Friday Wrap-Up

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Cam’s school district made The Tonight Show this week! It would be wonderful if this was because they were celebrating science fair winners, but that wasn’t the case. The School District Board of Education had to hold a special session this week to vote on an exception to the 2009-2010 school year calendar. Why is this monologue-worthy? Well, they happen to be one of a growing number of public schools who believe Veteran’s Day should now be an attendance day for students and teachers.

What bothers me most about this is the history (and attempted justification) of the School Board's position. The District Superintendent was quoted as saying, “Upon further conversation, we felt that this is really something that we can do in (our district). It would be a very, very powerful day for our kids to actually learn the significance (of Veterans Day) and to honor our veterans by actually being in school and learning about the contributions veterans have made to (our district).” Sounds great, doesn’t it? Spending the day learning why we celebrate the holiday?

Ummmm … Hello? Does this imply the district wasn’t teaching about Veteran’s Day when it was a non-attendance day? Shouldn’t that already be part of the public school curriculum whether kids are in school on that day or not??? Are the contributions of our Veteran's only important if the students attend school on the actual holiday?

That aside (and it is difficult for me to put that aside), the “real” reason this exception was requested has absolutely NOTHING to do with teaching the kids “…the significance (of Veterans Day).” Nope! At our PTO meeting last week, the principal informed us that the teachers and administrators wanted to swap Veteran’s Day for the one attendance day scheduled for Thanksgiving week. Ahhhh … this is all starting to make sense, isn’t it?

Parent/teacher conferences are scheduled for two of the three attendance days of Thanksgiving week – that left just one attendance day (and two teacher work days) during the holiday week. Presto-chango, the district moves conferences from Tuesday and Wednesday to Monday and Tuesday, and makes Wednesday a non-attendance day. The kids get the entire week of Thanksgiving off, the teachers and administrators get to start their Thanksgiving holiday on Wednesday rather than Thursday, and we all live happily ever after … that is, unless you are a veteran …

*EDIT* These are the holidays currently observed by my school district: Labor Day, Columbus Day, Non-Student Attendance Day (November 25 - observed instead of Veteran's Day), Thanksgiving Recess (November 26 & 27), Winter Recess (2 weeks), Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, President’s Day, April District Holiday (Good Friday), Spring Recess (1 week), Memorial Day

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I think I had an anonymous commenter yesterday who mistakenly thought I was an advice columnist. Either that or she was way off when she typed in www.dearabby.com She wrote:

Ummmm lets see. Where do I start? I was shown your interesting but yet disgusting pics by a friend. She was expressing her concern because this is something that her husband finds interesting. Which we cannot for the life of us figure out. Do you have some sort of spell on the guys that open these up? How else would they even find this attractive? Being a woman myself, I have to tell you that what you are doing is a disgrace to women. Just one more loser giving us a bad name. THANKS!!! It is obvious that you are desperate for attention. Its too bad that you have to get it by showing of what you call "ART". Not sure but Im thinking you may need to go back to school or at least pull out a dictionary so that you can find the true meaning of the word. Cause girl...art is meant to be beautiful and you sure haven't shown us anything of the sort yet!!!

With deepest sincerity...

Disgusted

Well … I can’t just let anon be lost out here in cyberspace without answers, can I?

Dear Disgusted,

Where do you start? The best place would be at www.blogger.com where you can sign yourself up for a Blogger profile. You don’t even have to start a blog, but we bloggers are a fickle bunch - we have far more respect for commenters who have the gonads (or, in your case, the lady bits) to stand up and be known when they have an adversarial opinion (i.e., at a minimum, set up a Blogger profile with an email address attached to it). In fact, most of us treat folks who take the time to do that with the utmost respect. But when you post anonymously, it just looks cowardly and petty. Anything you might have said that had an iota of value loses its mojo …

Secondly, yes! I do have magical powers! Things like mind reading, shape shifting, compassion, empathy, brains and a sense of humor. Believe it or not, these are things that most people (not just men) find … well … attractive. I know, it’s hard to believe, but really! It’s true! Most people read my blog in spite of my HNT’s, not because of them! Not only that, but the majority of people who do stop by on Thursdays (HNT day, just in case you want to visit again next week) actually read my blog every day of the week. Imagine! That means that my words are SIX times more magically powerful than my photos. Just call me She-Ra!

On the subject of art and beauty, maybe you are familiar with the words of the English dramatist John Lyly?

"...as neere is Fancie to Beautie, as the pricke to the Rose, as the stalke to the rynde, as the earth to the roote."

Shakespeare?

“Good Lord Boyet, my beauty, though but mean,
Needs not the painted flourish of your praise:
Beauty is bought by judgement of the eye,
Not utter'd by base sale of chapmen's tongues”

I know! Benjamin Franklin!

“Beauty, like supreme dominion, is but supported by opinion”

No? What about David Hume?

"Beauty in things exists merely in the mind which contemplates them."

Certainly, a well educated and articulate person like yourself must be familiar with Margaret Wolfe Hungerford (née Hamilton), who, in Molly Bawn, (1878) penned the line,

"Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.”

And lastly, I find your disgust with the human body … well … pathetic. You see, the human body – in its many shapes, sizes and colors – is truly a wonderful, amazing and beautiful thing! Holy smokes! Just the fact that it was designed - perfectly - to make reproduction of the human race not only possible, but enjoyable, is amazing in itself. Those *gasp* breasts that I had the audacity to show? They, all on their own, provided all of the nutrients my newborn son needed for the first 8 weeks of his life! Oh … wait … is that why you came to my blog instead of writing on walls in Facebook? You couldn’t find any more breastfeeding photos to gripe about?

Let me help you out. www.facebook.com Just search on the words “breast feeding”. I’m sure you’ll find a handful of “rebels” out there to keep you occupied while you wait for The Jerry Springer Show to start!

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