text:
Rowland S. Howard: Fuji Rock 2009 + documentary

Rowland S. Howard – Life’s What You Make It (Live)
Fuji Rock Festival, 30th July 2009

Tx to miggypop666

FUJI ROCK on Rowland S. Howard’s appearance on 30th July 2009:

Rowland S. Howard, Fuji Rock, 30 July 2009 (Photo by Izumi Kumazawa)

Rowland S. Howard: Heavyhearted Tales Of A Life Lived

Fuji Rock Express 30th July 2009

Feedback. Lots of it. Punctuating near all of Howrd’s songs. A great start with the new Pop Crime, all melancholy wails and licks, a trademark of Howard’s work over recent years. Not much interaction with the crowd, he excuses himself before he even starts with a quick “I don’t know how many of you can understand me, so…”

Rowland S. Howard seems to be a reluctant rock star. Certainly he spend the formative years of his career in the shadow of Nick Cave in Boys Next Door and then The Birthday Party. He sidles up to the mic, cocks his head to the left, and simply sings, barely a muscle moving but for one arm strumming his guitar. Dead Radio states “You’re bad for me like cigarettes / You’re good for me like coca cola” musing on relationships, and is immeditaely followed by Autoluminescent, brooding over mistakes made, and repeated again. The tracks get darker, and slower, as the set progresses. On Wayward Man, the bass barely sets a cadence. As far as I can see, all played today are off 1999’s “Teenage Snuff Film” and the forthcoming album “Pop Crimes”, unfortunately nothing from the earlier bodies of work.

Howard alternates between the mic and the specially set up speaker for near every solo, spitting out the feedback that helped make The Birthday Party’s live shows so cacophonously acute, burning them into legend across the world. It’s a shame not more were here to experience it. Finally, a faster song to close out. I look around, and the crowd hasn’t grown much. But I do note that most here have been here from the very first note. This mournful and pensive set has failed to send anyone searching for something more packaged. A true indication that the fans who came to see him today were as taken with it as I. That more upbeat song? Sleep Alone. Upbeat? Maybe, but the lyrics once again show the darkness. “Shut me up / Shut me down / Stop me if you can / My love, I’ll tell you nothing / I’m a misanthropic man.”

We know. (Written by Dom, Fuji Rock Express)

Rowland S. Howard – Autoluminescent – Trailer for Rowland S. Howard documentary, co-produced by Ghost Pictures & Lindsay Gravinas King Blank Recordings Company…
Tx to Ghostpics (visit link for entire set)

Rowland S. Howard – Golden Age of Bloodshed (Live, Prince of Wales Ballroom, 29 Oct 2009)

LINK: OUTTA THE BLACK & INTO THE ETHER  – Rowland S. Howard fan page & tribute site

8 thoughts on “Rowland S. Howard: Fuji Rock 2009 + documentary

  1. Oddly, long ago, in about ’86 or ’87 when Camper Van Beethoven first went to London, I spent some time hanging with Rowland. I was a huge Birthday Party fan and had seen them in LA (the gig Rollins was at) in ’83. He was a sweet, kind, decent guy and we talked a long time about guitars and music. I grew up in the land of surf guitar, in Southern California, and to me he was the logical extension of that unique combination of Fender gear. I always loved his version of Chilton’s “Hey Little Child” and thought Pop Crimes was most excellent. Lydia Lunch is right, there’s a price to be paid. Thankfully we got a lot back. Look forward to seeing a full movie. VK

  2. I cried like I’ve never cried before after Rowland died. I still tear up when I think about it sometimes. Months later.

  3. Grief is a strange thing. When you think you’re done with it, it shows up and slaps you across the face, like a vengeful lover. I feel so sad. Watching the trailer. Nick’s face. Rowland as a young man. That final scene. God Bless him.

    • That was my first thought when i watched that. Nicks face, my god…i felt really sorry for him somehow in that moment, he looks so sad, i think i did not see that look in his face before.

  4. I laughed when I heard that about the bananas. I knew there had to be someone out there hating bananas as much as I do! 😀

Leave a comment or a fix.

Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in: Logo

You are commenting using your account. Log Out / Change )

Twitter picture

You are commenting using your Twitter account. Log Out / Change )

Facebook photo

You are commenting using your Facebook account. Log Out / Change )

Google+ photo

You are commenting using your Google+ account. Log Out / Change )

Connecting to %s


Content-Type: application/http; msgtype=response

WARC-Identified-Payload-Type: text/html

WARC-Truncated: length

WARC-Type: response

text:
Living with…The Undertones….for a week

Sax by marlenekzio

They say you haven’t lived until your next door neighbour has played along to Teenage Kicks at 2 o’clock in the morning on his saxophone.

I guess that means I’ve lived.

Neighbours in the 80s

Supposedly one of the delights of starting at university is Freshers Week.  A week before the main body of a British university starts in October, an influx of fresh-faced teenagers arrives thirsty for the experiences that they have been told about.  It’s a noisy but nervous week as everyone feels their way in to groups and friendships generally accompanied by copious amounts of alcohol.

I made it through the first day of my freshers back in 1985 only to fall very ill for the rest of the week.  It was a bout of flu, not man flu I should hasten to add as that hadn’t been invented yet.  I lay in a darkened room in a flat that I shared with five others.  They were very understanding, and popped in a couple of times each day to check I was still there and invite me to things I couldn’t go to.

But it was my neighbour on the floor above that left the deepest impression.  I never met him to say hello.  I never knew his name.  I can only vaguely remember what he looked like now.  But I could hear him as he came back from the Union bar at midnight.

I could hear him as he put on the tape of the moment, Dire Straits’ Brothers in Arms.  I could hear him as he stomped around his room.  And then I heard him as he played his saxophone along to first Money for Nothing and then Walk of Life.  He wasn’t bad, I just had a headache to start with.

By Friday night, I had picked up enough to stagger down with my flatmates to a bar for a noisy, dazed evening of introductions.  My head was now thick with the remnants of flu and beer, and so I crashed out solidly in my bed by midnight.  At 2am I was awoken by my friend the saxophonist who tooted out two Undertones tracks at full blast.  First, My Perfect Cousin which woke me up.  And then, Teenage Kicks

“I wanna hold you wanna hold you tight
Get teenage kicks right through the night”

Don’t know about the teenage kicks, but I ended up being awake nearly right through the night after the rude awakening.

The saxophone playing died away after that first week.  Maybe, one of the other neighbours asked him to play some Pink Floyd and then inserted it into the Dark Side.  Maybe he just got his teenage kicks in other ways.  Personally, I’ve stayed away from sax compilations of punk songs ever since then.

The Undertones  – The Undertones (1979)

It comes to something when you feel that one of the songs is starting to drag a bit at two and a half minutes long, but it sums up this classic album.  There isn’t an ounce of fat on it.  Each song hits the opening note running and buzzing with energy.  The lyrics are wonderfully sparse but oh so catchy – who can’t join in with Jimmy Jimmy?  Or the wonderful anthem Here Comes the Summer.

In many senses this is perfect pop/ rock.  No messing about with elongated guitar or synth solos.  Bang the drum and thrash the guitar.  Get to the chorus as soon as you can.  Make sure your audience can sing along.  And sing about things the audience gets – girls and boys.  boys and girls.  The only drugs around are testosterone and estrogen.

And of course. The Undertones has that song.  John Peel famously loved Teenage Kicks so much that he played it twice in succession on his show and requested that a line from the song “Teenage dreams, so hard to beat” be etched on his gravestone.  Which it is.    The song has become an anthem for the punk era, a symbol of coarse youth, and one of many highlights on the album.

I’ve left behind the sax version now, and love this album if only as a slice of life in the late 70’s and early 80’s.  I’m not sure that it says anything to me particulalrly now beyond you don’t need more than two and a half minutes to hammer out a brilliant song.

Clearly, Teenage Kicks is video of the week and what better than a TOTP clip

Twotes of the week

@MCFC: Mario Balotelli backs regional firework safety campaign : #MCFC #safe4autumn

@LeanneDoohan: Oh dear, web design teacher just said that comic sans is ‘quite nice’ on websites!

