My Own Radio Station

On the drive down to visit Aunt Audrey and Uncle Howard in San Clemente today I did station surfing, something I don't normally do. Driving around town I just listen to NPR. In the house the radio in the kitchen, the garage, and the bedroom, are just always tuned to NPR. Great station. Love the programs. But not much current music. Periodically musicians are guests on programs. Yo Yo Ma was on the Diane Rehms show the other day. And Carole King was on her show today. So you hear conversation and music. And of course, there's the wonderful world music program of Charlie Gillett's, for 20 minutes on Saturday night. Prairie Home Companion has music. I hear lots of interesting people on there that I follow up on Youtube. I first heard "Crayola Doesn't Make a Color For Your Eyes" on PHC. Love that song and loved the video I found on Youtube.

This is all great, but NPR isn't a music station. And I didn't hear a single station of music today that I enjoyed for longer than 15 minutes. The station that claimed to play rock classics doesn't play what I call rock classics. So I started creating a line up of what I would play if I had my own station. And quite a lot of it would be from my albums from the late 60's, into the 70's.

Blind Faith, Traffic, Cream, Buffalo Springfield, Crosby,Still,Nash and Young, Joni Mitchell, Bob Dylan, The Band, Richie Havens, Laura Nyro, Dr. John, Jefferson Airplane, Santana, Big Brother and the Holding Company, Country Joe and the Fish, Grateful Dead, Beach Boys, The Byrds, Emmylou Harris, Mamas and Papas, Simon and Garfunkle, Paul Simon, Little Feat, Blood,Sweat, and Tears (the 1st configuration, think it was Mike Bloomsfield there), cast album of Hair, Beatles (some of the less played pieces, from Revolver, the White Album, etc.), Rolling Stones (ditto Beatles comment), Doors (ditto prev. comments), Dire Straits, Talking Heads, then U2, Bruce Springsteen,.....

Intermix with all of that recordings from the folk music collection by John and Alan Lomax. Lots of Motown. And world music, and current music that is not played on commercial stations. Love the groups I go to see live, like the Blasters, and Ozomatli, and Rod Piazza and the Mighty Flyers, and Flogging Molly. Recently I became a fan of International Farmers. Throw in some Woody Guthrie, Pete Seeger, and some of the old blues men, and Ike and Tina Turner. "River Deep, Mountain High" gives me chills.

Maybe someone does this kind of programming already, on Sirius radio. I think that's subscriber radio. Don't know anything about it, but that it exists. I guess I should check it out before I start my own station.....

Rose Parade Dream

I had a Rose Parade dream. During the day I had seen unpurchased Xmas trees, laying forlornly in an mt xmas tree lot. My dream had abandoned trees upright and lovely adorning a sloping float, with little children dressed as ornaments hanging around. In the day I embellished: I'm in front, as Mrs. Claus, singing "Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree." ( :

I posted this on Facebook then went for a walk with the dogs, thinking about how I might actually make this happen. Maybe not next year, but the following year? What do I need? Money. So I would need backers. How to find them. Hmmm. I was even thinking about not having "little" children, but my own students. And I figured out how to select the maybe 15 to 20 who could be on the float by using essays, or songs, or rap, or whatever, on what? the true meaning of Christmas? The importance of respecting life on earth? Then the students themselves could vote for the best. Or maybe we COULD get all of them on. Well, wouldn't that be a blast!

about an hour ago · Comment ·

Kirby Gomez

what a dream..... I hate to say it, but... ONLY YOU!!! Anyway, I want to be on your float too.....can I?

30 minutes ago ·

Valerie Card

Kirby, YES, you can be on my float! You would be a perfect happy good-luck elf!

2 minutes ago ·

Evening in September, at the base of Cucamonga Peak

I'm eating dinner outside, with a blue sky above me and a gray sky just north, above and behind Cucamonga Peak. Maybe it's the thunder shower I've been hearing is coming in. The setting sun highlights the peaks and shadows the valleys of the mountain while adding pink to the gray of the cloud over it.

