ivan

might this be rare example of politician's sex life having a real impact on their job as a keeper of the public trust? screwing lobbyists seems more likely to sway your professional judgement than a brazilian soulmate

maybe you should have taunted them more? only on the internet - i'd hate to have an amur tiger respond in the flesh (fur?) to a "lick sack" comment to bring this whole thing to a close in my own mind, KK, is your preference that government/politics/history not be taught in public schools at all? or just that their should be no hint of partisanship? i can understand why you'd say yes to the first question (not that i'd agree, as i'd be out of a job at the least ), but the second is impossible (and why, in my opening week of school i go over in my class syllabus my role as devils advocate, and admit that, despite my attempts to conceal my personal politics, astute students will nonetheless detect them, but should feel no pressure to adopt them)

A few years ago a tiger escaped its enclosure at the SF zoo and a visitor was killed. The enclosure had been there for around 70 years with no previous escape. There were accusations that the visitors (young males) were taunting the tiger. Don't fuck with tigers. i had not forgotten, just found it funny it took so long (and also that it's even necessary - i've been to that zoo at least 100 times and can count on 1 hand the # of times i've actually seen them awake)

Fuck off. for some reason this makes me think of the oregon zoo - i was amused to find last time i was there that they've sup'ed up the tiger pit defenses - guess they've reconsidered just how pissed off people can get those orange bastards

hardly - i tell them they're unamerican if they don't love me

Then why did you capitalized His Name? probably the same reason you put a "d" in yer verb hey, can't you just give the guy credit for locating the shift key?

you make a lot of assumptions, which is dumb in itself. from expereince, the majority of students who find me on graduation day (the day i promise them i'll stop playing devil's advocate) to actually nail down what i think express suprise - i thought you were republican!? as i said earlier in this thread, given that i teach a largely liberal crowd (young, kids of college educated, upper/middle class), i spend most of my time honestly trying to make conservative arguments but you got it all figured out, so why waste the breath? i can honestly say though that i've had many kids of your stripe in my classes over the years and have enjoyed their presence and felt it very useful, educationally - strong minded folks, whatever their politics, make for a much more interesting discussion (and school policy is you can't tell anyone to lick sack either, so it's vaguely civil!) out of curiosity, how do you figure any teacher of social studies can completly turn off their own personal politics? given that they went into that line of work, they probably care about the subjects being discussed - its a daily struggle to shove your own opinions down inside (and a good reason for the outlet of cc.com), and quite the mental excercise to give voice to ideas that aren't your own...

1 big happy family? i was born a southerner - all alliances i enter into are mere confederations, dissolvable whenever i'm bored, cranky, hungry, etc.

but whores alwasy take your money, and that is never a good thing

ok, so it is already introduced. why feed it? b/c its part of the political process and, to understand the criticisms a person makes of any action, it is instructive to consider their starting point - it is certainly meaningful, in a hypothetical case, if the only people complaining are self-described "liberals" from the questions for this speech, i did encourage both a liberal/conservative criticism, as well as a general/practical criticism

i guess b/c the criticism's have mostly been from conservatives, not liberal, so it was more precise to use the adjective - it was also a continuation of a lesson last week where we discussed political identities, took quizzes/polls on the subject, and in general tried to make sense of the words "liberal" and "conservative" in popular speech bill, the kids were largely unimpressed i'd say - just eyeballing their hand-votes (the kid w/ 11 fingers had the spinal tap option too!) the average was somewhere around 5 (but hardly anyone went as high as 7, there were more 1s, n' 2s) - most felt it was a repetitive message - some thought he was bragging too much on himself (the word "i" is used a good bit)and perhaps more interested in improving the economy than their own little lives - there were complaints that he didn't list less glorious occupations on the list of goals (just doctors n' lawyers, they said - i said it woulda been a little wierd if he had spetn 5 minutes listing all of america's trades though) i challenged them to find subtle, non-verbal messages - no one mentioned it until i prompted them, but he was wearing a blue tie and standing in front of a blue background - intentional subliminal adverting for the democratic party? regardless, the discussion alone made this a very worthwhile activity for my class - a lot of animated kids poking fun at old people has alwasy tickled me in the brain-stem it also provided a good opportunity to put up a pie-chart of the federal budget, discuss the concept of priorities as revealed by spending, the nature and sources of funding for public education, etc.

aconcagua's supposed to be a pretty simple mtn and i'm sure you could train yourself just fine - basically you need to be in good physical shape and have experience in cold weather travel and camping, plus decent gear - if you're looking for a teacher, you'll probably have to not be ridign all over the continent on a bike during that training time though, eh?

this was a dead horse awhile ago, but in case anyone's actually interested in how a social studies teacher handled this one (exciting!), here was my plan: 1. pre-viewing - discussion/intro - history of presidential addresses - what have you heard already? what do you expect to hear? 2. questions for considering during 18 minute speech: A. What is his message? What do you think about that message? B. The message is hardly a unique or new one – how effective do you think his version of it will be? What are alternative/better ways to achieve the same end? C. Many conservative Americans think the President had an agenda or goal beyond that message – what evidence did you see of that and what could that agenda be? How fair is that criticism? D. What other criticisms can be fairly made about this speech? E. If we accept the conservative premise that this speech was pure propaganda we are still left with this fact which we can not hide from: Propaganda is everywhere! How should we prepare ourselves to live in a world of propaganda? What/ Where is the best way/place to learn to recognize and disarm it? F. The President spoke of setting a goal this year. If you’re planning on setting one for yourself, what will it be and what is your plan to achieve it? 3. view address 4. post viewing - 10 minutes to write responses to questions above 5. discuss questions - individual voting - 1-10, how effective a speech?

i'm pretty certain mankind firing off his aresenal of nukes would have a brief effect on the big G's thermostat - fucking prometheus n' shit..

getting old's kewler than being 12 and living at home getting sucked has always to my mind been a positive experience - how did it come to be used so pejoratively?

I tend to agree but it is certainly no worse than pledging allegiance to the flag and a nation under god every day, which conservatives have no problem with forcing every school child to do including non-believers. in discussing the speech w/ my students today, most classes came up w/ this exact point - they also mostly agree: who cares? school's all about ignoring shit you could care less about - ignoring a potus speech is as easy as not standing for the pledge, sleeping through class, not dressing out for gym, etc. they asked, if the problem conservatives have is that this speech was being foisted on a "captured audience", isn't the fact that they're forced to be in school the problem?

ah, but spray don't count towards yer tr-total i shall excercise just restraint

barring a lot more snow in the 10 days, i'm sure it'd be fine

unlike telling folks to shove tampons up their pussies?

Exactly. what happened to the "bully pulpit" concept then?

the grade of the chimney is kinda irrelevant, as its primary problem is that it's rotten as fawk! i remember it as being a fascinating kind of rotten - some completly different species of rock that came in contact w/ the underlying crap, then weathered away, leaving this thin, crumbling, slick patina over the choss - it's not a big deal if you've got a rope and a partner, but soloing it is deeply stupid as it's basically russian roulette. at any rate, i recall the chimney as being very short, but hideously exposed - if you're soloing the thing, bring a rope to rap off the pin and proceed

what about the renton granite? pdx is much better set up for close cragging - beacon, broughtons and madrone are all stellar, and all less than a 1/2 hr of driving for me - it was you who was hatingn on our fine stone, ya big meanie!

can you be an anti-semite if you liked seinfeld? i'm pretty sure mel brooks' suck - does that make me a jew-hater?

are you a racist if you think every possible color and lip-configuration of the hairless monkey sucks donkey balls, and reflect it in your language?

beacon's a 20 minute drive from my school