@Its_Death: The X Factor. For when repeatedly punching yourself in the ears isn’t enough. #xfactor

@NotGusPoyet#mufc fans, those ’19’ banners you have been waving since last May will make wonderful Xmas presents when turned upside down for #mcfc fans

@_Enanem_: The first rule of suspense club is

@HeardinLondon : Jesus was at St Paul’s last weekend with a message the cathedral could do with remembering

warcinfo:
robots: classic
hostname: ip-10-166-65-126.ec2.internal
software: Nutch 1.6 (CC)
isPartOf: CC-MAIN-2017-26
operator: Common Crawl Admin
description: Wide crawl of the web for June 2017
publisher: Common Crawl
format: WARC File Format 1.0
conformsTo: http://bibnum.bnf.fr/WARC/WARC_ISO_28500_version1_latestdraft.pdf


text:
“Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell”

Who gets to be a member of the military?
Does homosexuality equal immorality?
It was a bad idea to institute this ban
Lie to conceal our orientation

The time has come to review
You don’t have a right to exclude
Most young people simply don’t care
So why must Gays lie to their peers?

Concerned and anxious about this change
Besides, can you define “openness?”
It’s not a Pink Military or a Gay Pride float
It doesn’t hurt units or the people I know

Policy based on nothing – prejudice and fear
I..? You. What we think really matters
Let’s talk about what the military means
And a roadmap for lifting this ban

Society shouldn’t impose this on us
Admirals, Generals are out of touch
Does it mean being anti-gay?
It’s past its time of necessity

Dear Nation

National team on an international stage
Flying up on the right full stretch
Undocumented worker, immigrant, newcomer
Continue the winning streak together

Plan the next decade Hispanic community
We need serious discussion about diversity
A sensible and humane immigration policy
So you can compete in the global economy

We’ll move away from naive thinking
And bring you into the mainstream
It will open the doors for opportunity
All can be leaders in this community

Growing up in the barrios of Houston
You’ll make a different kind of contribution
You’ve already learned to be bicultural
Keep your head up, you have potential

Unleash all the talent this country can
For that, Mr. President, we need a program
Students need to feel connected in school
With no limitations on what you can do

Different skin color, different accents
Everyone helping out, recognize your assets
You’re industrious, not permanent underclass
Whatever you do, you do with excellence

Now every player has joined the fray
The orchestrated goal was just amazing
The final minute, what a show
Just kick the opponent and score a goal


text:
Yesterday’s biggest news was obviously the reveal trailer and info blowout for Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare and the much anticipated Call of Duty: Modern Warfare Remastered. While the Black Ops games haven’t really grabbed my attention, nor was Infinity Ward’s Ghosts the game I was hoping for, I liked Advanced Warfare‘s future setting quite a bit. To that point, there are a few parts of the Infinite Warfare trailer that have me intrigued.

9rbkqyThe first thing that stands out is an obvious potential for dogfighting missions in the campaign. Vehicle sections aren’t new to the series, but they haven’t exactly been the high point in any of the games either. I’m really hoping that Infinite Warfare‘s Jackal (the fighter jet you take control of) changes that. Much to the dismay of fans, Activision’s other huge shooter franchise, Destiny, failed to capitalize on space dogfights in its first iteration so here’s hoping Infinity Ward is able to do something memorable with them here.

One of my main complaints about Infinity Ward’s last game, Call of Duty: Ghosts, was that it tried to imitate the original Modern Warfare a little too closely at times. It was a pretty grounded experience with some stealth mixed into the action in the same way that the Modern Warfare trilogy was before it with the stealth missions trying a little to hard to live up to the iconic All Ghillied Up mission, ultimately falling flat.

l9dkgjWith that in mind, one part of yesterday’s Infinite Warfare trailer that sticks out to me as promising is this gif to the left. It’s not much to go on, taking up about two seconds of the three-minute trailer, but it gives me a very Dead Space or Alien Isolation vibe seeing a character lurking through a dark, disheveled hallway, presumably in outer space. Although it could just be a cool shot from a short break in the action, I’m really hoping for it to be indicative of a more tense and atmospheric section of gameplay.

So far, I’m liking the overall look of this year’s outing. While Advanced Warfare and Black Ops III made significant changes to the traditional Call of Duty gameplay, especially to player movement, Infinite Warfare is looking to take the narrative of the series one step further into science fiction. Gamers have been clamoring for a shake-up to the Call of Duty formula for quite a few years now and this could be just the thing to bring them back to the blockbuster series.

xk5rvpNow I can’t in good conscience wrap up this article without mentioning the short Modern Warfare Remastered bit at the end of the trailer. Since we know how Modern Warfare plays out from start to finish, a peek at the graphics is really the only teaser we need for now. Having played the first couple hours of it on my laptop last week with the graphics settings nearly maxed out, I can say pretty definitively that this should be the best looking version of Modern Warfare by a large margin. If just seeing Captain Price puffing his cigar in that helicopter isn’t enough to make you smile in anticipation, I’m not sure what could…


text:
Busy Busy…

Just popping in with a quick post this morning…busy day ahead!

I made a school girl error this morning with breakfast, it was really tasty and I did enjoy it but it’s left me feeling very cold on this wintery morning!

I’ve just turned off my freezer as tomorrow is the big moving day (!!) and had some frozen bananas and blueberries to use up so I whipped up protein smoothie.  This one included:

  • 1/2 a frozen banana
  • a handful of frozen blueberries
  • 3/4 cup greek yogurt
  • a heaped tablespoon pulsin rice protein

topped off with tasty granola for some crunch, with a huge mug of green tea on the side and eaten underneath a cozy blanket with a hot water bottle!!! 🙂

Yesterday in the afternoon I headed to Costa to get some of my assignment done…I had 2 decaf Americanos (got one free because a group of kids let off a stink bomb right next to where I was working!), also took with me some greek yogurt and blueberries to snack on…

just realised this cup was a bit dirty!!..oops!

don’t you love the colours you get when you swirl berries into yogurt??

I had a pretty productive couple of hours and managed to pretty much finish another assignment so I’ve got one more to finish (I’ve done half so far) and then just checking for errors etc, I really need to hand them in tomorrow before I leave.

House wise, I’m fairly organised (I think!) at the moment it kind of just feels like one big mess, but I think once the removals men collect everything in the morning I’ll see that its just a few bits and bobs and some cleaning left to do…at least thats what I’m hoping anyway :S!

Question: Do you like cold breakfasts in t

House Renovation Part 3…

Following on from my before and after pics of downstairs, I thought it would be good to show you upstairs as well..

Main bedroom before..

and after…

Second bedroom before…

and after…

So that was our 1st project!! I would love for James and me to do another house or 2 in the next couple of years, money permitting!  At the moment we’re scrimping and saving just to live and get by so maybe when business starts moving for him and I graduate and get a real job again…I can’t wait for that 1st paycheck!!

This weekends has mainly been packing (the house no longer looks like it does in these photos!).  I’ve been feeling quite under the weather, lethargic and generally down.

Since I’ve been feeling under the weather, last week I didn’t go to any of my usual gym classes but I wasn’t feeling any better so on Friday I thought maybe I need to move, thats why I’m feeling rubbish so decided to do an online yoga class I do quite regularly and usually enjoy, but half an hour in I was shaking and just couldn’t hold my body up in any of the poses!  very frustrating!!

I think its been a combination of tiredness, the weather, stress and generally spending too much time just at home alone, I’d really like to think its my hormones coming back but so far there’s no sign of them.

Thankfully though my Mum and Dad came up yesterday and made me go out with them, just for a coffee down the road and it did me the world of good.  I felt much better mentally afterwards and managed to get to the gym for step this morning…I got through it but despite having my step on the lowest level I still struggled to keep up, and my arms were aching all the way through…not sure whats going on with my body but I am trying my best to honour it and go with what it needs :)…making progress!!

Breakfast this morning is a repeat of Friday’s, the old faithful avocado on toast + coffee.

As you can see in the background, I’ve been busy packing…good job really seeing as I had a call from my removal man last night, asking if he could collect Wednesday morning (instead of Thursday) to deliver Thursday in Ipswich as it’s such a long drive.  That works well for me because it means I can drive down Wednesday, James and I can go and get the keys and be pretty organised (unusual for me!!) on Thursday.  It also means though that I feel slightly panicky as I have 3 lab reports to hand in on Thursday and lots of errands to run between now and then!!