Bela, at 5 months the youngest and ever the provocateur, is grabbing Sadie's leg, then Jimmy's ear, and then there is a pile of fur and legs and teeth as these three tussle. Up they jump and begin a race around the yard where the chaser can suddenly become the chasee. Bela is only 14 pounds but has inordinately long legs and a feisty attitude which allows her to keep up with older, bigger, and heaver dogs.

The leaves of my neighbor's tall row of aspen trees shake and rustle in a light breeze. Two hummingbirds flit through, then fly high into the sky, down again, and zoom off. I can hear the sound of children at play in the cul-de-sac just below me. The scrub jay comes to get his peanuts, returning until they are all gone. When I came out earlier he was sitting on the unopened peanut bag on the picnic table. I had bought it earlier and was distracted by something else and forgot to put out peanuts for him. But he spotted the bag.

The dogs played, the birds flew, I ate a lovely dinner, and the clouds moved to the east. The sun set.

The Border Fence

Thought for the Day

Aug. 30, 2009 – sent to all my fellow teachers:

This was the Thought for Today on the Word.a.day emailed to me.

Thought it apropos for teachers and emailed to my peers.

A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:

What you cannot enforce, do not command.

-Sophocles, dramatist (495?-406 BCE)

***********************************************

I got a few responses, such as “Amen”, or “I really like this,

thank you.”

Following is an email conversation between myself and

someone who I would say is our most political thinker,

“Tom”.

****************************************************

T - Eerily suggestive of our border policy.

******************************************************

V - Interesting connection. With the border policy I have to say that

my attention is focused on the environmental

damage the fence has done, destroying habitat and animal corridors.

******************************************************

T - What kind of animals? Not the human kind?

*************************************************

V - No, not human corridors. I'm not worried about the demise of

human beings. In fact, I'm worried about the proliferation of

homo sapiens.

Bag Lady

One of my favorite stories to tell on myself is of the time during the summer when I was shopping at Ralph's. I was wearing my yard work clothes, clean but stained, and not carrying a purse. I almost never do, since working as a gardener and water treatment plant operator developed the habit of carrying keys and money in my pockets. On my way out of the store I had my purchases in a plastic bag, reused of course, and as usual, stopped at the trash can to check for bottles or cans. As I was reaching in for the bottle on top I heard a voice behind me say, "Do you need this?" I turned around to see a young man, 20 or so, with a 20 dollar bill held in an extended hand. How could he know that I have a job, a car, a house, a pension plan, CD's and IRA's, and discretionary income. I didn't want to discourage the impulse. The next time he feels it the person he offers money to may truly need it. So I just said, "No, thank you. I'm fine." "Are you sure?" he asked. I reassured him that I was. But how kind of him.

Oct. 2008

Who Goes There

Visiting with my brother, his wife, and my nephew and niece, over Christmas break we were talking about places where we’ve lived. My nephew has lived in several interesting places in Oakland and environs. One of them was a pump house. He talked about the fact that they could have live bands there because they weren’t in a residential area. My brother asked if any one had ever crashed these parties. Once, my nephew said. After one of the songs was over he just asked the guys to leave, and they did, no problems.

I said, “I crashed a party.”

“When?” my niece asked.

“A year ago last summer.” They all broke out laughing. I hadn’t looked for that response but then saw immediately that they were expecting this to have occurred in my youth, not as a then 57 year old woman. I had to tell the story. At first my brother seemed a little disapproving but as the story progressed he ended up laughing out loud.

I had gone to the Getty Museum with my teaching partner, and her youngest son, just out of 7th grade. When I got home it was about 9 PM. I fed the cats and was just hanging out in the front yard with them, enjoying the cool of the evening. Just north of me, behind the houses on the other side of the street, runs a flood control channel. Beyond that is another housing tract, with larger homes and 3 car garages. As I sat outside I could hear live music drifting down from one of those homes. The music sounded good. It came to me that I should go check it out. If I had been in my usual summer work-in-the-yard attire I wouldn’t have considered it. But I was still wearing my visit-to-the-Getty clothes. So I got in the car and headed north to the street up above the channel. I drove slowly down the street, with my window down. When I saw all the cars and heard the music I knew I found the party. I parked behind a chartered bus and sat for a minute asking myself, “Am I really going to do this?” What the heck.

