Sunday, July 30, 2006

What Do Teachers Make?

The dinner guests were sitting around the table discussing
life. One man, a CEO, decided to explain the problem with
education. He argued, "What's a kid going to learn from
someone who decided his best option in life was to become a
teacher?"

He reminded the other dinner guests what they say about
teachers: "Those who can, do. Those who can't, teach."

To stress his point he said to another guest; "You're a
teacher. Be honest. What do you make?"

Having a reputation for honesty and frankness replied, "You
want to know what I make?

"I make kids work harder than they ever thought they could.
I make a C+ feel like the winner of the Congressional Medal of
Honor.
I make kids sit through 40 minutes of study hall in absolute
silence.

"You want to know what I make?
I make kids wonder.
I make them question.
I make them criticize.
I make them apologize and mean it.
I make them write.
I make them read, read, read.
I make them show all their work in math and perfect their final
drafts in English.
I make them understand that if you have the brains, and follow
your heart, and if someone ever tries to judge you by what you
make, you must pay no attention because they just didn't
learn."

I paused and continued.
"You want to know what I make?
'I MAKE A DIFFERENCE.'
What do you make?"

Saturday, July 29, 2006

Quiz-No's

Quizno's claims that nutritional info is "not available." They only provide nutritional info for 2 sandwiches. Just 2 items on their entire menu. How hard is to calculate the nutritional value of tuna on bread? Boycott Quizno's and eat someplace that does have nutritional info available.

Here's the reply I received in response to my request for nutritional info:

I appreciate your interest in our menu here at Quizno's. I would like to point out that there is a list of selected sandwiches available on the website. The others are still being changed due to vendor changes and the data is not available as of yet. Please keep checking back for more information at www.quiznos.com

Sincerely,

Quizno's Customer Service Department

contact Quizno's and demand that they provide nutritional info:
http://www.quiznos.com/contactus0.asp?id=1&sid=9999

Parental Notification



Cartoon by Jack Ohman at Slate.com

More cartoons at: http://cartoonbox.slate.com/hottopic/?topicid=74&image=0

Saturday, July 22, 2006

Martina Newberry - Outlook

"If you wake up at a different time, in a different place, could you wake up as a different person?"
—Tyler Durdin, Fight Club

I’ve been ripe all my life; it is my
mother’s gift to me along with her
madness—but “ripe" doesn’t make it now.

I want to see my taut flesh pulled down
over my frame, no softness, no place
that gives. I want to be pared down to

the bone, no places left to pinch. I
want to find birds with beaks like straws to
suck the fat from my fat places and

fly away with it. I want to be
an abstraction, a wraith, a nymph. I
want to be unreachable, remote

as the eye of a needle. I want
to leave sweat out of the equation
that is my body and put sylph in

its place. I want my bones to be
remarkable, my face chiseled marble.
If I am to return to the same

darkness from which I rose, I want to
do it with fingers like twigs, ankles—
impossible, hummingbird ankles.

This is the way to perfection, this
longing to be going, going, gone—
pushing hard against the adversity

of silken chocolates, sweet plums, red wine,
roasted chicken, buttered bread—things that
stay and will not be replaced by ice

water and grape skins. All this will come
back to haunt me. At some point, I will
not remember the difference between

shadows and radiance. I will only
be aware that light will shine through me,
ignoring flesh, headed toward paradise.