Good news is…the sun is SHINING!! I’m off to meet my Mum and Dad for coffee before my Dad comes to help me with man jobs like taking down lights 😉

Question: How do you cheer yourself up when you feel down?

L x

End of an Era

Yesterday was my last shift at Starbucks here in Liverpool :(!!

Thankfully I managed to transfer my contract to another store in Ipswich which means I get to stay with the company (I just couldn’t let go of all that free coffee!!) and managed to negotiate a 4 hour contract to start with.

I’ve mentioned a few times the amount of Uni work I’ve got going on at the moment and over the next 6 weeks.  Well after that it doesn’t let up for a little longer; I have exams over April and May which will mean 2 things…1. I need LOTS of time to study for them (there is some serious biochemistry involved!) and 2. I will have to make the 9hr round trip in my car 3 times over those 2 months! So as I’m not going to have much free time, not being committed to lots of hours suits me perfectly.  After my exams, hopefully I’ll be able to get lots more hours and start earning some more money!!

We made the decision to move to Ipswich so that James could join his 2 brother’s in a business they started a couple of years ago.  It’s an IT/techie business (I don’t really understand!!!) but they were starting to run short on man power and needed someone to join them, to develop the business and grow it to the ‘next level’.. James is really great at building relationships with people and so is perfect for the job!! What this means though, is that with him on a new business venture and me about to start my final year of study, money is very tight 😦 so I’ll need as many hours as I can possibly get from June onwards!!

I have to say I felt slightly emotional when I left work yesterday, I think mainly because it’s been such an important part of my recovery and the girls I’ve worked with have been so supportive, so it really did feel like the end of an era!!

I’m moving on though to the next stage in my life which I’m ready for :).

Breakfast today (whilst looking out the window at the SNOW – in March…really!!) included avocado that I managed to grab in the reduced section yesterday and toast…

and lots of coffee of course!

Now I’m off to do some more packing!

Questions; have you got any nice plans for the weekend? How do you multitask when you have lots of different things going on in your life at the same time?

Happy Friday!

L x

House Renovation Part 2…

Good Morning,

Continuing with the house renovation theme…

When I eventually moved in my Mum and I talked a lot about what direction we were going to go in design wise.  We agreed we needed a theme that was neutral, but not boring and slightly unique.  I knew to sell it quickly, we had to create a look that would make young people/couples like myself  and James walk in and immediately see themselves living here.  I think we managed to do it quite well in the end :).  Here’s some before and after photos of downstairs…

IMG_0194 IMG_0196

We opened up the doorway to create an open room that was still slightly separated the kitchen/diner, ripped out the old kitchen and replace the floor with a neutral wood that went all the way through…

Ripped out put in a whole new bathroom…

That bathroom cause me an unbelievable amount of stress!!…thankfully it all worked out in the end but it was definitely a struggle…I spent 4 days showering at the gym and got through 3 toilets trying to find one that would fit!

Putting up these pictures for you has made me realise how much I’m going to miss this place!!…I’ll follow up with upstairs photo’s tomorrow.

Where has this week gone…I can’t believe its Friday tomorrow and I still have 7 assignments to do.

I hope you’re having a great week.

L x

My 1st house

So I’ve mentioned I’m moving house!! (exciting!!)

Well last August I bought a house with my parents to renovate and live in.  We’d talked about doing for quite a long time but they lived in Italy and I had just started university and to be honest I wasn’t really healthy enough; mentally or physically to attempt such a task.   As the university year started coming to an end though, I was in a much better place and so started looking around Liverpool for properties that were in need of some TLC.  Given the economic situation in the UK, I knew if we were going to do it we needed to be smart, really do our research and make sure there was potential to make some good money!

I started driving out of the city centre to more residential parts of town and getting a feel for the different areas…checking out local amenities, parks, schools etc.  After a few weeks of doing this I made some phone calls to estate agents and booked to see as many houses as I could with an aim of seeing what was out there and what value for money looked like…I saw so many I couldn’t possible tell you an exact number but it was a lot!! I was pretty fed up of it after a few weeks…especially trying to keep up good communication with my Mum and Dad via Skype who were living in Italy and obviously wanted to be sure their money would be invested well…I suppose given the fact it was the first time I’d seriously looked at properties (and I’m not really one for creativity!!) they were a little cautious and nervous of both my descriptions and perceptions of how much potential different houses had (being a newbie and all that 😉 !!).

Anyway…eventually I found a lovely little area, close to a beautiful park, a good school,  with easy to access shops and a great street of urban café’s and restaurants  within walking distance…perfect for young professional people (like myself ;)).  I decided it would be a really good area to sell in and set on a mission to find a house that needed some work (but not TOO much) that I could live in and renovate at the same time…and so I found…

I moved in at the end of August 2012 and with lots of hard work and help from my amazing Mum we managed to transform the place and we sold it after 1 week on the market for more than the asking price…result!!

I will be posting some before and after pics throughout this week…I hope you enjoy!!

For now though, breakfast this morning…

I fancied a change this morning so opted for greek yogurt with a (hidden) blob of flax peanut butter topped with granola…mixing things up a bit 🙂

I just had a horrible experience though, what felt like some kind of allergic reaction… I got all hot and came out in a bright red, burning rash all over my upper body…

please excuse my tired ‘morning’ face!!

Thankfully it’s started to go down and I’m not feeling so panicky!

Hope you have a great Wednesday!

L x

The Big Move…

Good Morning!

Yesterday was a much better day productivity wise, I managed to get LOTS of housework done and also completely finish one assignment..one down 8 to go :(! at least it’s a start!!

I also had a visit from the lady who is buying my house, she came round to make sure her wardrobe will fit (I like her style!!) and she’s excited to move in next week so it’s full steam ahead…I booked a removals van today so I really must get busy packing, these things always take longer than I think they will!

This is my plan of action:

  • Today – Lounge – pack books, dvds, ornaments, candles etc.
  • Wednesday – Wardrobe – most of my wardrobe I won’t wear between now and next week so I’ll get most of it packed up & empty and pack draws under my bed and bedside tables
  • Thursday – I’m working my last Starbucks shift :(! so probably won’t get much done!
  • Friday – Kitchen – pack most crockery, leaving one plate, bowl, mug and set of cutlery
  • Saturday – Clear out cupboard under the stairs
  • Sunday – Clean out kitchen cupboards
  • Monday – Take down and pack curtains and pictures
  • Tuesday – Turn off and empty fridge/freezer, pack food cupboards
  • Wednesday – Last minute cleaning, put together a list of numbers, alarm codes etc for the new owner
  • Thursday – pack my car, drop keys at estate agents and start the 5hr drive to my new home in Ipswich with my wonderful boyfriend James!….how exciting!

In between this I really should work on the 7 assignments I have to hand in over the next 6 weeks, so it looks like I’ve got a busy week ahead!! breaking it down into smaller chunks like this should make it easier…I hope!!

Breakfast this morning is another bowl of the super creamy oats that i’m loving at the moment 🙂 – my ‘recipe’ is now available here

I’m off to the gym now for a ‘legs bums and tums’ class – haven’t done this one before so hopefully it’s a good one!

Questions: Do you have any house moving advice? Is there any ‘must do’s’ I’ve missed of my list?!

L x

Super Creamy Oats

These might possibly be the creamiest bowl of oats you will ever taste!

Ingredients (serves 1):

20g (2tbsp) medium cut oatmeal

20g (2tbsp) rolled oats

1 egg

1tsp vanilla extract

0.5tsp cinnamon

150ml milk of choice – I use organic cow’s milk or almond milk but you could use rice/oat/soy or water, but this won’t give quite as creamy result

  • place oats, vanilla, cinnamon and milk of choice in a small saucepan and leave to soak for approx. 5 mins
  • turn the heat to medium-low heat for 3-4 minutes stirring with a wooden spoon
  • after about 4 minutes (when the oats have soaked up most of the liquid) take the pan away from the direct heat and crack in the egg stirring quickly until the egg is completely mixed in (you need to work quickly to stop the egg scrambling) at this point the oats will be quite runny
  • turn the heat right down and put the pan back on the low heat, keep stirring until they become thick and custard like
  • top with your chosen topping and devour!

