Happy Halloween!

A Ha

El Salvador '06

Melissa and I travelled down to San Salvador two weeks ago to meet the newest member of our extended family. Amina turned two months during our visit so she was pretty psyched to show us around her country




Amina is of course a huge Sox fan. She and I had a long talk about the disappointing season. She's pretty broken up but hopeful for next year. We're crossing our fingers she'll make a few games.












I did have school work but didn't mind mind hitting the books pool side...







where we spent a good deal of time. This is at the Spanish cultural center, just down the street. Everybody knows Antonio, it's like his own Cheers with a baby.








We also managed to get to the beach a couple days. While it was storming rain in Boston, we were sipping on coconuts. So if you've got the time I suggest you make a trip. Maybe Jenny and Antonio will put you up.

No Millionaire Left Behind

Check out Michael Grunwald's expose on No Child Left Behind's Reading First Initiaive. A disturbing illustration of the federal government's absolutely artful use of government policy to make their friends filthier and richer. In this case, science has been hijacked to use schools, teachers, and students as guinea pigs in market-driven education reform. And guess who foots the bill? Bush was called the education president. He's overhauled the public education system and education research to include more federal control than any time in our country's history, in the name of higher standards and accountability. You want your kids to learn, right? It's like milk for babies. Who's going to argue against standards and accountability. So teachers & schools should be held accountable for what and how they teach and students for what they learn. And curriculum that teachers use to teach literacy should be validated scientifically. Sounds like common sense? There are sound arguments against narrow conception of teaching and learning as well as the the criteria that NCLB sets forth for scientifically-based research but let's assume that we accept the federal government's guidelines for rigor and justification. The problem is how readily they abandon the standards they created when doing so suits their interests. A standard for practice is created to guide science in education. That standard is conveniently ignored when it would get in the way of supporting one's own agenda. Rough translation: it's all about the Benjamins.

Do not assume that everyone in education reform is out for the same end goal to improve opportunities for all (or even most) young people through greater access to quality edcuation. There is a sizable and growing force in the field whose business is business. Public education is a huge potential market and still relatively unclaimed terrain for private interests. Loosen restrictions on for-profit entities in public schools and you open over a $7oo billion possibility for corporate development. That's a lot of digits to make Bush wet and whet the appetite of his financial backers.

Pretty in Pink

While we were walking home this morning from the square, a hulking pickup truck yelled, "Your boots look like big, pink potatoes!"

I love Rozzie.

Foley Scandal the Doing of Bill Clinton?

For Republicans, especially conservatives, who like politics to be run on higher ground, this type of scandal is especially hard. So starts a CNN segment on the Foley scandal. And did you know that George Soros is behind the Foley Scandal leak? That's what Hastert's been claiming, and Wolf Blitzer and others have been running with it. The real story though lies in the dirty truth that those congressional pages were a part of a deeper conspiracy masterminded by Bill Clinton, as retribution for the humiliation of his own sex scandal. Those pages clearly baited the Congressman. His judgement impaired by morning martinis chased with scotch, Foley was the real victim here, duped into coveting those hard bodied teenage boys. Do not fear though. Rush Limbaugh is sure to get to the bottom of it.

Buffalo Expats in Boston

Josie and Conor visited us last weekend. They recently left the City of Good Neighbors for Cleveland, trading one economically depressed city for another. Buffalo clearly just wasn't midwest enough for them.





They brought a little B-Lo charm to our weekend, which was Melissa and my second anniversary. Yeah Boy!






We got blessed with good weather on Saturday to wander around Boston in the sun. On Sunday, Conor and I hit up the Harp to watch the game with the Bills' Backers. The Bills won and the bar went nuts, lessening the pain a bit from no postseason with the Sox...

Gargoyle Gurn

My father took the gurn to the next level in the digital world