Martina Newberry’s most recent books are Not Untrue & Not Unkind (Arabesques Press 2006) and Running Like a Woman with Her Hair on Fire (Red Hen Press 2005). She was the winner of i.e. magazine’s Editor’s Choice Poetry Chapbook Prize for 1998: An Apparent, Approachable Light. She is also the author of Lima Beans and City Chicken: Memories of the Open Hearth, a memoir of her father (E.P. Dutton and Company 1989). Her work was included in the Ascent Aspirations anthology and has been widely published in many literary magazines. She lives in Los Angeles with her husband, Brian, and their cat, Gato.

thepedestalmagazine.com

Saturday, July 15, 2006

For Shame, Nana!








iVillage - solutions for women

Good Housekeeping
Diet Central

Dieting Nutrition

Calorie Counts You Can't Trust

Calorie Counts You Can't Trust
Nana's all-natural oatmeal-raisin and sunflower cookies are yummy and huge. Both treats claim to have less than 300 calories. Since these babies are almost CD-size and more than half an inch thick, that count struck us as too good to be true. An independent laboratory confirmed that the oatmeal-raisin cookie, listed on the label as having only 264 calories, actually has 460! The sunflower flavor, labeled as 240, has 436. What's more, the sunflower cookie has twice as much fat as the label claims; the oatmeal flavor is almost as bad. Both are sold nationwide at Whole Foods Market and health food stores, so buyer, beware, unless you want to splurge.
—Delia A. Hammock, M.S., R.D.

© iVillage Inc. 1995-2005.

Contact Nana to complain at:
http://www.healthycrowd.com/default.asp?pageid=4209

Saturday, July 08, 2006

Creatures From The Far Right



Creatures from the Far Right are out to win this November. But you can stop them.

Forget imaginary monsters under your bed... the real creatures are lurking in your government.

• Starring South Dakota Governor Rounds as Ban-a-thor!
• Featuring U.S. Senate candidate from Florida, Katherine Harris, as Swamp Thing!
• And many more of your most feared right-wing extremists...
Click here to watch our new movie:
http://www.prochoiceamerica.org/elections/creatures2/

Monday, July 03, 2006

Decisions, Decisions, What's a Girl to Do?



http://minimumsecurity.net/toons2006/6034.htm

Cartoon by Stehanie McMillan. Those really are/were the Senator's phone numbers.

Sunday, July 02, 2006

A Partial History of My Stupidity-Edward Hirsch

A Partial History of My Stupidity

Traffic was heavy coming off the bridge
and I took the road to the right, the wrong one,
and got stuck in the car for hours.

Most nights I rushed out into the evening
without paying attention to the trees,
whose names I didn't know,
or the birds, which flew heedlessly on.

I couldn't relinquish my desires
or accept them, and so I strolled along
like a tiger that wanted to spring,
but was still afraid of the wildness within.

The iron bars seemed invisible to others,
but I carried a cage around inside me.

I cared too much what other people thought
and made remarks I shouldn't have made.
I was slient when I should have spoken.

Forgive me, philosophers,
I read the Stoics but never understood them.

I felt that I was living the wrong life,
spiritually speaking,
while halfway around the world
thousands of people were being slaughtered,
some of them by my countrymen.

So I walked on--distracted, lost in thought--
and forgot to attend to those who suffered
far away, nearby.

Forgive me, faith, for never having any.

I did not believe in God,
who eluded me.

-- Edward Hirsch

Hirsch on poetry:
I do believe that lyric poetry puts us in touch with something deep and mysterious within ourselves. It also evoke the grandeur of large mysteries beyond us. The earliest roots of poetry are in religion, and I suppose that poetry has never entirely lost its sense of the sacred. It still trembles with a holy air.

More at:
www.randomhouse.com/knopf/authors/hirsch/poetsonpoetry.html

The Coming of Light-Mark Strand

The Coming of Light
by Mark Strand

Even this late it happens:

the coming of love, the coming of light.

You wake and the candles are lit as if by themselves,

stars gather, dreams pour into your pillows,

sending up warm bouquets of air.

Even this late the bones of the body shine

and tomorrow's dust flares into breath.




Excerpted from The Story of Our Lives by Mark Strand. Copyright © 2002 by Mark Strand. Poets.org

Buy The Story of Our Lives at Amazon.com

ttp://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0375709754/sr=8-
2/qid=1151844223/ref=sr_1_2/002-4065108-0810401?ie=UTF8