A few of my favourite toppings…

banana & peanut butter

berries & toasted seeds

chopped/grated apple & almond butter

fruit & greek yogurt

L x

Weekend Recap…

Happy Monday everyone!!

I thought I’d start the week off with a few pictures I managed to snap and a little summary of my weekend.  I had Saturday off work this week which was nice.  Although I did get in a great workout…I felt like the day was a bit of a flop, I started with great intentions including plans of getting some (lots) of house work done as well finishing 2 of the assignments I’m part way through.

I didn’t manage to achieve any of these things though :(, spending the morning watching Saturday morning cooking shows (until 11.30am!!) going to my boxing class at 12pm then running some errands at the retail park, I ended up spending a good few hours browsing the shops and by the time I got home I was feeling pretty tired.  Somehow I managed to spend the rest of the day catching up on ‘Call the Midwife’…so all in all I didn’t really do anything productive and felt pretty fed up, annoyed with myself and guilty by bedtime!!

Sunday was slightly better, with a SUPER sweaty Step class early morning followed by work at Starbucks.  I still didn’t manage to get any housework or studying done but at least I earned some money!!

Tomorrow however…is a brand new day! and a chance to get those things done (I hope!)

I did manage to have some lovely eats over the weekend…and take pictures (!!)…

Breakfast on Saturday and Sunday (yes it was that good!) – super creamy vanilla, cinamon, egg whipped oats with toasted pumpkin seeds and homemade peanut flax butter…yummy and really helped me power through both of my workouts.

p.s. recipe to follow tomorrow 🙂

Lunch on Sunday…this was one of best sandwiches I’ve had in a long time!! I’m not sure if it was because I was soo hungry after my Step class or it was just a great sandwich! -smoked ham, coleslaw, cheese…toasted – enough said!

Dinner on Saturday night – buckwheat ‘pasta’ with ham, leeks, peas and garlic cream cheese

A super easy dinner for when I finish work late like I did last night – pan seared salmon with crispy greens

I’ve also been dipping into my Nutribox for lots of snacks..I don’t think they’re going to last very long 🙂

Hopefully today I’ll manage check off lots more things on my ‘to do’ list!! I think I might head out this afternoon for a change of scenery in the hope of it encouraging me to focus on my assignments….maybe a nice coffee shop with good wifi!!

Questions; do you have problems focusing on work/studying/assignments if your deadline isn’t in the near future? have you got any techniques to help you focus?

L x

Breakfast for one…

I’ve talked before about my love of the 1st meal of the day.  Some may think it’s a little self-indulgent to make what you might think of as ‘too much effort’, especially for one!  I can honestly say for me though, starting my day in this way has just become a habit and something I do without really thinking about it.

This morning was a particularly pleasant one, the sun actually was shining (for once), giving the impression it might actually feel warm outside…it was however, definitely deceiving as I found out when I went outside to put my rubbish in the bin!!…still pretty cold out there!! when will spring come?????  I thought it was the perfect opportunity to take a photo…

My family think I’m hilarious because I get out every potential toast topping I have in the house and put it on the table.  The thing is though, I’m indecisive which means I often end up having 4 different toppings…one on each half!! My 2 top favourites being, nut butter  and butter with marmite…yum!!

They also think I’m crazy for having this little ‘breakfast routine’ at all.  Growing up, breakfast was something we would grab in a rush amongst the chaos of 5 people trying to get ready and out the house on time.  I regularly known to grab some kind of processed bar that I would eat on my way to school with my Mum shouting “thats not a breakfast!” after me as I ran out the door!!…how times have changed!

When James is here we love to make the most of a little ‘us time’ over breakfast.  We have been doing the long distance relationship thing for 6 months now and it’s pretty tough,  so when he is here, I like to make it special and we usually sit for hours…I always make him his favourite…boiled eggs.

Get this though…!! times are changing! this time is 2 weeks we will be in our new house!  I’m so excited to be making the move down to the other end of the country and being able to see my favourite man every day (and every breakfast!)….I really do need to start packing soon!!

This morning though, now my tummy is full..I’m off to get my sweat on at my Boxercise class.

Hope you’re weekend is off to a good start…

Questions: What’s your favourite toast topping? Do you think it’s important to make time for breakfast in the morning?

L x

Nutribox and Bloglovin

Good Morning!

Yesterday at work I was greeted by the postman with yet another box filled with delicious looking treats!!…the Nutribox I ordered using the 50% discount from Laura over at Keepinghealthygettingstylish…thanks Laura! Again I am not disappointed!

This box is full of natural, healthy portable and convenient snacks, some of which are raw, including some raw cookies, which I think will be the 1st thing I try…they are calling my name!!

The concept reminds me of the graze boxes that are available in the UK which I’ve had a few times except there is definitely more variety included in this box…I’m looking forward to getting stuck in!

I’ve just discovered another way of keeping up to date on the blogs I love, if you would like to keep up to date and follow mine please click here :):

Follow my blog with Bloglovin

Happy Friday!

L x


text:
Cancellation of Poetry Slam and Workshop

Due to a low turnout rate for our poetry slam workshop, we have deided to cancel both the workshop and the poetry slam itself.

We are committed to bringing you high quality events and are truly sorry for this. We hope that you’ll attend our movie night and theatre showcase as we continue to feature the best in student works for your viewing pleasure.

Epiphany’s Theatre Nights (Thursday and Friday)

Join us for our annual Theatre Night! We will be showcasing student plays!Tickets are $12 per night and $20 for two nights. Stand a chance to win a Safari headphone in our Lucky Draw!!!Venue: HSS Building, Level B2, Black Box Theatre
Time: 7.30pm to 9.30pm

8th March, Thursday Theatre Lineup:

Chicken Rice by Jon Jon, directed by Zhou Yibo
Temasek, Singapore by Jon Jon, directed by Hansen
Dylan by Sarah Aini, directed by Sarah Aini
Krapp’s Last Tape by Samuel Beckett, directed by Geraldine

9th March, Friday Theatre Lineup:

The End by Crispin, directed by Jasvinder
In The Dark by Nur Hamidah, directed by Jon Jon
You’re Too Blind To See It by Geraldine, directed by Geraldine
No Air In the Train by John Tan, directed by John Tan

Do come down and support us! Approach any of our exco members or email us at for tickets.

Litfest 2012: Poetry Slam

Poetry Slam Competition:

Date: 7th March 2012, Wednesday
Time: 7pm – 9pm
Venue: NTU HSS Black Box, Level B2

Register today by emailing us your name, school, and contact number to

This competition is open to students from NTU, NUS and SMU.

Prizes to be won:

1st Prize: 1 Leman, Bi-colour Black, Roller Ball (Worth $629) sponsored by Caran d’Ache, PLUS 1 Crossroads stainless earphone (Worth $129) sponsored by Jaben

2nd prize: 1 Ecridor, Cubrik, Roller Ball, Silver plated rodium coated (Worth $399) sponsored by Caran d’Ache, PLUS 1 Crossroads stainless earphone (Worth $129) sponsored by Jaben

3rd prize: 1 Ecridor, Rotation, Ballpoint Pen, silver plated rhodium coated (Worth $266) sponsored by Caran d’Ache, PLUS 1 Crossroads stainless earphone (Worth $129) sponsored by Jaben

First 20 participants to sign up: 15% Pigeon Hole discount vouchers each, sponsored by The Pigeon Hole

Audience’s favourite slammer: 1 Daypack Baggu, sponsored by Baggu

Most Enthusiastic Audience Member: 1 Baby Baggu, sponsored by Baggu

Lucky draw: 1 Hippo Safari headphones (Worth $36), sponsored by Baggu

Litfest 2012: Poetry Slam Workshop

As part of Litfest 2012, Epiphany is working together with Word Forward to organize NTU’s  first ever Poetry Slam!

The slam is slated to happen on the 7th of March (Wednesday) at our usual spot, the HSS Black Box (NTU School of Humanities and Social Sciences B2) from 7pm to 9pm. Attractive prizes to be won, proudly brought to you by our partners Caran d’Ache and Jaben, and also our sponsors The Pigeon Hole and Baggu.

