The Median Sib

Today I worked with a group of third graders reading an article on the Vikings in the National Geographic Explorer! magazine for children.

I’ve been through college and graduate school, and I’ve taught school for over 25 years, and I learned something new today from a third grade magazine - which is a good thing. When people stop learning, they stop living. And Lord knows I have more to learn than I could possibly learn in a million years. Maybe what I learned today was in one of those long-forgotten classes from my past, and I just don’t remember it. As a matter of fact, upon further thought, that’s a STRONG possibility - even a probability. If that’s the case, then I re-learned it today. Here it is:

The Vikings had many gods. One of Vikings’ gods was Thor, the god of thunder and lightning. Our “Thursday” comes from a Viking word meaning Thor’s day. TA-DA! Okay, not an earth-shattering tidbit of information, but I thought it was pretty cool. Did any of you remember it from your schooling?

A kindergarten teacher (I’ll call her Gwen) in Florida (home of large cockroaches known as palmetto bugs) found out that her husband was not only cheating on her but had an entire separate family of two children with his girlfriend. It had been going on for YEARS and Gwen had had no inkling of it. Gwen and her husband and their two children had just moved into a new home, it was the first of a new school year, and she was exhausted. The news of his long-standing affair was the last straw. She confronted him but he was unrepentant. He told her that he was leaving her because he knew she was stronger than the girlfriend and she would survive. To say that she was devastated would be an understatement. He left. She was furious with no outlet to express it. The next day, Gwen went to school as usual - not knowing how she would make it but determined to keep life as normal as possible. As the morning wore on, one of the children told her that there was a bug in the “home living” part of the classroom. Gwen grabbed a fly swatter and went into the kitchen area where the enormous palmetto bug was crawling across the floor. Thoughts of her cheating husband combined with seeing a repulsive and gross cockroach in her classroom was too much. She snapped. The bug became her husband, and she started slamming the fly swatter against it and yelling at it: “HOW COULD YOU DO THIS TO ME, GEORGE?” “TAKE THIS, GEORGE!” “HOW DARE YOU, GEORGE?” “GEORGE, YOU’RE SCUM!” She kept yelling and hitting the roach over and over and over until her fury had dissipated. Spent, she stopped, took a deep breath and turned around to see the children standing behind her, fixated by the spectacle. As her heartbeat and breathing slowly returned to normal, one little boy timidly asked, “How did you know the cockroach’s name?”

And, friends, THAT is a TRUE story! I swear.

OK, so this is a political rant. I promise it’ll be the last one for awhile. I’ll get this out of my system and go back to posting happier and funnier topics.

I’ve posted several times my feelings about the press and democrats and how they’re relentlessly backstabbing the United States, putting our soldiers in danger and encouraging the terrorists with their self-interested shenanigans and rewriting of history. In surfing the net tonight I found other posts that I thought were particularly good. First of all is Blame Bush - a great blog that is hilarious in pointing out the absurdity of the left. Baldilocks had a new post that referred to the Drudge Report. Suitable For Mixed Company compared what’s going on to Animal Farm - a book I need to re-read. The posts I mentioned from The Median Sib are: November 15th, November 14th, November 3rd, and September 26th. Read some of these and get angry. Maybe rational and patriotic Americans are finally beginning to see how duplicitous the left is and how insidious the press is. I think once upon a time the Democratic party was about the people. That was a long time ago. Now they are blatantly self-serving and don’t care what they do or who they hurt in their drive for political gain. The problem is that too many people who have always been democrats have blind loyalty to the party and can’t (or won’t) see the lies behind the rhetoric. Hopefully it’s not too late to save America.

I guess I brought it on myself. For the past few years I’ve done much of my Christmas shopping online. It’s quick and easy, and I loved not having to get out in the suffocating crowds and long lines at the mall. There is a penalty for shopping online, though, and that penalty is catalogs. Every day for the past few weeks, I have received catalogs from all those online stores along with every store remotely associated with those stores — L.L. Bean, Lands End, Herrington, Victoria’s Secret, Puritan’s Pride, Miles Kimball, Barnes and Noble, Gevalia, E-Toys, Pfaltzgraff, Coward’s…and the list goes on. L.L. Bean, in particular, sends out at least a couple catalogs each week - the Christmas catalog, the menswear catalog, the womens wear catalog, the children’s catalog, the outdoor adventure catalog, another Christmas catalog…and that list goes on, too.