The gates were open that lead down the driveway to the garage. In front of the garage were two tables piled high with gifts. The silver and gold wrapping lead me to believe that this was a wedding reception. I walked down the side of the garage, following the music. The band was set up in a grass area just behind the garage and the dance floor and tables were behind the house.

Just as I got there the band stopped playing. Four people, one of them the mother of the bride (I could just tell who she was, and saw later that I was correct), had taken over the mic and were trying to sing, “You’re just too good to be true, can’t take my eyes off of you…” They were having a hard time, stopping and starting again. The crowd was getting a little restless. I was near the little stage and I walked a little closer and told the mother, “You need to start higher” and demonstrated. She grabbed my arm and said, “Come on, we need your help.” So I joined them and we sang the song through, successfully, getting a good round of applause at the conclusion. And I got a hug from the mom.

The band started playing shortly after that and I danced. And danced. And danced. When the inevitable video camera came around I just was careful to turn my back to it. I left about 11:30.

I didn’t eat any of the food, or drink any of the drinks, and I did help them sing their song, and lots of people came over to dance with me, so I think it was a positive experience for all.

It would be interesting to hear the questions later when they view their videos. “Who is that dancing? That was the woman who sang with Mom, wasn’t it? Was she a friend of yours? Whose friend was she?”

I will probably never crash a wedding party again, the perfect circumstances being unlikely, but I’m glad I was…”The Mysterious Wedding Party Crasher”, just once.

(But I'm not ruling out birthday parties...)

Recalled Dec. 2008, from a summer party, 2008

Kids, Wasps, and Learning Something New

First thing Monday morning several students notice the wasp nest inside it's container. Why the wasp nest they want to know. So that we can watch the wasps emerge I explain. How did I get the nest they want to know. So I explain.

The wasp container is on the back counter and during the day the kids report to me that two wasps have emerged. The last class of the day is my garden class elective. We couldn't go outside Monday because the fires, in the east and the west, have adversely affected the air quality. So the kids do homework, work on puzzles, or help me with recycling the bottles and cans that had been turned in to me that day. A student, Christian, who is in my homeroom in the morning and also in the gardening class, has been keeping an eye on the wasp nest all day. He's asked me earlier about the wiggling larvae inside the uncovered chambers. They have a black dot in the middle and look like an odd, small eye as they move. I told him that I thought they wouldn't become adult wasps because I thought that they needed adult wasps to build the white covering over the top of the chamber. But Christian called me over to share his observation. We watched as the larvae built its own covering to the chamber, starting on the outside edge of the chamber and working around and around towards the center to build its little dome. By the end of the 5o minute period the opening was completely covered.

One of the other students watching this asked if I knew that the nest was paper. Sure, I knew. And I was glad he did, too. I have a container filled with old wasp nests and I pulled one out so we could look at it. There is a microscope right there on the back counter and Christian wondered if we could look at the white material under it. Of course! He carefully pulled some off the top of the old nest and put it on a slide and then a slide cover over it. It was great. The edges were frayed and you could see its fiber structure. The day before I had shown my science classes an old National Geographic video called "The Invisible World", explaining and showing the inventions that has allowed humans to see beyond the limits of our unaided eyes. One of the views we had was of intertwined white strands. As the camera pulled out I asked the students what they thought it was. No one guessed and they were all surprised when the final shot revealed someone writing on a piece of paper. Paper, paper wasps, and a handy microscope. I love all of the connections being made by a curious student.

When I opened a drawer beneath the counter, looking for the slide for Christian, the students near me could see my insect collection, in a variety of small containers. One of the students, Jordan, was delighted to see them. He said he does that, too. And his parents say he's crazy. "What do you want to do with all those dead insects?" he said his mother asks. I told him that if he's crazy I must be, too. We were both pleased with out common interest.