Don’t worry if you have never taken part in a slam before, for there is a Poetry Slam workshop (absolutely free-of-charge) to help you prep. Don’t forget to bring 2 original poems written by yourself to the workshop.

See you there!

All In! Young Writers Media Festival

The All In! Young Writers Media Festival, organised by the National Book Development Council of Singapore, explores the creative and career opportunities for young writers in the new media. Register at their website today for the seminars and talks held over the coming weekend.

Date: 18 & 19 February 2012
Time: 9.15am – 6.00pm
Venue: Rendezvous Hotel
9 Bras Basah Road, Singapore (Ballrooms 1, 2 & 3)

Issue 2

Epiphany Magazine is back this February with yet another exciting issue!
This time round, we feature poetry and prose that will leave you Rapt (with a mouth wide open) as you attempt to get through the trippy yet enthralling lines of this issue.

We are also thrilled to present our readers with an illustrated cover poster this issue; created by the talented Joan Chong!

Submission call for March’s issue is now open till Thursday, 16 February, so please send in your work to until then. We also have an unbelievably Short Story Writing Competition coming up – details below:

Hemingway Shortest Story Writing Competition
Epiphany is organizing a short story competition this litfest. Tell a story in no less (and no more!) than 6 words, and stand to win amazing prizes!
Submit your entries through email to, subject “LITFEST Writing Competition Entry”. Please remember to include the following details in your email:
– Name
– Course/Year
– Email address
– Phone number
– Submission
Each person is entitled to submit up to 3 submissions. Please number your submissions if you are intending to submit more than 1 piece.
Results will be announced on 8th of March (Thursday) at Epiphany’s Litfest.


WARC-Identified-Payload-Type: application/xhtml+xml

text:
Thursday, March 19, 2009

Population ever again

I'll just put this update here: Not related perefectly, but there are Pittsburgh and Youngstown mentions in this article in Forbes by diasporan herself Lauren Sherman: America's Downsized Cities

Yeah, yeah, another year's worth of new census estimates of the region's population are out. Read the PG or the Trib versions of the story or the bigger picture from the AP.

Here is what is interesting for us. IMHO of course. Total net migration estimated for the Pittsburgh region over the last year is all of 708 more people who left compared to the number that arrived. So it's still true that more people are leaving, but 708 is a pretty small number for us. Here is what the net migration trends are for the Pittsburgh Region from the data just released:

I'll add a technical point that is important just a bit. This data reflects population as of July 1 each year. So the change data is for change through a 12 month period ending on July 1. So if there is some connection between this data and the ongoing recession, this data is really reflecting only the the early parts of the recession... it is now officially dated back to November 2007, but as of July 1, 2008 (the last estimate per this report) the recession's start had not yet been dated and some of the worst was yet to come..

As these things go, that's a pretty big difference from 2005 until recently. Still a negative number, but one of the smallest numbers since the early part of the 1990's when there was a brief period when net migration was positive. What may be causing that trend in lower net migration from Pittsburgh? Here are my quick blog musings on how relative economic conditions are affecting migration trends here. In that old post, the graphic I put together is from early last fall and could use updating.. point is probably a little bit stronger these days even.

Blogger EdHeath said...

Do these Census figures reflect only migration (in and out), or migration plus births and deaths?

Thursday, March 19, 2009 7:11:00 AM
Blogger C. Briem said...

I am highlighting in the graph just the migration part of the data just released because that is probably the only part of the data that will change a lot year over year. Births and deaths are much more predictable trends comparably and reflect longer term demographic changes going on. but the natural population change (births minus deaths) data was released as well and is part of the overall population change being reported today. Both news accounts have the overall population change reported. Natural population change continues to be negative here as well, but also smaller than the recent past... but it will remain negative for the next few years for sure barring an extraordinarily large influx of younger folks moving here quickly.

Thursday, March 19, 2009 7:32:00 AM
Blogger Pittsburgh Conservative said...

Chris, in your opinion, is there an upper time limit on the decision to relocate (on a macro scale)? I'm curious if there have been any studies that look at the length of a recession and its effect on migration patterns. Some areas like NYC entered the recession on the front end, where other places lagged a bit. The recent article in Forbes (?) observed that there might be huge regional variations in the timing and speed of recovery. What part do you think that might play on this type of migration?

Also, somewhere, George Costanza is smiling: "But even Allegheny County officials could be pleased by shrinkage ..."

Thursday, March 19, 2009 7:52:00 AM
Blogger EdHeath said...

PC's and your comments inspired this thought for a press release: "We are pleased to announce a reduction in the rate of shrinkage".

Just being silly.

Thursday, March 19, 2009 10:22:00 AM
Anonymous Anonymous said...

The BLS has been reporting dramatic (for Pittsburgh) labor force growth for the past year... the January '09 year-over-year increase is over 20,000. Up until the past couple years, the labor force population was essentially stagnant for 15 years. I believe this has got to indicate an elevated level of in-migration for Metro Pittsburgh. Perhaps when the Jul. 2009 estimates come out next year... we'll finally see a population gain.

Thursday, March 19, 2009 8:53:00 PM
Blogger C. Briem said...

I think we have been talking about the recession's impact on migration here for some time. but yeah.

No new estimates coming out in July.. this was it for the region. July is when municipal level estimates will come out, but they will just show how the county level numbers released today are divided out. We will not learn all that much until a year from now, but we may get some clues when I get to poke at the raw migration data that was driving these numbers today.

for PC. The timing issue is real and known. Most models of migration will includefactors lagged by a year or two when looking at causes of migration outcomes. That different regions enter recessions at different times will obviously be a factor. But I think you ask something more interesting which is whether different regions will keep or retain workers differently. Or some more in depth look at the time aspects. I am not so up on all the work out there of late, I would not be surprised if someone has looked at that... but it isn't in the more common models I am aware of which just deal with the time aspect in some basic ways. A good topic for someone though.

Thursday, March 19, 2009 10:19:00 PM

Post a Comment

Links to this post:

Create a Link

<< Home


text:
Hackpads are smart collaborative documents. .

Stop sharing the collection with ?

This pad is open to "", so will still be able to access it.
NYC 2013 DataDive Feed

Contact Support

Please check out our How-to Guide and FAQ first to see if your question is already answered! :)

If you have a feature request, please add it to this pad. Thanks!

Log in


text:
Monday, November 10, 2008

Our letters to Obama about Joel Klein

Now that the New York Times blog has excerpted a few lines (and none of the substantive critique) from my letter about why President-elect Obama should not appoint Joel Klein as US Secretary of Education, I figure I ought to post the letter in full on our own blog.

On Friday, I was asked to elicit advice from NYC parents to Obama for The Nation magazine, which was supposedly working on an article about this issue. I thought this was a good opportunity to get some media attention to the disdain and horror that many NYC parents feel about the prospect of Joel Klein running the US Department of Education. Though I still haven't heard from the Nation, in the process I have received hundreds of passionate letters from parents and teachers who vehemently oppose this appointment, based upon Klein's sorry record here in NYC -- and one email from a parent who praised him.

I suppose I should also respond to the comments of David Cantor, the DOE spokesperson, who is quoted in the NY Times as follows:

The chancellor has spent the last six years building a school system focused on the needs of kids. Along the way he’s angered adults with entrenched interests in policies that have never worked. That’s a trade he’ll make every time.

I actually haven't noticed that this Chancellor has ever tried reducing class size or addressing the other needs of NYC children to receive a decent, well-rounded education but instead has lurched from one faddish theory to another in his attempt to make it look like he is improving our schools. When he's been unsuccessful at accomplishing this goal, he has tried to manipulate the statistics to prove otherwise. But it is true that he has angered adults -- teachers and parents alike-- who have a real interest in trying to ensure that our schools provide a real opportunity to learn.

Anyway, my letter follows -- please everyone, add your own recommendations to Obama in the comments section!

The Department of Education under Joel Klein has been run like a ruthless dictatorship – with no input from parents or educators, and no thought of how the policies he has imposed on our schools have been destructive to our children and their futures.

