The G Bitch Spot

Just don’t ask me to explain.

The G Bitch Spot.

You have to love this clip of Betty White on Craig Ferguson:

Happy Friday.

• McCain Co-Chair Calls Obama “A Guy Of The Street,” Raises Drug Use (HuffPost)
  
• Palin: Obama not telling ‘total truth’ (Politico)
• McCain-Palin Rally Attendees: “Obama Is A Terrorist” (HuffPost again)
  

The shit storm has begun–this, along with He-Is-The-OTHER references to “domestic terrorists” by Gov. Palin and Who-Is-He-REALLY? from McCain, is just the beginning of the descent of discourse coming out of McCain’s camp. Each effort by his campaign has seemed to sink lower and lower, to be more desperate, throw more turds at the wall and something will finally stick. It’s made McCain look like he is losing his grip on reality or his staff or his mouth or all three. It makes him look like a doddering, angry old man.

I thought the real race-baiting and code-slinging would start the last 2 desperate weeks. Little early…..

• “Sarah Palin says, you know, ‘I was in second grade when Joe Biden was elected to the United States Senate at age 29.’ That’s true, but she was in sixth grade the last time John had a new idea.” Joe Biden (ABC News)

I like Joe Biden more and more.

photo courtesy of tschörda, used under this Creative Commons license

Where to start?

• William Jefferson-Helena Moreno runoff

Huh? I would say, How? but I think I can guess that much. I’ve heard people say that Jefferson got votes because he has the “experience” to push our local interests in the House. Have they been under rocks all this time? As Mister says, they’re thinking of 5 years ago. Since Jefferson has been under indictment–even before, with the $90K in the freezer–he has lost what influence he had and couldn’t push a free prostitute through the House these days. Moreno has media-honed polish but like Gov. Sarah Palin, there isn’t much past the practiced veneer. She may care but I believe she has the capability to be my representative in the House as much as i believe she’s a Democrat.

• The Joys of Teaching

We are supposed to warn freshmen and their advisors if students are in danger of failing a course before midterm. That system not only got fucked up as usual–3 weeks after they were due, a random administrator made a stink–but I decided to post grades on Blackboard rather than warn anyone. If you haven’t turned in any work for the first 6 weeks of classes, why would you think you were passing the course? If you’ve never logged on to Blackboard and gotten no emails from your instructor all semester, why would you think you’re in the swing?

Two of my students started classes after the 4th week. Neither has turned in a thing yet. One, a senior, I figure I shouldn’t have to remind or chase–if he wants to graduate, he’ll get shit done. He’s had me before and knows that 0 + 0 = 0/F. The other I gave a detailed list with due dates, including an office hour visit, almost 3 weeks ago. Nothing. Not even a hint that she understood the instructions or found them do-able. Not an email, note, call, submission, plea for extension, anything. And came to class Monday unprepared and left early. The senior will be told today to make up the work by the end of this week or keep it. The other, the freshwoman, if she makes her conference tomorrow, which I wonder about, will hear that the only possible grade she’ll get for midterm is an F and that the makeup work I assigned last month will not be accepted after midterms, which are this week. I am sick and fucking tired, and I’ve spent 6+ years at this shit, of wading over to their mucky side and dragging their asses by the hair to the halfway point with my fingers crossed that they won’t ooze back over to the muck and then try to report me to a chair, dean and college president for giving them a well-deserved and fully-earned F. (I wish there were a lower grade, like a Q for Quit Now Before I Kick Your Ass.)

• Waiting for my Obama paraphernalia

I just want a big poster in my office that says HOPE. I need some. More than some. I need more than my fair share plus yours and yours.

• New Orleans

It’s getting to me. The schools are a mess now and will be so for the foreseeable future. The bright spot of hope is that Robert Cerasoli will get the funding he needs.