I remember when I took a computer course at Vanderbilt about 12 years ago, the professor told us that the time was fast approaching when people would do their shopping online. I listened to him describe how that would happen, and I thought it was absurd. Why would someone buy anything they couldn’t actually see and touch? I was wrong. It didn’t take long for it to happen.

It just seems incongruous that when I buy things online, it results in my receiving dozens of catalogs in the mail.

My LilSis sent me the following quote which goes along with the one above which I had already planned for today’s QOTD. I think these two quotes are so pertinent to what’s going on in the United States today.

There is so much to learn. Tonight I have spent literally HOURS trying to get the “comments” parts of this blog to work the way I want them to work. But now I have TWO comment links for each post, and I can’t figure out how to delete the old one. I have copied every single comment that’s been posted since I started THE MEDIAN SIB, and then I pasted each of them into the new comment links. I didn’t want to lose all the previous comments. I’ve tried everything I know with the blog template to get it to work, but to no avail. I’ll probably dream about it after spending so much time on it. Sigh! Guess I’ll work on it more tomorrow.

Later: Never say die. I THINK (hope! pray!) that I worked it out. Now I just hope I didn’t delete something vital in the template that will make the whole thing crash! I can just imagine logging on tomorrow and having the blog gone somewhere in cyberspace, never to be found again. At least now there’s just one link for comments, and it’s the new one that I wanted. Yea!!!

One of the downsides of being single is going through thunderstorms alone. Right before I left school this afternoon, our principal announced that the PTO meeting tonight had been postponed till Thursday because of the large band of severe weather that would be going through our area throughout the evening. As I left school, the weather was overcast, but not bad. During the 40-minute drive home the weather went from overcast to windy with rain. By the time I arrived in my neighborhood, the wind was stripping the leftover leaves from the trees. It looked like it was raining leaves. As the evening has progressed, it has become worse. The thunder is now booming outside, I can hear the rain pouring down and there are reports of tornadoes in nearby counties. We are under a tornado watch until 11:00 p.m.

The first few years that I was single, I would practically hide under the bed during a thunderstorm. I don’t know why they bother me so much! I never gave them a second thought when I was married. It is interesting how having another person in the house can dispell fear. I’ve gotten used to handling them alone now, and while they still make me decidedly nervous, I don’t have the fear I used to have.

The tornado siren just started going off — rather spooky sounding — and amazingly LOUD — and I’m sitting here writing in my blog! Guess I’ll log off and get somewhere safe.

Later: I believe the worst of the storm is over. The tornado siren is no longer blaring, although according to the TV weather, there is another tornado warning starting now. No, don’t think the worst is over. Hmmm — looks like there is another one heading right my way. Fun fun!

Later still: According to the news, the worst is over. I made it through. Yea!! They were just showing a “shear marker” that passed directly above where I live. I believe it. It got pretty bad there for awhile. I actually was standing by the window watching it. Okay - so much for my exciting evening. Now I’m hoping that there was enough rain to flood some low lying roads resulting in school being cancelled tomorrow. Keeping my fingers crossed…

Even later still: School wasn’t cancelled…not even delayed.

I found this poem awhile ago. I have no idea who wrote it or when it was written, but I like it.

I saw the following headlines in the AOL news this morning:

Bush Attacks War Critics as Asia Trip Begins

Alito’s Writings Boast of Work Against Abortion Rights

Isn’t it interesting the choice of words? Let’s look at how the interests of the democrats and press are worded:

Bush’s Approval Rating Continues to Drop

Rift Appears in GOP Over Cutting Taxes and Spending

Kerry: Bring troops home over Christmas (Now isn’t that all warm and fuzzy? Obviously the war-mongering Republicans want to keep the troops in Iraq and away from their homes!)

As part of my job as a reading specialist, I administer the DRA (Developmental Reading Assessment) to many children. At the end of the test there are several items that are used to determine a child’s attitude towards reading. One of the items is “Tell me what you like best about reading.” As I administer the assessment, my job is to write down exactly what the child says in reply.

I’ve given this test hundreds of time, and the responses are usually along the lines of: “It’s fun,” “Some books make me laugh,” or “I like the adventures.” However, the other day I got responses from two different third grade children that just blew me away. Maybe they made such an impression on me because they’re the reasons I enjoy reading so much. Here are their responses - word for word since that’s how I had to record them:

“It takes me right into the book and I pretend I’m in the story. Like Alice in Wonderland - that really takes me into the story!”