Tuesday morning cars left outside had a thin veil of ash and soot from the fires. So the gardening class had to stay inside again. Again the students found various activities to occupy their time. They're a good group of kids. If we have to stay in Wednesday I will bring out seed packets that I have and we'll take a look at how to read them; when to plant, how deep to put the seeds in, how far apart, what thinning means, and so on. But during the indoor time today Jordan took the opportunity to tell me that he has a wasp nest at home and would like to take it down. I told him the procedure that I use, but asked first if he had talked to his mother about it. He said he'd told her about the nest at school and she was fine with him asking me about this. I really like this young man. He's interested, polite, friendly, bright. And I have a picture now of his home life. His parents may call him crazy for having an insect collection but they allow, maybe even encourage, this interest. This has got to be one of the reasons he's such a fine person.

I was thinking about retiring last year as the school district was offering an incentive package to encourage teachers who have worked 15 years or more to retire. It would help the district in this time of economic woes. I decided not to, for a variety of reasons. And Tuesday I experienced two of those reasons. One, because when I teach I also learn. After all these years of collecting wasp nests I learned how the larvae chamber is covered. And two, it can be a real delight to get to know young people.

The Wasp

A couple of weeks ago I had noticed three wasp nests in the 4 foot tall junipers that form a hedge in the parkway on the west side of the driveway. That sidewalk passage had become narrower with the bougainvillea growing out on one side and the juniper on the other. I also wanted to work on getting rid of the bermuda grass growing along the sidewalk underneath the juniper. It was lucky I saw the nests before I disturbed them. They were towards the top, hanging upside down as usual, but pretty well hidden. I wanted to knock them off and bring them into school for the kids to observe, as I've done in the past, but I got busy with all the other things that needed to be done at the beginning of the school year and just didn't take the time to get them.

This morning I saw that the bermuda grass was starting to grow back again. It's so hard to get all of those roots, especially when you can't really dig down. The junipers have been there for a long time and are dense, growing right to the edge of the sidewalk. But I thought if I stayed on top of the situation at least it wouldn't look quite as bad as I had let it get to in the past. So I grabbed a trowel and worked away, carefully, trying not break the roots but pull them out whole, if possible. It gave me great satisfaction when I could pull out a relatively thick, white main root. I know this job will never be done, they will always be there because I won't spray any kind of selective herbicide. But that' s OK.

While I was working I noticed again the wasp nests. Early in the morning is the best time to knock down nests while the wasps are still cool and slow moving. Though it was 11 AM and a warm day I thought I could handle the situation. I got a broom and a container. I used the broom handle to knock down the most accessible nest. It fell just a couple of inches to the next level of branches below. I stepped back as the wasps flew off in many directions. The nests I've collected in the past have been along the path to the front door, attached to the extension of the roof that covers the path. I would knock the nest down then leave it alone for hours allowing the wasps to realize that their nest was no longer viable and leave permanently. But in this situation I thought I might forget about the nest since it wasn't really visible if you didn't know it was there. So I pressed forward on my mission. I had put the broom down when I stepped away but picked it up again to continue maneuvering the nest so that I could pick it up. But when I grabbed the broom I didn't look first and my hand wrapped around a wasp resting on the handle, stinging me in the soft area between the thumb and index finger. Man oh man, that sting really hurt. I hurried to get some hydrogen peroxide. I poured it over the sting then poured it on a paper towel which I wrapped around my hand. At least it was my left hand. I held that paper towel in place while I finished my nest gathering and then off to the hardware store, Trader Joe's, then school. It felt fine by the time I got to school.

When I took the container out of the plastic grocery bag at school I saw a wasp inside. It had to have emerged after I had put the nest in the container because there hadn't been any wasps there when I put it in. I took the container over to the gate into the garden. I crouched down and opened the container. These insects are really slow moving when they first emerge so I knew it wouldn't fly out. I reached in and picked up the nest by the slender "handle" which attaches the nests in place. Putting it on the concrete area outside the gate I knocked it a little to knock the wasp off. He slowly walked along and then up the one brick high step into the garden and under the chain link gate. I turned my attention briefly to putting the nest back in the container. Then I looked back again to check on the wasp. He was still just inside the gate, on the brick, and it looked like he had started to hide himself in what appeared to be an open section of bark from one of the tree stumps that I had lined up along that section of fencing. But that piece of bark moved and I quickly realized that the front of the wasp was in the mouth of a lizard. This brought a quiet "Whoaaa!" to my lips. As the lizard immediately zipped away I thought, "He's not bothered by the sting, or his bite is just right to avoid it."

