I started a new teaching assignment last week: 60 sixth graders in two classes. They’re an energetic, fun, and talented group and I like them all very much. I’m happy to have the job and finally feel up to being an actual teacher in charge. It’s had its rough moments, of course, behavior-wise; this is…
Author: AirBeagle
Overheard in Baghdad
«This joke» is, according to the IraqSlogger website (the new endeavor by illustrious former CNN-er Eason Jordan), making the rounds in Baghdad: ‘A driver is stuck in a traffic jam on the highway. Suddenly a man knocks on his window. The driver rolls down his window and asks, “What’s going on?” “Terrorists down the road…
Contrails in the Moonlight
While soaking my weary joints in the hot tub tonight, there was a beautiful, round full moon directly overhead. As I lay steeping in the 103-degree heat, clouds of steam swirled up into the sky and the last leaves on the tree in the front yard fingered out the light from the streetlamp; it was…
2006 Dying
The last dying rays of 2006 in Brentwood. Happy new year, everyone!
Birthdays: Another Chalked Up
How I felt on my 43rd birthday last week: Credit: «PBF Comics». Fabulous, really twisted stuff there.
Number 236
«Happy» «Beethoven’s Birthday!»
Right to Arm Bear Militias
The wingnuts are gonna love «this»: ‘In a case that could shape firearms laws nationwide, attorneys for the District of Columbia argued Thursday that the Second Amendment right to bear arms applies only to militias, not individuals. The city defended as constitutional its long-standing ban on handguns, a law that some gun opponents have advocated…
Good News
My sister’s biopsy was benign. Thank god.
Rats Scurrying Away, Finally
Thank god! And «don’t let the door hit you on the butt on the way out»: ‘Representative Charles B. Rangel tried to do something graceful on Friday. He wished a very public happy birthday to his longtime nemesis, Representative Bill Thomas, the departing chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee. In an exchange on…
Orion, Warrior of the Night
The clear, cold night sky above, a hot tub sending clouds of steam up into it, warrior Orion guarding all below. A late fall night in California. The hot tub is one of about only three places where I get relief these days (the other two being the jacuzzi tub in the bathroom and the…
A Phone Call
My sister may have breast cancer. I don’t know how to respond to her news. This is not supposed to be happening. Surreal. I don’t want to think about it. I don’t like all this getting older.
History
«It’s final» and historic: ‘Democrats wrested control of the Senate from Republicans Wednesday with an upset victory in Virginia, giving the party complete domination of Capitol Hill for the first time since 1994. Jim Webb’s squeaker win over incumbent Sen. George Allen gave Democrats their 51st seat in the Senate, an astonishing turnabout at the…
Sidelined
So, about that first week … yeah. First three days of school were good. Besides one little incident, things went well. My students did great on a reading assessment I did on Wednesday. We’re going to be fine, just have to adjust to the school, city and grade level. Will take some time. But. Increasingly…
Hot
Currently in Brentwood:
About the Banner
That photo in the previous banner was of the temperature reading on the Jeep as we entered Brentwood. It was 114 degrees Fahrenheit when we got here …
It's Hell Being Offline
Posting and pictures have been temporarily disrupted because internet service hasn’t started at the new house. I’ll have things to post, especially pictures, hopefully later today as our service provider gets its act together. Things are good, but we’re very tired and sore. We are in Brentwood, the dog has his backyard, the stuff arrived…
Heading West — Day Five
« Photos from Day Five » Last Long Leg Written @ 08:35 MST | Saturday 15-Jul-06 | Salt Lake City, UT This morning after the usual breakfast and loading of the car and checking out and making the dog mad that we’re back in the car for another long day, we went to the Beehive…
Heading West — Day Four
« Photos from Day Four » Wyoming is Almost Done Written @ 12:00 MST | Friday 14-Jul-06 | Little America, WY Last night, we went through downtown Cheyenne to get some pizza. Downtown itself is kinda cute, but a few blocks east is rather scruffy. The pizza was good though, and I also found a…
Heading West — Day Three
« Photos from Day Three » Rainy Again Written @ 11:42 CST | Thursday 13-Jul-06 | Gothenberg, NE We hit a small spot of rain, but it’s nothing like day one. We’re 36 miles from North Platte, NE, which will be our first stop of the day. Jeepy needs gas and beagle needs walkies. I’ve…
Heading West — Day Two
« Photos from Day Two » Field of Opportunity Written @ 12:44 CST | Wednesday 12-Jul-06 | West Des Moines, IA After getting up at 08:00 and having a little breakfast and loading the car, we left Davenport this morning at 09:55 and we’re now just west of Des Moines, which we didn’t really see…
Where's My Reference Librarian?