“It’s like I’m in a different world.”

Those two children GET what reading is all about.

I wrote a few days ago that I was mid-way through reading A MILLION LITTLE PIECES by James Frey. (Click HERE to read the previous post). I finished it this morning. Wow! What an incredible story. I have only one issue with the book: Throughout all the horrors he faced, he paints himself as quite the tough, fearless and resolute rebel - with no need for the tried and true methods of drug rehab. There were times as I was reading that I thought, “No way! He couldn’t have really done that!” or “That’s not realistic!” But I know nothing of the world of drug addicts and rehab, and so I can’t make any judgements about it. Regardless of how closely his description of the events follow the reality, it is still a fascinating book. At the end, he tells what has happened to the various people in the story since the end of his six weeks in rehab. Reading that one page alone is enough to stop you in your tracks. Despite its language and sexual content (both of which are graphic), I think it should be required reading for high school students. It would make them think seriously about the consequences of alcohol and drug use. There is nothing glamorous or exciting about the absolute depths of despair and depravity that he experienced because of his addiction to both alcohol and drugs. If you want a book that will hold you spellbound, will both horrify you and, strangely enough, uplift you, I would recommend A MILLION LITTLE PIECES.

This morning, in an open AOL poll asking the question “Did President Bush deliberately mislead the public on Iraq?” 64% of the respondants answered “yes.” Since the poll included only the people who chose to participate, the numbers aren’t necessarily representative of the American population. However, I believe they’re at least indicative of a general public trend. The results are disturbing. Have so many Americans bought into the anti-American rhetoric of both the democrats and the mainstream press? Have they forgotten that most of the democrats that are now calling Bush a liar are also the ones that read the same intelligence and came to the same conclusions about WMD and the need to go to war in Iraq? Do they not realize that it is the anti-Bush, anti-war factions that are causing more death to our soldiers and are fueling the interests of the terrorists? And can’t the American people see the blatant self-interested, opportunistic nature of the democrats and the press?

In Reasoned Audacity, Charmaine Yoest points out the ridiculous, but not surprising, call by Barbra Streisand for Bush’s impeachment. Charmaine also provides a link to a post by The Anchoress which contains pre-war quotes from Clinton and others about the WMD in Iraq and the necessity of ending the threat that Iraq and Islamic terrorists pose to the world. These quotes and opinions are never mentioned in the news. The mainstream news is biased and left-wing. It would be amusing if so many people didn’t swallow their bait - hook, link and sinker.

I admire George Bush for standing strong in the face of such overwhelming opposition in the press. He was given a mandate by the people of the United States in 2001 and 2002, and he has stood by his word. He is a man of truth, character and perseverance, and I trust him far more than the ones who don’t hesitate to jeopardize our soldiers’ safety - and ultimately America’s safety - in order to further their self-interests and political agendas.

Today is my little sister’s birthday. Debi is two years younger than I am. We were very close growing up, and were sometimes quite mean to our younger sister, Beth, when we’d exclude her from our play. I’ve included two pictures of Debi above - well, two pictures of Beth, too, although her birthday isn’t until next month. (Maybe this post will do for both of them?) Photo # 1 is Beth, Carol, and Debi building sand castles on the beach in Florida. Notice that Beth and I are looking at the camera. Debi is busy WORKING on the sand castle. Photo #2 is Beth, Daddy, David, and Debi (holding the doll). Maybe the fact that she’s working in one photo and holding the doll in the other is indicative of her future. She is now the mother of FIVE (that’s 1, 2, 3, 4, 5!) children - wonderful children, although they’re really not children any longer. Three are grown and on their own, another is in college, and the baby, Jonathan, is a junior in high school. 

HAPPY BIRTHDAY to Debi - one of the hardest workers I know, tireless in giving of herself and her abilities to others - a wonderful mother, daughter, sister, and friend. I love you. 

Oh yes - and she is also a writer! Here are a few of her books: 

When You Were a Baby 

Did I Ever Tell You about how Our Family Got Started?: Building Togetherness and Values by Sharing Stories about Your Family

Mother in the Middle: Searching for Peace in the Mommy Wars

Stress-Busters for Moms