This garden has been a real locus of wildlife action. And one of the events happened right at the little tree stump where the wasp was caught. It was last year, at the end of our class time in the garden for that day. Most of the students had exited to put their tools away in the workroom and wait for me to dismiss them to the classroom. On my way out the gate I noticed a lizard on the 2 foot tall tree stump. He was on the side opposite to me, with his head even with the top of the stump. I was surprised that he didn't move away since I was within a foot from him. But then I saw why he didn't move. There were insects, sort of orangish colored, climbing out of cracks in the top to the wood and flying away. Or the ones that the lizard didn't catch were flying away. It was amazing how quickly this reptile moved. In a heartbeat he was up and grabbing and chewing then back into position for the next prey.

There were a few students who had tarried to help me with checking to make sure all of the tools were picked up and everything was put away properly. I called them over. We watched with delight and fascination our live wildlife nature event.

The scrub jay, and a hot day at the end of August

After coming back from seeing "Taking Woodstock" with Janice and Brian I stopped by to pick up my latest favorite salad from Trader Joe's, Artichoke and Palm Heart with raspberry vinaigrette dressing. Yummy. It had been a triple digit day and it was still hot at 5 PM, but I wanted to eat outside in the shade. The scrub jay, a regular visitor, came by to perch on the lip of a wrought iron plant stand, presently plant-less, seven feet away. He waited patiently while I ate, with the dogs sitting or lying at my feet waiting for that chance stray piece of lettuce to fall. Towards the end of my meal he moved to the rump of a 16" tall brass horse, just 3 feet from me. It was great to be able to look at him so closely, to see the details of his feathers, and feet, and eyes, and beak. He began making his little chirp/cluck kind of sound and I saw that the other scrub jay had flown to the top of a nearby juniper.

I finished the salad and grabbed the peanut jar and put some peanuts in the scrub jays' bowl. After stepping away the first scrub jay came down quickly to grab one and fly off, to eat it or bury it, who knows.

At school we have scrub jays who come to visit the acrylic bird feeder attached outside to our window. I told the kids that scrub jays are an example of sexual dimorphism, where there is no visible difference between the male and female. I preceded this piece of information by telling them I was going to use a word that might make them giggle or laugh because they don't usually hear this in mixed company, or with an adult. But that it's a scientific word, and that's how it's being used. I've found that instead of springing a word that might make 7th graders feel uncomfortable, like sex, if I give a little introduction first I may still get some giggles but the reaction is much better than if I hadn't given the preview.

We went on to talk about scrub jays being in the crow family and that crows are also sexually dimorphic. And how that's different than, say, a peacock and a pea hen. Or even the goldfinches who were visiting the wild sunflowers that had grown up over the summer in the garden just outside our schoolroom back door. The difference between the male and female goldfinches though was more subtle.

I was telling Jane, the rescuer of squirrels and opossums and a variety of birds, about this conversation with the kids and she said that you can tell the difference between male and female in scrub jays. Well, either I'm only seeing one gender, which just doesn't seem likely, or they're like the goldfinch and the difference isn't obvious to the less astute observer. And actually the kids are better at telling the difference between the two scrub jays that visit us at school. Last year they named them Peanuts and Electric Blue. When one or the other visited the kids would have quick discussions on which one it was till they came to a consensus. This can be a bit disruptive to a math lesson, but well worth it, and the kids know when it's time to get back to work and they're really good about it. At Back To School Night last Wednesday even some of the parents had positive things to say about the stories their kids are bringing home about our scrub jays. This makes me happy...

