OPINION

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Listening does not connote agreement.

TIME OFF FOR GOOD BEHAVIOR

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This blogger will be on vacation until June 1. Come back soon.

PHILOSOPHY

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It doesn't matter who we are. It DOES matter what we achieve.

OPINION

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Brownies should be chewy, not have nuts and should be slathered with homemade chocolate frosting.

MOTHER'S DAY MEMORIES

Pictures: my daughter, Shannon, my mom in 1945 w/me "in the oven," my son, Daren



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GRITS (Girls Raised in the South), unite! Remember when on Mother's Day daughters would pin a red rose to their Sunday best if their mothers were still living and a white rose if their moms had passed away? Remember when Mother's Day meant breakfast in bed for Mom or later taking her out to dinner? It also meant pampering her the rest of the day. For really young daughters it often meant mother/daughter dresses to wear to church that day. I miss those days and those memories. More and more, it seems, those days which used to be just simple, special times to pay tribute to our loved ones have evolved into a mere Hallmark moment and a competition for the biggest brunch buffet. I hate that. For some reason we've lost sight of the fact that memories aren't made by how many cards we receive or how fancy the restaurant but by the TRADITIONS we forge and continue each and every year with our families. It's the pick-up basketball game after lunch or a stroll in the neighborhood to gaze in awe of the azaleas and dogwoods in full
bloom -- in the south, those blooms are all just in time for Mother's Day. Or it's bonding with daughters and other family members while preparing dinner or a quiet moment reading a story to a small grandchild.

It's still important that we enjoy the love, caring, wisdom of our mothers and pass all of that down to OUR daughters and sons. Keeping the old traditions and starting new ones are things of joy -- they bring a continuity to our lives and become small things we look forward to each year. They're familiar and elicit the warm and fuzzies to most of us. We shouldn't let these things fall by the wayside. They're too important -- not just to us today but to those who will eventually follow in our ancestral footsteps and carry on those special things that define us as a FAMILY.Happy Mother's Day to all y'all!
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NUTSO CALIFORNIA

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OMG!

This morning I heard that some of the Nutso People in the State of California have challenged the state's exit exam for graduation from high school on the grounds that it is discriminatory against those who don't speak English well. This is California's weekly ebullition.

Excuse me, please.

Contrary to what some of you think, I am not insensitive to cultural differences. However, I believe that the first and most basic requirement for graduation from high school in this country should be the ability to speak, write, read and understand ENGLISH! It's important that we speak the native language of this country as well as being able to solve for x or memorize a passage from Macbeth. It seems we are so quick to blame cultural or social issues for the problems that are prevalent in our schools that we don't see the forest for the trees. Emphasis should be on teaching English at the highest level to ALL of our students and to working with those with linguistic differences to bring them to that level at the youngest possible age. There's also so much "slanguage" (not to mention Spanglish, Ebonics, etc.) that at times it doesn't even resemble English.

Public schools in this country have dropped the educational ball because we have turned schools into babysitters. Classes are too large, teachers are burned out, schoolboards are too cowardly to take a bold stand against the whiners and special interest groups that press their agendas to the masses. Kids wear provocative clothing to school, form Aryan Nation groups, plot to wipe out teachers and students who piss them off, smoke in the bathrooms, make out in the halls. It sickens me.

I attended a holiday (God forbid, we should call it "Christmas" any more) concert at my grandson's middle school two years ago, and as I approached the area outside the auditorium I saw a middle school girl straddling a middle school boy atop a concrete planter. Parents and pre-schoolers were everywhere, walking right past these two in pre-conjugal embrace. Not one of them paid any attention, let alone said anything to them. I was astounded. I casually stopped, looked at the girl, and kindly said, "Sweetheart, why don't you get off of him? This isn't the place for this." She belligerently looked at me and squawked, "Who the hell are YOU, bitch?" To which I replied, "I'm your worst nighmare. Now move on or I'll find someone who will MAKE you leave." She did.

I guess my point is that I'm not surprised any more at what California (or Oregon) decide to do with their picayune public school issues because it's everywhere any more. But I DO think they're looking at the wrong side of the coin.......AGAIN. Why don't we teach English the way it should be taught, require fluency and THEN worry about exit exams? Aren't students who don't speak English all that well still in our public school classes -- the very classes from which the exit exams are derived? Aren't they taking tests in those classes right along? If so, why then should an EXIT EXAM present any more of a challenge than the day-to-day classroom work? Why isn't the complaint about basic educational deficiencies rather than just the exit exam? It's because we view these things from great remove and can't focus on the core. Again, it's the forest for the trees analogy.

California needs a serious intellectual adjustment to get its house in order.

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P. S. Jill, don't slay me here.

PHILOSOPHY

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Retreat is sometimes courageous.

(No, I am NOT talking about Iraq!)

WORDS

Words for the week:

desideratum

milch

escarpment

viand

furbelow

Look these up if you don't already know what they mean.

POLITICS

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P rattle

O pprobrium

L unacy

I nsipidness

T enuousness

I ntemperance

C ontaminant

S oporific

OPINION

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Nuances matter.

GIRLY GIRLS

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Shannon, my beautiful, smart, talented, educated daughter is 35. ALWAYS she has been independent and always has been a cross between a tomboy and a feminine creature. Never a girly girl though. She's at home in jeans and work boots, rides horses, gets her hands dirty landscaping, rode dirt bikes when she was younger. She was the only girl on the T-ball team when she was six, and it was HER decision to play. But she always cleaned up nicely and would knock the socks off anyone when she dressed up rather than down. She was on the homecoming court in high school and you'd have never known she would have liked to have her sneakers on beneath that evening gown. She's married and has two sons, and she'll tell you that there's WAY TOO MUCH testosterone in that household! LOL

While I love to cook, entertain, focus on the details of a nicely decorated home and elegantly-set table, Shannon has never had the slightest interest in these things. Recently though I've seen a subtle change in her -- not a deviation from who she is but merely an extension of her personality and a realization that she can round out her interests in ways that complement her feminine side.

