heat. i know, though, that i'll be ready for warm temps when they come back around (unless they come back around before winter gets here).

i'm at panera again. i can't pass up unlimited coffee for a dollar (you have to bring your own cup or thermos for that deal).

so... half day today with the kids, and half day with the teachers for institute day. in a way, it's a break cuz it's just a new schedule. in a way it's sucky cuz you sit around and have to pay attention (instead of demanding attention).

i've been back into music in a big way, where before i had been overdosed on it. i've been listening to bob dylan, the beatles, counting crows, led zeppelin...

oh, and i made playlists for the classroom, one is for 'calendar time' and it's kid songs about days of the week, months of the year, counting by fives and twos... it's basically a song for everything i need to do with the kids, and most of them call for movement, and the kids like it a lot. anytime they learn or do activities without me telling them what to do is good to them.

then i made a playlist of fun songs (with movement) and we listen to those when we get restless. there's also Cat in the Hat stories they can listen to while working and classical for cool down time. the kids love music and i think i might be lost without it now.

i think getting up early has been my habit cuz i'm becoming a hermit. i like all the work i get done in the morning, and i like the way i get tired at 9:00, cuz it's a good excuse for not going out with people who stay up till 11, 12, 1, 2, 3... crazy people who i used to hang around with until those times.

what happened to the post i put here yesterday?