The pointless ramblings and obscure humor of an over-worked, off-beat, performer-writer-teacher.

 

And You Thought You Were Bored

9,800 Yahoo! matches for Hairy Potty Chair

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posted by: WebPulp at 11:56 | link | comments (1) |

And now for something completely different. . .

Pequod was the smallest and least influential ship in the fleet, a small-time dignitary transport, built especially to transport the smallest of dignitaries of which there were many in the Federation of Allied Planets, Republics, Empires, and Monarchies – or FAPREAM as it was more commonly known.  The Federation had previously been known as FOAPREAM prior to the acceptance of the planet Goomba into the Federation, but soon after it was discovered that Foapream was a vulgarity in the Goomba language. The term referred to an association of a vulgar nature among two consenting adults and a farm animal known as a gorfling – something that appeared to be a genetic manipulation of a Terran cow spliced with the DNA of a duck.

 

It had never been clear if the two consenting adult were of the same or different gender.  It was unknown whether multiple genders existed on the planet at all.  Not even the Goombainians seemed to know except during solar eclipses during certain times of the years.  This was usually a busy time for Goombainians.

 

After eleven galaxian years, three attached riders, an amendment guaranteeing a grant providing intra-galaxy transportation fee wavers to unwed human mothers with no children,  and a vote of thirty-seven to three, the bill changing the acronym to FAPREAM was approved by the senate and sent on to the council of delegates to await the next general election in order to be nominated to receive an approval vote.  Surprisingly one of the three dissenting votes came from the senator from Goomba her/himself.

 

In the end the FAPREAM gained little from the inclusion of Goomba: a new acronym, a handful of new vulgarities, and an additional verse to “Old McDonald” – “. . . with a ‘moack’ here and a ‘moack’ there. . .”  And fapream, it turned out, was also a Goobainian word meaning, “my brother’s nephew is my second cousin’s uncle’s grandfather,” – actually quite a common Goobainian term.

 

posted by: WebPulp at 09:10 | link | comments |

The Dog and Pony (or is that Donkey and Elephant) Show

 

It’s been so long since I’ve written anything.  The school year is winding down.  Graduation is tomorrow and all staff are expected to be there.  The problem is “expected” as if we are expected to work practically a work day for no compensation.  I’m not necessarily talking money, just a little recognition or respect.  For one thing, I teach at a very small high school.  There are only about 100 graduating students, but graduation usually takes three hours.  Too much pandering and not enough getting down to business.  We start at 10:00; the actual ceremony is at 11:00, and the expected end time is 2:00.  Now the least the district could do is give us a half-day compensation time for requiring us to be there, but they won’t even give us that.  The problem with that is, contractually they can’t require us to be there only expect us to be.  But “expectation” means “you’d better be there or have a written explanation of why you weren’t.”

 

Education is ill and its not going to get better until we take it out of the hands of bureaucrats and business administrators and put it back in the hands of real educators.   I know I’ve ranted this before, but I will continue to.  Bureaucrats and administrators think that education is a business and there by can be quantified like profits, margins, and losses.

 

I was made physically ill by a commercial singing the praises of what Duhb Bush has done for education.  What he has really done is turned the driving force of education into “profit” where students are seen as products and their performance on nearly meaningless inventories are their value; a value that is then correlated to the supposed effectiveness of their teachers and the supposed value of the school.  It’s a load of monkey dung.  What American’s are not told is that his policies (i.e. “no child left behind”) really devalue teachers – expecting them to invest more into their own higher education while treating and paying them as (and sometimes less than)  non-degreed civil servants.  It provides states incentives to do things (such as New Mexico has done) that appear to be increasing the pay structure for incoming teachers, but in effect is really created low salary caps for every one.

 

But we can’t blame it all on the burning Bush.  Its been a good ten years that teachers have left the field in increasing numbers, fed up with the way they’ve been devalued, fed up with ignorant bureaucrats who know nothing about education.

 

It’s gotten so mired that funds that should be supporting schools and classrooms are being put into the pockets of the bureaucrats.  And again, it’s not just the bird we have in the Bush.  The (Democrat) Governor was one of those being schmoozed as a vice-presidential possibility. Earlier this year is was able to convince voters that the best way to limit bureaucracy in government was to create another bureaucrat (a cabinetry secretary of education) to be paid out of education funds.  The scary thing is that the bill passed.

 

So where does it leave educators like me.  Real educators close the door on bureaucrats and trust their own innate abilities to carry education to its pinnacle. Others should close the door too and allow real educators the opportunity to do their job with out the dog and pony (or is that donkey and elephant) show.

posted by: WebPulp at 22:50 | link | comments |

The Morning After the Night Before (with apologies to Shelly Berman for the title)

I have a cold with allergies on top.  Didn't sleep well last night.  My nose is so stuffed up, I kept waking myself up with my own snoring.  That’s what usually happens this time of year.  I turned on the air-conditioner yesterday and cleaned up some of the back yard (aka dirtpile) a few days before  and all that dust and dirt got up my nose. 

 

Our neighbor is bitching at the world again.  She hates all the dogs in the neighborhood (there are a lot of them) and my opinion is she should just move.  She’s always snooping over the fences to see what her neighbors and their dogs are up to so she can bitch.  Our first dog, Odo, use to poop write next to the fence where she looks over.  She was a dominant alpha female – and as I told our neighbor’s husband once – didn’t like another bitch in her yard.  I actually feel sorry for her husband because he seems like a nice guy, hardly anyone in the neighborhood socializes with him because of her. He’s number three and definitely younger than the first two, a little passive too.  I sometimes wonder if those two things (being young and easily dominated) is why he stays with her.

 

Enough about that.  She’s pissed me off enough this week, no need going on.

 

My thoughts are so disconnected, I feel like a Saul Bellows novel.  I remember reading Her Zogg in college along with Virginia Woolfe’s Too the Lighthouse.  I remember at the time thinking what great books they were.  I really got into the whole stream of conscious / random thoughts aspects of the novels.  All these years later, I remember how great I thought the books were, but I don’t remember a thing about them.  That’s how I feel right now.  I’m so congested and out of it. 

 

My wife is at a scrapbook party today.  She deserves it.  She’s needed a break to go out with her friends for awhile.  But it also means sick Daddy is at home with two sick kids.  The three-year old has a cold and diarrhea.  The eight-month (can’t believe it’s really that long) old is cutting a tooth.  She’s on a regular schedule of screaming from about 11:00pm to 6:00am.  She’s so cute when she’s finally “awake” with enough Oragel to kill the pain.  She’s probably got the cold too as is evident by the three of us sitting around the house staring at each other, not having enough energy to do anything, not even able to wipe our runny noses fast enough.  I do have the three-year old that that’s what sleeves are for,  but I still have to wipe his sisters.

 

I want to take a nap, but that would mean convincing the two kids they want a nap too.  The baby, however, just got up from her late morning nap and would rather play with Daddy.  That’s evident by the way she keeps throwing her pacifier and toys.  She’s in the swing next to me.  But when she feels I’m not giving her enough attention, she throws something she’s been playing with off the play, plays like she dropped it, and cries for it.  Right now, her favorite toys are lids off Propel bottles.  Her brother drinks Propel one bottle after the other and gives the lids to her.  She’s got a collection of about six now and with throw a fit if anyone tried to take them.  She bangs them on her tray, bangs them together, pushes them around, and acts like they are the world’s greatest toy.

 

Rollie Pollie Ollie is on right now.  That means they’re both so engrossed, that maybe I can get a quick nap.

posted by: WebPulp at 11:07 | link | comments |