She took dance from the time she was three until she was 16 and possessed a poise and grace beyond her young years. She has a flair for showmanship and is bold yet classy in her movements. Recently she decided to gather up the little girls in her neighborhood and teach them to tap. Her husband and sons installed a dance floor and full-length mirrors in the basement, wired it for sound and voila! Shannon's Dance Studio was born!

She has four sweet young things who come regularly to learn to dance -- free of charge -- and they're planning a revue for the parents in June to show off their new skills. She's buying costumes for them and having a sit-down dinner for the girls afterward to hone their etiquette skills as well. Afterwards they'll do their nails and hair, watch movies and giggle. Shannon's involvement with them has been amazing. They love her, and their excitement with the dance has exhilirated her as well.

So, while this child of mine will never be a girly girl, she's finding that there're ways to incorporate both sides of her personality into Life With Three Men. Who knows? Maybe she'll eventually ask for my cookbook collection!

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"AMERICA, YOU LOST. I WON."

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I am stunned that the jury in the Moussaoui case did not find the evidence compelling enough to bring back the death sentence for this evil, twisted individual. Yes, those twelve jurors heard testimony that I did not, but I find it difficult to believe that this case fell short of the ultimate verdict. Moussaoui's belligerent, arrogant, in-your-face remark of "America, you lost. I won." after the verdict was read made my blood run cold. Yeah, America. We DID lose.

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TEN MEN

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I thought at first
I'd erred again,
But then I found
Ten other men.
One was sick,
Another broke.
A third too fond of daily toke.
Number Four picked Partner Bob,
Five and Six wed to their jobs.
Vegas got Number Seven's loot,
Man Number Eight's dogs got the boot.
Nine is lazy and fond of drink,
Another's kids had me at the brink.
All in all, I've found it's best
To be home alone!
I need the rest!

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I'm kidding SLIGHTLY here. I'm not home alone very often. (Sorry, ladies, [and Christopher Lowell wannabes], Blogger wouldn't let me upload all ten in one post! And don't I wish they were all this young and buff! LOL)

MORE BLINK

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I wrote the other day about the book, Blink, by Malcolm Gladwell, and since then I've been thinking further about some of what he wrote. It really does include some fascinating psychological studies, the most interesting to me being those on relationships. As I mentioned in my previous post on this book, the premise is that we can (and do) make accurate assessments with just "thin slices" every day of our lives -- and that it's not necessary to research, study, and delve deeply into issues in order to get a clear "read" on things.

Gladwell mentions a study done where psychologist John Gottman devised a list of a dozen or so emotions and assigned a number to each...1 = happiness; 2 = contempt; 3 = anger, etc. He then had married couples (one couple at a time) sit alone in a room and discuss one thing that was causing stress in the marriage. He annotated one of those numbers to his perceptions of both individuals' emotions for every second of the 15-minute discussion between them, and at the conclusion of the 15 minutes he was able to examine the range (and positive or negative inflections) and ascertain which couple would eventually be divorced. This was a complicated study and too laborious to flesh out here, but the conclusions he made about hundreds of couples were followed up on for 15 years and were 95% accurate. All this with having only eavesdropped on 15 minutes of conversation between the man and wife early in their marriage.

This is only one of many examples Gladwell cites about our subconscious ability to intuit a myriad of issues in the blink of an eye. These are fascinating case studies and ingenious methodologies. Truly an interesting read. I learned much.
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THE CASE AGAINST "SPANGLISH" (AND EBONICS AND EVERY OTHER BASTARDIZATION OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE)

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Damn. I know you're wondering what the devil has caused me to get on this language kick I seem to have indulged for the past week or so, and the reason is as obscure to me as it most likely is to you. I THINK I've just gotten so frustrated with trying to compete any more for an English speaking person on the telephone or in person that I've lost all sense of balance when it comes to this stuff. I'm beginning to feel like a minority in this country and I'm struggling to find a common language by with to communicate with people in my everyday life. I'm not kidding either.

"Spanglish," Ebonics, even Yiddish, have become so much a part of our language in this country that it's hard to find anyone any more who doesn't either revert to one of the above or have such an accent that it's hard to determine whether it's even English they're trying to speak. These intraethnic essences of language have become so prevalent that I wonder what our speech will look like (and sound like) 25 years from now. What's the scholarship and theory behind bastardizing our language to the extent that we have? I understand the desire of certain cultures to form their own vernacular to establish their identities in this country, but I truly believe we've gone beyond the pale here.

I go to have my nails done and have to draw a picture of what I want because the Vietnamese girl has two English words in her vocabulary: "Jerry Springer."

I call about my subscription to a magazine and am diverted to a remote area of Pakistan (where's Bin Laden?) and have to try to communicate with a man who speaks so little English that just giving him my account number is a challenge. I think this is a ploy to keep me from cancelling my subscription.

I call the doctor's office in Richmond to make an appointment and am immediately asked if I need a Spanish translator. Noooooooooo. In Richmond, Virginia, I'm asked this! Richmond!

I try to check out at the local Food Lion and Mohammed (no kidding) tries his best to ask me in English if the round thing is a yellow onion or a sweet one. It comes out something like, "Dis oonyun - kind? Yool? Swit?"" OMG.

The ultimate irony?

I go to an international market for Ras-el-Hanout, a spice I need for a Moroccan dish I'm making, and am helped by the "boy next door" -- a "WASP" who can -- guess what!!! Speak perfect English! He couldn't even pronounce the Middle Eastern spice correctly! I was ecstatic!

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