As the World (Wide Web) Turns

From the NY Times, Aug. 25, 2009 "We are no longer at the point that it is acceptable to throw things at the wall and see what sticks."MICHAEL SNOW, chairman of the Wikimedia board, the nonprofit in San Francisco that governs Wikipedia, on steps to impose editorial review on articles about living people. I remember reading once about the challenges that the home telephone presented to people when first introduced. What time of day is acceptable for someone to disturb someone at home? How should the phone be answered? The computer has presented a similar challenge to us but in an even deeper and broader sense due to its amazing power to gather and share information. And the speed with which this technology changes is an added element in the mix. If we stand still we fall behind. http://www.connected-earth.com/Galleries/Shapingourlives/Livingwiththetelephone/ Firstencounters/index.htmEarly phone etiquette (1922) : but we haven't been introduced ... By the early 1900s, for the upper classes a telephone call was beginning to take the place of the calling card. Instead of leaving a card and waiting to be invited, people would telephone and ask if they might pay a visit. Emily Post in her 1922 book 'Etiquette' noted: 'Custom... has taken away all opprobrium from the message by telephone and, with the exception of a very small minority of letter-loving hostesses, all informal invitations are sent and answered by telephone.' Even so, there was endless uncertainty about the etiquette involved in using the telephone - about the 'proper' way to give one's number, and to whom? Who should make the first call - man or woman? Could one call someone to whom one had not been formally introduced? Questions like these would preoccupy the etiquette writers and authorities for decades.

Reflections on 9/11 Photos

Diana, my friend and neighbor across the street, forwarded to all on her email contact list some just released photos of the World Trade Center attack on September 11, 2001. Fifty-seven slides. One in particular early on made me catch my breath. It was a small single falling person silhouetted against the large. plain, white background of the building.

The slides seem to go on and on. Views from overhead, from across the water with a small Statue of Liberty in the foreground, from ground level, from the north, the south, views of the initial impact and the flames, pictures and pictures and pictures of the clouds of pulverized debris, billowing like smoke, spreading out, spreading out, spreading out.

At first I was thinking that enough was enough. There are so many pictures, and they all told the same story. But then I began to feel the cumulative affect of the pictures.

What an audacious plan, to aim an airplane like a bullet, like an arrow, at the these incredibly tall buildings jutting up into the sky above New York, the economic center of a capitalist society whose god is money, with the buildings giving the finger to these fundamentalist Muslims. These men who planned and trained and coordinated with others, the other airplanes bent on their own destructive missions, to bring America to her knees while they go to the glory of their heaven.

But this isn’t the warfare of rules, the Geneva Convention and warrior fighting warrior. The people inside these buildings were office workers in their suits and ties and skirts and dresses. They’d kissed their husbands and wives and kids goodbye that morning and got on the commuter train and thought about work or what they were going to do that night or getting braces for Sarah or whether they should ask Mother to come live with them.

I have always been amazed that there are rules of war. Isn’t the saying “all’s fair in love and war”? These men believed that to be true. And the consequences of their action are being felt still in the Middle East and here at home as our warriors leave their homes and families to return, some damaged. And some not to return. As many, and more, than the number who died on 9/11.

August 1, 2009

The Day the Earth Stood Still

sometimes i think that the day the earth stood still is happening right now not that it’s really standing still as in the movie that was to demonstrate the power that the benign alien visitor had over the events of the human race he could, or his robot could, cause the destruction of humans but in our case now we are causing our destruction

not in one day which is why we aren’t as alarmed as we should be today on the news npr of course was the story of a recent phenomenon rain on snow 20,000 musk oxen were found dead in 2004 it took awhile to figure out that rain falling on snow froze and prevented the oxen from digging through the snow to the food below another global warming event i hear it all of the time the polar bears’ ice is shrinking drought floods and developing industrialized nations china india don’t want to cut back on their global warming gasses because they want what we have and we got what we have by burning burning burning fossil fuels and we didn’t sign the kyoto agreement in 1997 but now we’re on board with climate change al gore’s an inconvenient truth probably helped but scientists say that the 20 or 30 years we’re giving ourselves to reverse our dependence on fossil fuels is still going to produce some irrevocable changes all of the animals all of the plants that will be gone for good it’s so sad i cry

valerie july 28, 2009

this was what i've heard the lang. arts teachers call free write...wanted to write something to test the newly installed iWork

and the only day the earth stood still i've seen is the first, with michael rennie and patricia neal charles and i loved it