He has consistently ignored the crisis of overcrowding in our schools, that in many neighborhoods has gotten worse because of rampant residential development, as well as a result of his insistence to insert hundreds of new charter schools and small schools into existing, overcrowded school buildings. In a recent survey, half of all principals say that the overcrowding creates unsafe conditions for students or staff, 29% said that lunch starts at 10:30 AM or earlier, 25% said that they have lost their art or music rooms in recent years, and 18% said they had classrooms with no windows. Thousands of children are being given special services in hallways or in closets.

He has put almost no effort in building new schools, and under this administration, twice as many new seats have been created in new stadiums than schools. The city’s investment in school construction as a percent of its total capital spending is at an historic low, and will drop even more precipitously in the future, if the DOE’s proposed school capital plan goes through.

Joel Klein has refused to reduce class size, despite repeated audits and reports from the State Comptroller’s office and the State Education Department showing how under his administration, hundreds of millions of state dollars meant to provide smaller classes to NYC students have been misused. As a result, 86% of NYC principals in a recent survey have said they are unable to provide a quality education because of excessive class sizes.

Similarly, he has argued that even under Mayoral control, the Department of Education is not subject to city law, and thus he continues to defy laws passed by the City Council over the Mayor’s veto, requiring him to take measures against bias crimes and bullying in schools, to allow students to bring cell phones to school, and to obey the recycling laws required of every household and business in NYC.

The Chancellor has moved to eliminate the authority of school leadership teams –made up of half parents, half staff – to have decision-making authority over school budgets, contrary to the state law that created these teams. He has continued to shut out parents from having any input whatsoever, at the school, district, or citywide level.

He has spent literally hundreds of millions of dollars on no-bid contracts, and rather than decreasing the bureaucracy, the number of highly paid bureaucrats at Tweed continues to grow --- most of whom have no background in education. To counter a recent article by a Daily News reporter pointing out the personal wealth of many of the top education officials, who are former business executives and corporate consultants, the DOE press office responded in defense that two out of twenty of Klein’s top advisers were long-term educators. (This article was killed in the middle of the night, and removed from the Daily News website after complaints from the DOE; but we posted a copy of it on our blog here.)

The only educational philosophy of those running the system is based on trying to improve standardized test results, no matter how much cheating and test prep that involves. Whatever the rise in state test scores that has resulted is not matched by improvements in the more reliable national assessments called the NAEPs. In fact, NYC was 11th out of 12 urban school districts in terms of its gains in the NAEPs over the course of this administration, and there has been no closing of the achievement gap in any subject tested.

Indeed, Joel Klein’s insistence on basing all decisions on high-stakes tests has led to racial disparities growing in many areas – with far fewer children of color admitted to gifted programs and to our selective high schools, and a declining number of Black and Hispanic teachers in our teaching force.

In short, he has been a disaster for our schools, and Barack Obama should be forewarned not to name him to any position of authority in his administration – as much as we would like to get rid of him!

john wetherhold said...

Let us pray to God, this second rate place holder does not get near any office of national responsibility. He has fought smaller class sizes, parental involvement, transparency, public meetings with real content, and increased funds real educational needs. He loves consultants and i suspect the Bush methods. His tenure has been a period of lost opportunity in New York City and he should be fired from that position of responsibility as soon as possible.

Ellen said...

Dear President-elect Obama,

If you care about the children of this nation and the future of education, please listen to the parents of New York City who have experience with Joel Klein and under no circumstances appoint him as your secretary of education. What Klein has done as Chancellor here, under the direction of Mayor Bloomberg, is to remove virtually all consideration of actual education from the school system and replace it with a business-oriented model, in which measures of “outcome” have replaced actual learning as the standard--just as most educators in this administration have been replaced with businessmen. In other words, our schools have to a large extent become test-prep factories, with our children the “products.” Furthermore, actual avenues of input from those knowledgeable about what goes on in the classroom--teachers, students, parents, principals--have been closed. Unlike your bottom-up campaign, education in New York City has become a top-down one-way street. With Orwellian precision, the hugely expensive Office of Accountability is in no way accountable to parents, students, or the public.
Don’t be misled by Joel Klein’s propaganda. Test scores, claims of increasing principals’ control over their own schools, nods to parental involvement, reports from accountability, assessments and “school report cards” that don’t measure what they claim to--all of it is just for show. What our children have lost under this chancellor--cannot be replaced. Please think about the kind of education you want for Sasha and Malia and how you can provide that for the rest of the country’s children, who are no less worthy. Then think about who is likely to create the possibility for that circumstance. As much as we would like to see Klein depart, we cannot bear to see him inflicted on the rest of the country!

Ellen Bilofsky

Shino said...

On Joe Klein as Secretary of Education

In two words: ABSOLUTELY NOT.

The only accomplishment under the Klein administration is the reaffirmation of the fact that we should never have a non-educator be in charge of our education system. Mr. Klein is not an educator but an exemplary student of the Bush School of Public Administration -- autocratic, top down (and arrogant) management style, utter disregard of and disdain for stakeholders and constituencies, privatization of public services, competition and monetary rewards as incentives, and the most skillful (and deceitful) use of marketing and PR tactics to advance his agenda are all hallmarks of Mr. Klein's administration.

Many misguided policies have been introduced by Mr. Klein, who despite the public outcries went ahead and implemented them. Under Mr. Klein, parents have been disenfranchised, teachers have been demoralized, the School Leadership Teams have been stripped of meaningful roles, and the Community Education Councils' authorities have been eroded. He has created a climate of fear where teachers and school administrators are afraid to voice their concerns or criticisms of the Klein administration.

Mr. Klein has also been very generous with awarding contracts to private for-profit entities, many of them no-bid contracts. For instance, IBM was awarded $80 million to develop a "super database" where parents can access their children's report cards including teacher comments for all school years going back to kindergarten. As of today there is nothing, at least that parents can access. Mr. Klein has also brought in a consulting firm from Cambridge, UK, to conduct reviews of schools -- tasks that used to be conducted by superintendents and school district staff. Many test publishing companies have seen windfalls under Mr. Klein as a result of increased reliance on standardized tests as the most important indicator of students' learning (an example of a misguided policy, by the way).

Principals are now business managers, with the title of Chief Executive Officer. They used to be considered instructional leaders, who understood and focused their energy on improving teaching and learning in their schools. Furthermore, they are now pitted against each other in a system that provides monetary rewards to principals who improve students' test scores. Gone are the days when collaboration allowed schools to share successes and pitfalls to benefit all students. There is also a talk of offering money to students who score high on standardized tests. I naively thought we should be striving to teach our children the love of learning -- learning for the sake of knowing, not learning for the sake of a few more iTune downloads.

Finally Mr. Klein and the Mayor have relied heavily on marketing and PR firms to cast their “accomplishments” in a positive light. Mr. Klein has boasted that he has increased the high school graduation rates since he took over. However, the numbers are disputed by the State Education Department. Mr. Bloomberg claims to have created 66,000 new school seats, yet there are more schools at overcapacity (meaning more students than the building is designed for) today than before the Mayor took over the control of the school system and our class sizes have not gone down (in many cases class sizes have gone up). Yet, if you are not a highly involved parent, you may think Mr. Klein’s and Mr. Bloomberg’s claims are legitimate and meaningful. The Mayor has launched a subway advertisement campaign claiming his achievements (and I must add, at a time when the school budget is being cut).

I admit there is no guarantee that a Secretary of Education with the appropriate education background would not take a similar path. However, I believe some of the policies and changes instituted by Mr. Klein would never have come about if we had someone who understood the public school system and some fundamentals of what it is like to manage 30 energetic children of diverse abilities and backgrounds in a confined space – an understanding of what it means to educate the future citizens of this country.

Thank you for the opportunity to voice my opinion.

Shino Tanikawa

Parent of two children in public schools and a non-formal environmental educator

Donna Lazarus said...

I am a Spanish teacher at Midwood H.S. in Brooklyn.

According to ACTFL guidelines and studies (1989 or so), language acquisition cannot take place in classes of more than 22 students, yet each of my classes has 34 students (so I think that the DOE is not serious about having students learn a second -- maybe a third -- language).

The principal of Midwood, David Cohen, like many new principals (this is his third year) is what I call a technocrat. The DOE demands that, in order for him to keep his job, he must produce data that says students are improving on their test scores (these can be generated by standard tests, Regents exams, or apparently, by department exams comparing scores on uniform exams from one month to another, maybe two months later). I think this is a rather dubious basis for judging student performance, or how well teachers are getting students to learn in overcrowded classrooms.