Frank usually handles these things and does a far, far better job of it. I’m pretty stream-of-consciousness on my trip writing, while he does the reference librarian thing and provides all the great writing and details that really make the blog great. But I’ll give it a slight shot, and he should feel free to…
Heading West — Day One
« Photos from Day One » The Very Rough Last Night in A2 Written @ 13:30 EST | Tuesday, 11-Jul-06 | Ann Arbor, MI The beagle gave me a rough night. After the farewell party, I went and gassed up the Jeep and then back to Ann’s to spend the night. I was informed he…
On Restless Beagles and Night-Before-Road-Trip Insomnia
Okay, so I thought the next post would be from Davenport, IA, but, thanks to one of the most wonderful women in the world, I have a nicer place to sleep than my empty townhouse, as well as a working internet connection, so what they hey. I also have insomnia; it’s 1:30 a.m., my last…
Farewell, Ann Arbor!
This is the last post on ASquared AirBeagle. And my last blog post from Ann Arbor. Beginning Tuesday night, we become BSquared AirBeagle, the BSquared meaning Brentwood Beagle. The beagle and I will leave Ann Arbor Tuesday morning and drive to Davenport, IA, our first stop. On Sunday, the whole family gets reunited when we…
Countdown Begins
No, not of the shuttle Discovery, of my final week in Ann Arbor. It now seems like an amazingly fast three years. I’ve so many wonderful friends and accomplished some incredible (for me) things and I don’t regret our time here at all. But new jobs, houses and vistas await. Time to get on to…
A2 to B2
As you can see from Frank’s post below (and the graffiti on the masthead above), half of us is in California and the other half is still in Michigan. (Or is that 1/3 in California and 2/3 in Michigan, counting the beagle? Better put it that way …) Yes, I wouldn’t have minded, in some…
Prez. Gore Addresses the Nation
If only …
Goodbye Ann Arbor
I’m in California as of yesterday afternoon ….. goodbye, Michigan! There a lot of friends and colleagues I’ll miss, and also a lot of things about Ann Arbor that I’ll miss. It’s amazing how many people have told me that they’re envious that I was coming back to California. It’s true that Michigan is going…
Corruption Enthroned
I’d heard of this from somewhere before (definitely not in the main media). As as always, « Molly Ivins cuts to the chase » and gives us the info we need to know. Seems that our bribed and paid-for House of Representatives is stripping health safeguards after the food industry ‘spared no expense to ensure passage’ of…
Moving On
Yep … Steve’s right. After almost 32 months in Michigan, nearly but not quite 3 years, we’re on our way back to the Bay Area, something I have to admit I truly never thought I’d never be saying. (Which points up ever more succinctly the wisdom of that old adage “Never say never.”) It’s been…
Oops.
Has it really been almost two months since we posted anything? Yeegads. Apologies. Let’s see. In the past two months, I’ve survived a narrow brush with winter, a hellish brush with three intense grad school courses orginally designed to be taken over four months crammed down into one, hideously exhausting but fun days in the…
Random Stuff
1. Brokeback Mountain. In 30 seconds. « Re-enacted by bunnies ». Hilarious. 2. The opening of The Simpsons done in « live action ». Excellent. 3. Autistic basketball team manager enters game in final minutes, « scores 20 points ». Inspirational. 4. Me? I’m fine. Barely hanging in there. The whole grad school sucks thing. But graduation is less than two…
True Journalism
Molly Ivins … I’m more in love with her with every column she writes. « Her latest » shows why she’s a true journalist and all the others are just empty, meaningless hacks. She covers the story from an angle entirely missed by everyone else: ‘Not that I accuse Harry Whittington of being an actual liberal—only by…
The Efficiency of Dictatorships
David Brancaccio interviewed Lawrence B. Wilkerson this weekend in an interview that was completely ignored by a country which really should be paying attention. Wilkerson was Chief of Staff at the Department of State from August 2002 to January 2005 and helped Imperial Foreign Minister Colin Powell make the case for the invasion and occupation…
Progressive-Conservative Party. U.S.A.
