partsofspeaking

Hallelujah! I've wanted McCain to pick Sarah Palin for VP since I first heard of this woman. Not just because she has the moral courage to give birth to a Down Syndrome child, but because she is a strong woman with leadership skills, ethics, vision, guts, and smarts. It is hilarious to hear the people who are voting for Obama only because of race make fun of McCain for picking a woman because "he's pandering." Who is he pandering to? Evangelicals? They were going to vote for him anyway. Women? Is that why Walter Mondale did it in 1984? They can't have it both ways. She has no experience, they say. And your argument is. . . ? I think she's an excellent choice. For all those stay-home-moms who think their choice makes them qualified to judge, I say, get over yourself. I struggled for years because of your judgmentalism--I always worked while raising my son. I had no choice, most of the time, if I wanted to eat and have a roof over my head, and my son...

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Time for some random observations on life. The internet buzz is that Bigfoot has been found in North Georgia. OK, I live in North Georgia, so there is no end to jokes about this situation. What was Bigfoot doing in North Georgia? (registering at Dalton State College; looking for Deliverance). Where did they find him? (that would win the redneck award--Murray County? Resaca Beach?) This story will go the way of the Montauk monster. Bigfoot for President--could he be worse than the two candidates we've got? I went to see Brideshead Revisited . Having never seen the PBS version from the '70s, I liked it, mostly because Emma Thompson is incredible (she is especially good in Wit). What control! But as one critic said, I did find the Ryder character really bland. Classes start Monday. Our college is busting at the seams, as is often the case in a recession. Very full classes. I'm trying a whole new approach to teaching--empathy. I've traditionally been a drill sergeant.

Interesting article - http://sports.yahoo.com/olympics/beijing/basketball/news?slug=aw-yaoteamusa081008&prov=yhoo&type=lgns

The former post "Somewhat Sad Day" is only a reflection of a melancholy mother. On another front, I mourn the loss of the Georgian people. What region in the world is not racked with these kinds of conflicts, and how little do we Americans acknowledge them?

Today my son went back to college (as a sophomore). He packed up his truck and drove back to the college he attends about 150 miles away. He had to be there a week early to train freshman for the scholarship program he's involved in. It isn't as hard as last year, when he was a freshman and I had to help him move in, of course, because that's what we middle class parents in the U.S. do with our college age children. This year, he's on his own, as it should be. He's taking about 2/3 as much stuff as last year, perhaps less (we learned that lesson!). The question of his success and happiness and adjustment in college is not an issue now. But the house is empty again , and his two old fart parents will go back to our quiet, boring lives without him. (We were both well into our 30s when he was born, so we were always much older than his peers' parents when he was growing up). As for him, I know he was glad to get back to 24/7 friends and fun and independence ...

This link takes you to the American Council on Education's statement on Academic Freedom. I found this interesting. Academic Freedom is not what people think it is--the right of a college professor to pontificate, demean, evaluate or grade as the mood hits him/her, miss class, come to class drunk, etc--in other words, the way we are portrayed in movies. Maybe (and I say maybe)in the past some of that was tolerated, but not now. http://www.acenet.edu/AM/Template.cfm?Section=Search&section=Statements_and_Testimony1&template=/CM/ContentDisplay.cfm&ContentFileID=2078 The American public is vastly underinformed about the professional life of college teachers. There are a lot of lazy ones out there, of course. However, the majority of us work in state and community colleges with 5/4 or 4/3 course loads, 40-50 hours a week, and all kinds of outside-the-classroom expectations. And we make less money than public high school teachers, I suppose because we should feel privil...

I have told my family that I didn't want to seey the Beijing Olympics on our television sets, since I pay the cable bill. Like my pretend tyranny means anything to my sports junkie family. But I've maintained through all of this that the IOC should not have chosen Beijing. Yes, a country has a right to revoke the visa of anyone it likes, but it's kind of funny who the Chinese government chooses to banish. http://sports.yahoo.com/olympics/beijing/blog/fourth_place_medal/post/Chi?urn=oly,98718

Can a Christian use irony? Irony is saying the opposite of what one means, but that's not all: it is saying the opposite of what one means in a way that it is clearly opposite of what one means to a person who knows how to read irony. So, depending on the audience, irony may be more than just saying the opposite of what one means. To the unitiated , irony is lying. To a savvy audience, irony is clever, fun to ferret out. First, we must clarify what irony is not. People use it to mean "coincidentally," a usage I really don't understand. "Ironically, he was buying the widget at the same time I was." That's not irony. It is also not just being a wise guy. "Oh, that's attractive" when someone spills soup all over herself. Irony, I think, is a sustained attempt at presenting a meaning; that is, it takes a paragraph or two at least. And I'm not sure that true irony can be used as a subpoint or minor argumentative point in a larger...