I actually like the idea and practice of uniform exams since six teachers in my department are teaching the same classes (at least twelve classes). But using our exams to provide a rationnale to keep a pro-Klein principal in place, one who is only interested in data and technology, and who doesn't mind doing something illegal but convenient for him like having non-special ed. teachers teach Inclusion classes, a pragmatist who puts his interests before students, seems very counter to the good pedagogical principles that teachers should strive for (although I find that new teachers, including Teaching Fellows, are very technologically driven at the expense of their students, and to the dismay of their colleagues, by monopolizing the computers, and even marking their exams in front of their Engrade programs on the computer). Let's get rid of the current sacred cows of standardized exams and computer programs like Engrade, and do what we really need for the students: teach, creatively and from our experience, using what is going on in the real world.

Does anyone remember the first two-day English Regents exam? The first time students had to listen to a long piece, an article, take notes and answer questions and write an essay based upon it? It was an article that McCain wrote for the right-wing magazine, Parade, about his experiences as a prisoner in Vietnam? (A lot of which has recently been shown to be lies.) The next year was no better, and the year after that was possibly worse. Time to get rid of No Child Left Behind laws, and restore teaching to its use of the world and its people's creativity to give a base from which students can grasp the tasks ahead of them.

Donna Lazarus

Paula Rogovin said...

Dear President-elect Obama,
PLEASE, JUST SAY NO To Joel Klein as Secretary of Education. This is my 36th year of teaching in the New York City public schools. I love my work. I am not worried about losing my job for speaking up on this issue, as I believe that the choices you will be making soon for executive positions can determine the future for our children. Your choice of advisers in education is extremely important. I know you agree.
We all know that having small class size is critically important for quality education. Yes, many of our classes around the City are still extremely large, despite promises to reduce class size. I have 28 first graders in my class. This is not at all the fault of our wonderful principal. Our school, like many others around the City,is so overcrowded that there is no room to create smaller classes. Chancellor Klein seems rather uninterested in leading an effort to build new schools or to find solutions in order to reduce class size.
The Chancellor is not an educator. He is a corporate attorney. During his time as Chancellor, Mr. Klein has increased the use of standardized tests. This has forced many educators to "teach to the test," thus preventing them from quality teaching. This has stifled efforts by teachers to help children develop a deep passion for and love of reading, writing, and math. This year he even introduced standardized tests in first grade. I am fortunate to teach first grade in a school which opted out of those standardized tests for first grade. But, tragically, many teachers do have to give that test.
This overemphasis on assessment with standardized tests is wrong. It is educationally unsound. There are many alternative ways of assessing learning and teaching. As far as I know, Chancellor Klein has shown no interest in considering alternatives.
Chancellor Klein has promoted scripted curriculum, thus tying the hands of educators. He has demanded that most schools (with the exception of a few hundred schools such as the one where I teach) follow scripted curriculum.
What we really need is an inquiry approach to teaching and learning. We need children to ask questions, to use many different resources to find answers, to think critically, and then to act on their learning. We need interdisciplinary teaching. We need a return to the arts. We need family involvement in our classrooms. We need multi-cultural education. Most of this is not possible under Joel Klein, except in the schools which are exempt from the script.In fact, there is so much emphasis on the scripts in reading, writing, and math, that many teachers have no time left for social studies and science. This is a terrible shame.
When Joel Klein was in my classroom during a visit to our school, he observed my first graders conducting an interview of a babysitter who had been a child laborer in Peru from age 7. The interview was conducted in Spanish and was translated into English. It was part of our research about where the food comes from and who produces it for the stores in our neighborhood. The children did role-plays to help them understand what the babysitter was telling them. They pretended to plow the field with the help up a donkey. They pretended to plant the beans and the corn. They pretended that they were 7 years old and weren't allowed to go to school because they had to work all day. We talked a lot about the issue of child labor, as there are millions of children in the world and at least 500,000 children in the US who are child laborers. After the interview, the children wrote pages for a book about the interview. That book would be used for our reading lessons. We painted a mural about the babysitter and the donkey. I wanted Chancellor Klein to witness this interview and to witness teaching which is so far out of the box he has created for teachers. I know he saw children who were excited about learning and who were seriously concerned about the problem of child labor. Rather than inquiring about this kind of teaching, rather than looking seriously at these children who were so interested in learning, I never heard from him again - except
when I wrote to him regarding my objections to the much despised ELCAS assessment test we were forced to give the children. He asked his assistant to answer me. Rather than discussing or even debating about this, the response from the assistant was basically - ECLAS is just fine.
I hope you will select a Secretary of Education and deputies who want to meeting with and learn from teachers,family members, and even young people.
Joel Klein's answer to providing a quality education for children in poor communities in New York City is to give the teachers a script and make them follow the script to help raise test scores. This is disrespectful to the children and the teachers. Rather than bringing together experienced teachers and letting us work with families and children to create curriculum, he simply assumed that he (a corporate lawyer) had the answer.
President-Elect Obama, I know that you embody the concept of critical thinking and inquiry. I know you understand what I am saying in my letter and that you will indeed bring in educators who will enable all of our children to get that quality education without the burden of excessive testing and scripted curriculum. I plead with you to surround yourself with educators with experience from early childhood to post graduate work rather than corporate advisers. I plead with you to appoint an educator who believes in Inquiry as Secretary of Education. I plead with you to have deputies in the Dept. of Education who are educators and who understand the need to do whatever necessary to provide small class size, to allow alternative types of assessment, to enable educators to end the required use (in many schools) of basal readers and workbooks and allow instead for the use of quality literature for teaching reading.

Paula Rogovin. Teacher of First Grade.
Author of these Heinemann Books:
Classroom Interviews, a world of learning.
The Research Workshop, bringing the world into your classroom
Why Can't You Behave, a teacher's guide to creative classroom management.

Apartheid is Wrong, A Curriculum for Young People. Published by the UN Centre on Apartheid and Educators Against Racism and Apartheid.

Patrick Sullivan said...

In response to David Cantor’s comment:

The Chancellor has spent six years focused on building a system defined by the policy ideas of the Gates Foundation, Broad Foundation, Dell Foundation and many wealthy New Yorkers like Caroline Kennedy and Courtney Ross who would never send their own kids to public school yet have no qualms about dictating how my kids should be educated.

And to dismiss parents who care about smaller classes, arts education and shielding their kids from Klein’s relentless bludgeon of standardized testing as “entrenched interests” is despicable.

It should be obvious to all why a Klein role in the Obama administration is a non-starter. Let’s focus on changes to mayoral control of our schools and the next mayoral election to bring an end to this.
— Patrick J. Sullivan

Tina said...

Upon hearing the news that Joel Klein has made it to the list of potential candidates for the Secretary of Education in the OBAMA administration my heart skipped a beat. As a New York City parent I could not have heard worse news. Joel Klein has created havoc in the New York City public schools, totally disregarding any common sense in regard to dealing with overcrowding, funding, teachers concerns, administration concerns, safety concerns. The obstinacy reflected by total lack of transparency by Joel Klein, Michael Bloomberg and the DOE is intolerable for us. If you are not in a high end neighborhood in NYC that can raise money for the basic operation of your school you are sunk. One also needs a lot of time for: going to meetings, working with politicians, networking with other parents, creating forums, writing responses to the DOE, keeping up with the press, organizing rally's, petitions, postcard drives-and we still are not heard!

You gave us our hope back, President-elect Obama. Now can you give us an educator for secretary of education, not more corporate insanity, as Mr. Klein exemplifies?

Christiane said...

I, too am vehemently opposed to having Joel Klein appointed to any national position as an expert in education. Our two children have gone through the public school system for a total of 15 years. During Klein's administration, the school system has become a dictatorship with no room for individual problems and concerns: (imagine that for an educational system). Due to severe bullying in her school which resulted in two children's suspensions, we tried for 9 months to transfer to an excellent high school in our neighborhood which would have been a perfect fit for our daughter (an honor student). We had meetings with the principal herself who really wanted our child in her school, but even she after repeated attempts at calling the main D.of E.administration, could not do anything for our daughter. We even wrote to the Borough President, the City Council, and our state assemblywoman to no avail. I think when the system gets so rigid it can't do anything at all for the deserving hard working students, its being run from the top in a dictatorial fashion!

