I'd Rather Be Here, Than Anywhere With You

The past week has been wild. While the sale was going on at the space, the ladies and I ran the shop. Leaving us alone with a music system to ourselves was probably a bad idea...but it ended well.

Just glad I didn't have to deal with this:



and was doing this instead:




more later. TTYN!

"Social Order That Did Not Deserve My Loyalty"

Last April I read Tim Tyson's memoir, "Blood Done Sign My Name" Below is my write up from last April after finishing the book.
It was brought to my attention yesterday that Tyson's book had been made into a film, it looks pretty good to me. :




"I recently finished the book "Blood Done Sign My Name" By Timothy Tyson (2004) Fairly new book.
The book in short is a memoir about a son of a liberal minister in Oxford, North Carolina. Oxford is made up of indifferent citizens, Klan members, Ex Klan members, angry african american youths, and the future most threatening member of the Wilmington 10. An innocent African American man is killed after he supposedly flirts with a white woman at a convenience store. 3 men chase after 20 year old Henry Marrow and kicked him senseless till he lay on the ground close to death, next one of the men who will later testify that he "accidentally shot" aimed his gun and shot Marrow directly in the head killing him. This sends the town of Oxford up in flames- literally the African Americans of the town strategically start burning down the town's stores and warehouses, to the point where A million dollars worth of tobacco goes up in flames. The Mayor of Oxford can be seen in good form when he offers the colored community 7 basketball courts if they stop burning down the town.

Within the narrative of Tim's life and the town of Oxford's divide after the murder Tyson weaves in loads of "what I didn't learn in US history type facts." For example, Tyson proclaims that The Cape Fear 1898 Wilmington Race Riot's “omission from North Carolina History may have been the biggest of the lies that marked my [his] boyhood”

“North Carolina history textbooks never mentioned anything about either the massacre in Wilmington or the white supremacy crusade...The ghosts of 1898 walked among us in the 1970s, and the fact that so few of us knew the past did not loosen its compelling hold on the present” “Everywhere I turned a new falsehood seemed to stare me in the face...And it appeared clear to me- partly because of the lies that filled my history textbooks- that the intent of formal education was to inculcate obedience to a social order that did not deserve my loyalty.”275



“The problem is not that we cherish the story, exactly, nor is the story itself entirely false. Miss Amy’s witness is true, and many of the things we admire about Dr. King are factual. The problem is why we cherish that kind of story: because we want to transcend our history without actually confronting it...The self congratulatory popular account insists that Dr. King called on the nation to fully accept its own creed, and the walls came a-tumbling down. This conventional narrative is soothing, moving, and politically acceptable, and has only the disadvantage of bearing no resemblance to what actually happened,” (Tyson, 319)."

I Still Love This

No Child Left Behind, The Football Version.


All teams must make the state playoffs, and all will win the championship. If a team does not win the championship, they will be on probation until they are the champions, and coaches will be held accountable.

All kids will be expected to have the same football skills at the same time and in the same conditions. No exceptions will be made for interest in football, a desire to perform athletically, or genetic abilities or disabilities. ALL KIDS WILL PLAY FOOTBALL AT A PROFICIENT LEVEL.

When players arrive at any game with remedial skills in football for any reason, their coaches will be penalized for their performance, regardless of how long the players have been on the team. cjk

If remedial players do not achieve proficiency by the next statistically recorded game, their coaches and athletic directors will be put on probation. After several games of probation, coaches and athletic directors may be released. Coach and athletic director probation and release will not be conditional on the size of gains in the remedial players football skills; players must reach proficiency. cjk

Talented players will be asked to work out on their own without instruction. Coaches will use all their instructional time with the athletes who aren't interested in football, have limited athletic ability or whose parents don't like football.

All coaches will be proficient in all aspects of football, or they will be released.

Games will be played year round, but statistics will only be kept in the 4th, 8th and 11th games.

This will create a New Age of sports where every school is expected to have the same level of talent and all teams will reach the same minimal goals.
If no football player gets ahead, then no football player will be left behind.

ABANDONING THE ‘PROFICIENY’ GOAL
Ditching No Child is only the first step
February 8, 2010
ABANDONING NO Child Left Behind’s impossible goal of 100 percent proficiency by 2014 would be a refreshing first step toward reality, and a needed overhaul of the destructive and despised federal No Child Left Behind law. Once that happens, the question is whether Congress will design a law that supports real improvement instead of forcing schools to spend more time testing than teaching.

A good start would be listening to educators and students about what they need and how No Child has impeded rather than supported improvement, rather than reflexively bashing teachers and students in a rush to defend an indefensible law.

MONTY NEILL
Boston
The writer is executive director of the National Center for Fair & Open Testing.

Saturday 9 AM, DAY 1 at the gym: Ran 3 Miles in 31 minutes. I am pathetic. Sweat a lot, but don't feel worked out enough. Must learn how to use other equipment....