My mother’s house has remained in limbo. 3+ years out and it’s still not done. Needs paint, floors, AC, plumbing, fixtures, appliances. The first contractor is still holed up out of state, her money gone. She’s suing. And still living in my house, sharing a bedroom with The Girl.

And our insurance policies are about to price us out of our house.

• Work

I’ve never really taken to working for other people. I can do it, I’m often valued as an employee but I find work an intrusion into my life. I don’t need it to fill my time or provide “structure.” And I was born to the wrong parents and condemned to lifelong wage slavery.

My current job drains my creative energy as I scheme how to get college students to read and write, how to negotiate around deficient or absent systems and processes, how to manage the stress of a 15-minute activity taking 2 hours because of ___ (other people, a server, a meeting, an email failure, other people, students, meetings, institutional panic, a server), and how to not take any of that shit home. I can’t take it home anyway–once I get done with what I have to do after work, I’m done. Completely. Only recently have I been able to read for pleasure at all, much less after work. I’m not even factoring in the chronic insomnia or my other health issues. Pain is damn tiring. So are knuckleheaded students.

I’m months behind on blogs and news and see no catch up time in the near future. Good thing no one’s depending on me…….

Sent to me by a reader:

Bwah-hah-hah-hah-hah!

League of Women Voters of NO Fall 2008 Election Guide for Orleans

And Jefferson parish.

><><><

An Election Day YouTube clip from way back in 2007, Rep. Artur Davis questioning John Tanner, Deputy Asst. Attorney General, Voting Section Chief, about Tanner’s statements that “minorities don’t become elderly the way white people do”:

From Gambit’s blog:

The Orleans Parish School Board has announced that it is extending the deadline for public comments for the School Facilities Master Plan to October 17 at 5 p.m. …  It’s no secret, however, that state Superintendent of Education Paul Pastorek is intent on getting the plan approved before the new school board takes office. To let your voice be heard, you can email your comments to masterplan@rsdla.net, or via mail:

Public Comment, Orleans Parish School Board, 3520 General De Gaulle Dr., NOLA 70114, or fax: 309-2875.

Woke at 12:47 this morning after going to bed at 10. I saw 1:55, 2:34 and 3:35 before I gave up on relaxing, thinking about My Happy Place (which is far from here, on a beach, with a soft breeze and someone to put a mojito, margarita or hard lemonade in my hand every 30 minutes), and trying not to be infuriated or demoralized enough to cry for an hour.

Ambien no longer works for more than a few nights. Valerian does nothing. Chamomile I drink by the pot and it has no effect except to take the harshest edge off my worse-by-mid-afternoon mood. Calcium, holy basil, 5-HTP, theanine, or just aiming for sheer exhaustion—nothing helps for more than a week, maybe 2. And the sleep I do get highlights the huge slush pile of sleep I haven’t gotten. Plus there’s nothing at all wrong with me. All tests are disgustingly normal and inconclusive. I just need to get through the week without thinking of suicide too often.

The VP debate won’t put me to sleep. That I can’t wait to see. I’d even lose sleep for it.

The brief comment period ends tomorrow, Oct. 1. Comments can be emailed to masterplan@rsdla.net. Multiple issues can be addressed: the closing of a particular school or schools; the unidentified re-use of the buildings of closed and never-reopened schools; the historic character of many of our public school buildings (some of our sturdiest, loveliest schools from an architectural perspective were built with McDonogh fund money); landbanking; planning a school system for the future (which you can’t do if you close your schools); only 2 Uptown high schools, one selective admission, one open admission; or some shortcoming in the plan, like phasing out buildings without giving the schools in them alternative locations or even any hint that there will be alternate locations.

This plan feels a lot like the city’s master plan–a fait accompli with the show of public feedback. My tax dollars will be used, the city I live in affected for generations but community input is treated as superfluous. I guess the idea is that most of the community is disinvested in the schools. I’m not sure this plan will change or help that.

KFC, a YouTube jewel. Absolutely brilliant. [Not for work or children.]