out there

Oh my goodness, I'm a babe in the woods. After viewing the radio interview with Billy Bob Thornton (his band members must be nothing but embarrassed, oh, and mad because they had to cancel their tour), I thought of the notorious Alec Baldwin phone call to his daughter. I found that and listened. Then I wanted to look around for other views, more background. Found a blog that at first I thought was a straightforward. Then realized it was satirical. I mean, the blogger is calling himself Jon Swift. Wasn't it Jonathan Swift who wrote the piece about eating your children during the famine in Ireland? (Not sure if I have the facts all correct there. It's been decades since I was in that English Lit. class in college. And I teach 7th grade math and science. Not really set up to keep my memory fresh on Beowulf, The Cantebury Tales, et al). And this Jon is writing things like what good parenting this 11 or 12 year old girl is experiencing when not only does she get call from her father, angry at the rude treatment he is receiving from her, but her mother releases this recording to the Internet. Parents will now realize that they can use this sort of thing as a threat to their kids he goes on to say. When I first started reading I was appalled, since I had just this evening heard a woman call Obama a Nazi because his health plan will kill old people, so I was in the frame of mind to believe that he believed what he was writing. When I figured out he was writing tongue in check I enjoyed it. And then I found on this blog there were other blogs listed that this blogger follows - what a word, blog, is it like smog, smoke and fog, blab and log? - and I find A Well Informed Citizenry, with a beautiful repro of an old picture of the signing of the Declaration of Independence. Well, I made a quick judgement that that's what they were doing. Something important was going on since all had their white wigs on. But when I saw this beautifully presented page I realized that I'm jumping into an ocean of experienced, interesting, informed, erudite folk. But that's never stopped me. You know, pretend you know what you're doing and you can get by till you really do know what you're doing.

I sometimes have thought that if there were a God, and she could see everything that everyone is doing, then she could show what everyone is doing to everyone else then everyone would behave better because it would no longer be "let your conscience be your guide". And here we are, everyone is watching. Rodney King being beaten just came to mind. But we're not watching everywhere. People still cut you off on the freeway. And of course, much more serious things occur. But along the same lines I just thought of the movie I watched earlier this evening, Ben X. A Flemish film about a teenage boy with Alperger's Syndrome who had been harassed intolerably by his classmates. Another classmate had filmed an especially terrible event and this was later used cleverly to bring justice. Oh, that's a spoiler. If anyone is reading this...

One of my facebook friends from school sent me a msg. saying she enjoyed reading my facebook postings. So maybe someone will like my blogging. For me, for now, it's a log.

Facebook to Blogging

My first computer has allowed me to follow various trails that I couldn't follow when my school computer was my only connection to all that's available in this other place. I've been able now to find the playlist for the world music that Charlie Gillett plays on Saturday nights on NPR. And look up the book of the author being interviewed that sounds so interesting. (Goat Song, by the way.)

When I told my friend and neighbor Jenny that I now had a computer she sent me an email inviting me to get on facebook and become a friend. Which I did. Several people from work, when they heard I was on facebook, invited me to be a friend. So I started to learn the protocol. It's only been maybe a week, maybe two, and I've decided that blogging might be more suited to my temperment than facebooking. I wrote entirely too much on facebook. It looks like its meant for brief updates.

While going from one thing to another I found a woman's blog. I liked it. And later I thought, maybe I should do a blog. So here it is. Maybe once blogging fills one niche I'll find facebook satisfactory for another niche. We'll see.

But on the subject of what's available online, I found, thanks to one of my students who had completed his Excel Spreadsheet/Pie Chart project, the street level view of my house. How do they do that, I wanted to know. A friend said, "They have cameras everywhere." I objected. There aren't cameras on my street lights. And if there were they wouldn't provide the 360 degree view available. So I searched. A 360 degree camera mounted on a vehicle was the reasonable answer. Also found some reasonable viewpoints on whether we should feel that our privacy is being invaded. In fact, I think that's how I came across Laura Weinstein's blog, the blog mentioned earlier.

The satellite views of Alaska are interesting.

And now, I'm going to look up the YouTube piece on Billy Bob Thornton being, uh, difficult during an interview. Just heard the interviewer being interviewed himself on NPR. Signing off, the now connected to the www, Valerie