Monday 3 PM, Day 2: Ran 3 Miles in 29 minutes. Still a little uncomfortable still adapting to the surroundings. Met with a trainer and set up a training session for Friday focusing on free weights... Installed my Nike + on my Ipod Touch. I don't have the special Nike sneakers with a spot for them and I don't have the pouch they sell for the sensor. Did some research on other methods of keeping it on your shoe. Some people went pretty far and cut into the insert making a space. I'm sure that was comfortable. I finally came across two methods that were more my style; One was velcro, which I would have done, but didn't have any, and the other was cutting an insert in the tongue of the sneaker. I did this, the sensor stayed secure during my jaunt, and it didn't bother me at all. So take that Apple, you can get me the next time I lose my USB charger. At least $5 SAVED.

Last week I FINALLY purchased my Penfield Backpack

I love this thing. A friend told me it looked like a blown up hacky sack, which was cool cause that's the look I was working towards. A perfect size for a girl too. Usually I run into the problem of backpacks going far beyond my back, this one fits perfectly. I couldn't imagine a guy sporting this actually... W/E


Currently over halfway done with Dombey and Son by Charles Dickens. Everything about this book pulls me, everything is mysterious and vague yet exists and is presented in an extremely vivid portrayal. There is blatant proof that a character is dead and I still am in denial that he is truly dead. Dickens creates credible characters among a contrast of caricatures that I find as a reader that it is impossible not to become attached...or not to become a hater. Everyone in this network functions, everyone works off one another and no one is wasted. This novel is incredibly dark and as a reader I find that to be an attraction. This could be a result of spending a whole semester reading Shakespeare's comedies where "ALL'S WELL THAT ENDS WELL"....you know what I mean. This is the first time in a while that I am appreciating prose that is completely detached from a character's psyche. I could praise Dickens for quite some time, but It's much more beneficial to cite...







Away, with a shriek, and a roar, and a rattle, from the town, burrowing among the dwellings of men and making the streets hum. flashing out into the meadows for a moment, mining in through the damp earth, booming on in the darkness and heavy air. bursting out again into the sunny day so bright and wide; away, with a shriek, and a roar, and a rattle, through the fields, through the woods, through the corn, through the hay, through the chalk, through the mo,uld. through the clay, through the rock, among objects close at hand and almost in the grasp, ever flying from the traveller, and a deceitful distance ever moving slowly within him: like as in the track of the remorseless monster, Death!

Through the hollow, on the height, by the heath, by the orchard, by the park, by the garden, over the canal, across the river, where the sheep are feeding, where the mill is going, where the barge is floating, where the dead are lying, where the factory is smoking, where the stream is running, where the village clusters, where the great cathedral rises, where the bleak moor lies, and the wild breeze smooths or ruffles it at its inconstant will; away, with a shriek, and a roar, and a rattle, and no trace to leave behind but dust and vapor: like as in the track of the remorseless monster, Death!

Breasting the wind and light, the shower and sunshine, away, and still away, it rolls and roars, fierce and rapid, smooth and certain, and great works and massive bridges crossing up above, fall like a beam of shadow an inch broad, upon the eye, and then are lost. Away, and still away, onward and onward ever: glimpses of cottage-homes, of houses, mansions, rich estates, of husbandry and handicraft, of people, of old roads and paths that look deserted, small and insignificant as they are left behind; and so they do. and what else is there but such glimpses, in the track of the indomitable monster. Death!

Away, with a shriek, and a roar, and a rattle, plunging down into the earth again, and working on in such a storm of energy and perseverance, that amidst the darkness and whirlwind the motion seems reversed, and to tend furiously backward, until a ray of light upon the wet wall shows its surface flying past like a fierce stream. Away once more into the day, and through the day, with a shrill yell of exultation, roaring, rattling, tearing on, spurning everything with its dark breath, sometimes pausing tor a minute where a crowd of faces are, that in a minute more are not: sometimes lapping water greedily, and before the spout at which it drinks has ceased to drip upon the ground, shrieking, roaring, rattling through the purple distance!


Louder and louder yet. it shrieks and cries.as it comes tearing on resistless to the goal; and now its way, still like the wa# of Death, is strewn with ashes thickly. Everything around is blackened. There are dark pools of water, muddy lanes, and miserable habitations far below. There are jagged walls and falling houses close at hand, and through the battered roofs and broken
windows, wretched rooms are seen, where want and fever hide themselves in many wretched shapes, while smoke and crowded gables, and distorted chimneys. and deformity of brick and mortar penning up deformity of mind and body, choke the murky distance. As Mr. Dombey looks out of his carriage window, it is never iu his thoughts that the monster who has brought him there has let the light of day in on these things: not made or caused them. It was the journey's fitting end. and might have been the end of everything; it was so ruinous and dreary.





I feel like I'm one of the few Michelle Branch fans left in this world, but I'm into her new video. I think she's adorable.

Everybody have fun tonight!

Last night I attended the screening of HBO's latest series "How To Make It In America." Well unfortunately I was too distracted by other thing parties usually involve (like free food and beer)....SO I missed most of the show.

There was a photobooth setup so that's always a good time. I'm pretty sure I hurt my foot on a landing during a jump/action pose. OH WELL.