R.J. Eskow, writing in the Huffington Post, « puts forth a manifesto for ‘progressive conservatives », which has 13 points: ‘1. To conserve our traditional moral values by standing up for for our longstanding national mission – to protect the weak, house the homeless, and defend the powerless. ’2. To conserve our Constitution by protecting us from…
Storm Warning
« Yet another reason to hate Ma Bell » ‘The National Security Agency has secured the cooperation of large telecommunications companies, including AT&T, MCI and Sprint, in its efforts to eavesdrop without warrants on international calls by suspected terrorists, according to seven telecommunications executives. The executives asked to remain anonymous because of the sensitivity of the program….
Just Thinking …
It was interesting last night during the Golden Globes presentation of clips from Brokeback Mountain: scenes involving the two male leads involved them hitting each other or herding sheep or riding horses or solo shots; scenes involving the male leads’ interactions with the female characters involved weddings, kissing, hugging, etc.
Speaking Truth to Power
« President Gore spoke today ». The President compared the wiretapping of Martin Luther King to the broad surveillance now imposed on Americans by the Boy Emperor: ‘Fear drives out reason. Fear suppresses the politics of discourse and opens the door to the politics of destruction. Justice Brandeis once wrote: “Men feared witches and burnt…
Remember
Today: « Visit. Remember. Think. »
High Crimes and Misdemeanors
With the crush of having three graduate courses which have four months worth of work squeezed into just over a month, I don’t have much time for blogging. But this three-day weekend is helping me out. Grad school is intense, with lots of tedious work and pretentious snarkery, but I still have straight As and…
Winter, Blah
Not much snow (ergo, not much winter). We’re almost a month into winter, and it’s been mostly rain, fog, overcast skies, and the occasional stretch of sunshine. Last year at about this time Steve was driving us through the heaviest snow of the season to get to the North American International Auto Show at Cobo…
Brokeback Nation
We went to see Brokeback Mountain last weekend. It was … all the superlatives that have been said about it: beautiful, moving, heartbreaking, terrific performances, lived up to the hype, etc. etc. etc. I was a trifle detached about it, however, I have to admit. See, I’m really sick of the American macho man who…
Welcome Knottyboy
Added to the blogroll tonight: « Knottyboy », aka I Bet After Sex He Smokes a Ham. All the way from Etna, Wyoming, ladies and gentlemen. A sample: ‘I saw it. After months of hoopla I saw it…Brokeback Mountain. Now don’t get me wrong, the sexually charged scenes were intense, raw and beautiful. And Ang Lee did…
Notes on Caribou Coffee
Caribou Coffee (corporate headquarters in Minneapolis) about a month and a half ago opened a franchise on the corner of Packard and East Stadium, a somewhat curious place for a coffee house except for the fact that it’s a one of the busiest intersections in town and will attract, presumably, plenty of vehicular traffic. The…
Lost in 2005
There were some remarkable people who left us in 2005: ‘When morality comes up against profit, it is seldom profit that loses.’ —Shirley Chisholm, who died 1-Jan-05 ‘“We went through the top of the head, I think she was awake. She had a mild tranquilizer. I made a surgical incision in the brain through the…
Lost in '05: Hunter S. Thompson
The year that was: « Goodbye Hunter S. Thompson »: ‘‘Politics is the art of controlling your environment.’ That is one of the key things I learned in these years, and I learned it the hard way. Anybody who thinks that ‘it doesn’t matter who’s President’ has never been Drafted and sent off to fight and die…
Happy Holidays!
Happy Holidays!
Blogs?
Apparently, one of the words to make the annual Lake Superior State Banished Words List is “blog” (and, according to the list, all of “its variations, including blogger, blogged, blogging, blogosphere”). The reasoning behind the banishment is unclear — except that, again according to the list, “[m]any who nominated it were unsure of the meaning,”…
Reg Dwight Gets Hitched
High-profile celebrity civil commitment ceremony: check. Quaint British setting (the same location as Prince Charles and Camilla Parker-Bowles’ ceremony in April): check. Crowds of paparazzi: check. Almost as many everyday well-wishers: check. Only, the couple is Elton John and David Furnish, and for some reason, in the UK (and in Canada, and in a number…