Froth Slosh B'Gosh

RIP'S

I really shouldn't be suprised, now that I'm approaching 50, but a couple of icons from my junior highschool days (or "middle school", as we privledged private school students called it) have died. 

First, Ray Bradbury, one of the first science fiction writers I discovered, is dead at age 91.  I think The Illustrated Manwas probably the first sci-fi book I picked up.

Secondly, I see in today's paper that my middle school art teacher, Dorothy Gennaccaro died at age 85.    If you want some indication of what it was like at Shady Side Academy's middle school in the 1970's, all you have to do is look at the yearbook pictures from that era.  The kids in the junior school are all smiling, happy faces.  The senior school pictures also depict typical teenagers, doing teenage things, and seem happy, although in a private school setting.  The middle school pictures?  Not a smile to be seen.  The class photos depict sullen, grim, beaten down children terrified by a system that handed out demerits for the slightest infractions (I've always wondered why schools that use a demerit system for discipline never have a way to earn "merits."  Perhaps it existed, if it did, I was never made aware of it).  There were but three respites: lunch, recess, and Mrs. G's art classes.  I am not artistically inclined, but there was never a harsh word from Mrs. G, only instruction, encouragement, and enjoyment.  I should also note that its my understanding that the middle school today is not the rigid disciplinary hellhole it was back during my time there, so things do change.

The sad thing is that as an adult, I really hadn't thought much about either Bradbury or Mrs. G until I read their obituaries today, but reading those obits brought back a lot of memories.

Indoctrinating Elementary School Students

This is frightning. 

Stewart is not an atheist. She doesn’t go into this story telling the reader how awful religion is. She shows us how awful abuse of religious power is. She shows us how moderate Christians will be fooled into allowing this to happen. She makes it believable that such a thing could happen to us. The book does not read like a report of a fact-finding mission, but more like the story your neighbor will tell you over a cup of tea. She will tell you how this happened at the school of the child of a friend of her cousin’s hairdresser’s sister. And you’ll tut and nod and shake your head at all the right places. But when she leaves, the story niggles. You wonder if this could happen at your child’s school. But you would never stand for that, would you?

You can get the book from my friends at RBR Books.

Snarlin' Arlen's Fee-Fee's Are Hurt

Whaaaaa!

Seriously, go read James O'Toole's review of Specter's "Life Among The Cannibals."  The excerpts quoted by O'Toole reveal Specter to be a whiny, thin-skinned, irritable egomaniac, but we already knew that.