Do not appoint Klein to a national post!!!!

Julius said...

The appointment of Joe Klein as Secretary of Education would be the final blow to public education in our country, and typical of how incompetency rises to the top.

This is the man who approved a whopping $80 million for a "data" system that is STILL not up and running properly, and costing our city MORE to revamp in less than one year... who pays monies for "reviewers" to rate schools on bogus and changing criteria, while talking about cutting costs, pays for his new title of Parent Coordinator at each and every school (whose duties are ambiguous at best) while being unwilling to pay for more teachers related to class size reduction..and thinks that testing children as young as Kindergarten shows what learning is going on despite the fact that it proves NOTHING..

I speak as a parent who dealt with Mr. Klein's offices for over a year when our child was suffering in middle school..I could not get answers on what he was having difficulty with from a few teachers so we could help him at home or get proper tutoring, and both the school's and Mr. Klein's bureucracy offered NO help at all. They spun their wheels for months, and ended up telling ut there was nothing they could do for our child. He was in the "middle" as a learner, and both the school and Mr. Klein's offices had NO solutions. Despite our requests for a better school (rather than keep him in a SURR failing school) after he was attacked by a young boy with a switchblade!

I have a year of correspondence and proof of what was going on, proving the incompetency of the school under Mr. Klein's reign, and the responses and PROMISES that went unfulfilled from Mr. Klein's office and his lackeys. The result? They took me to dinner...yes DINNER!... to say there was nothing they could do, and we wound up putting our son in private school at great expense where he is growing and people care!

None of this ocurred with our first son, just six years ahead of our youngest, who went to schoool when Mr. Klein was NOT in charge. He received a very good education from the same schools. Interesting.

The focus is NOT on children, but rather on showing what Mr. Klein has achieved..yet depsite what he claims, ask our children REAL knowledge questions and see what happens. Look at the DOE is ALL about Mr. Klein's achievements, posting after has become his PERONAL website for the aggrandizement of Mr. Klein, particualrly in the last year when he knew the possibility of needing of a new position.

PLEASE, President-Eelct Obama, do NOT let this person have influence on our schools, unless you want to see them ruined. He is NOT an deducator, just a bureaucrat who cares about Mr. Klein, not our children or our future. We must be able to do better!

Catherine said...

I would be extremely unhappy if Obama chose Joel Klein for the Federal Secretary of Education post.

First of all, with the exception of his few years here in NYC, Klein has no experience in education. He has never been a teacher or educational administrator in a school or been involved in the actual work of educating young people - ever!! His background is in law and business, and his policies in NYC reflect this. He treats the process of educating an extremely diverse population as a straightforward business problem based entirely on standardized testing, statistical data collection, and numeric evaluations. There has been no guidance or leadership on issues of curriculum or good teaching methods -- issues that should be central to educational reform, because he knows nothing about these matters!

The overwhelming focus of his administration has been to centralize and computerize everything, including processes that were working just fine, such as applying for PreK directly in your local school. The results have been added bureaucracy and costs, confusion for parents and schools, and results rife with computer errors.

He and Mayor Bloomberg have also ruled with an incredibly heavy hand: dismissing education experts from appointed panels at the 11th hour because their (experienced, evidence-based) opinions differed from their own (naive, untested) ideas of how the school system should be run; making sweeping structural changes to the school system mid-year creating serious disruptions to students, parents and teachers; refusing to comply with court orders to reduce class sizes by finagling numbers and passing the buck; and spending millions of dollars on no-bid contracts on testing and evaluation consultants many of whom also have no background in education.

Parents have also become extremely marginalized in the process. The Department of Education gives a lot of PR to the few scripted parent forums they have, but there is no room for questions and criticism that fall outside of their narrow evaluation criteria. As a result parents' honest input is routinely ignored and does not have an effect on educational policy. I sat last year on a panel of parents interviewed for our school's report card. Our evaluation was conducted by a consultant from England ($$) who would only take answers to the particular questions she had been given by the DOE. The interview came right after substantial mid-year budget cuts had been announced, and followed a few years of other extensive DOE policy changes which had dramatic effects on how our school functioned, such as new grading and school year testing practices, extensive new data collection requirements, changes to hours of the school day, changes to bus routes and systems, new pre-K admissions process, new G & T program admissions, new school evaluation systems, etc. Yet she would not accept any feedback from us that addressed the effect these changes had on the teaching and learning that was possible in the building. It is quite disingenuous to ignore the ramifications of such far-reaching reforms on schools. This kind of bull-headed, "we can never be wrong" attitude towards reform is too reminiscent of the national policies that have gotten us where we are today.

We elected Obama because he promised to move away from this type of governance. The last thing our country needs is to introduce these misguided educational policies on a national scale.

Catherine Teegarden
Elementary School teacher and public school parent

jventress said...

Dear President-elect Barack Obama,
Instead of considering Joel Klein for the position of Secretary of Education, I implore you to continue your thoughtful search for a qualified appointee by using teaching experience as part of your criteria.
The only way you will ensure that all states have common standards for education in the USA is to select someone who has the experience implementing the state standards by developing lesson plans according to the established school curriculum. Test scores are not the only way and not necessarily the best way to measure student achievement and a teacher or school’s success. One must also have the foresight to know what will work and what might pose a challenge to students and teachers in the classrooms across this country.
There are many other qualified individuals who should be vetted as possible candidates. Considering presidents and professors of universities where teachers are educated would be ideal. Who better than a professor who engages in thoughtful discussion, debate and evaluation with other educators would have the insight to handle a national education policy? Therefore, members of the academia who actually formulate state standards and lesson plans should be on your proverbial “short list.” Please read the articles* about teaching professionals who would bring more to our nation’s classrooms than an attorney whose only measure of academic achievement in NYC schools is quantitative (and not qualitative) statistics. Don’t our kids deserve a whole education that develops the whole child? Nothing less than what you want for Malia and Sasha.
Notwithstanding the fact that the proof is in the pudding: The NYC Public schools are still over-crowded; very little is in the works to construct more schools (ex. only 2 new high schools to address overcrowding); and, court-appointed funding still being withheld from NYCBOE etc.
The business of education has been politicized. A 3rd term for the mayor means a 3rd term for Klein. Our students are caught in the middle. You know that we don’t have time to re-tool the system when politicians make a mistake. We don’t have a chance for a “do-over” nor can we “scrap” the students as a project and “go back to the drawing board.” Kids are not “widgets.”
You said No Child Left Behind needs to be re-visited and re-evaluated. Great idea! The demise of education in NYC cannot spread to other urban schools. Someone with a broader knowledge of the educational spectrum will have the wisdom and experience to understand how to meet the needs of rural students as well.
The articles below give insight to what should be considered-in part- when choosing a Secretary of Education. You might consider calling the Harvard professor** for such a task.
*Fourteen educators from urban and rural areas and representatives from UFT helped to formulate lesson plans for 4th, 8th and 11th grade students to meet the standards in social studies, ELA, state & US history, and government. See link below:
See what Harvard professor**, Daniel Koretz, says about testing not telling whole story in:
and the latest issue of New York Teacher dated November 6, 2008 (Vol L, Number 5).
I am a proud parent of 3 children attending NYC public schools and I teach as well.

Linda said...

Please consider a true educator for Education Secretary, such as Diane Ravitch, Deborah Meier or Linda Darling-Hammond. Highly qualified leadership matters.
We in New York City have been subjected to the most awful administration of our education system by Joel Klein (via Mike Bloomberg and mayoral control), who has done everything possible to alienate parents, by dictating policy rather than engaging us to figure out solutions to problems such as overcrowding, who has wasted millions and millions of dollars on excessive 'executive' pay, unneeded excessive testing (NCLB doesn't require testing every four to six weeks), and computer systems that don't work ($80 million for ARIS).

Jan Carr said...

Klein has done many destructive things as Chancellor of the NYC public schools, but one of the most destructive has been to dismantle the school districts. The districts used to be huge sources of support for the principals and the schools. Those working in the district had once been principals and teachers themselves, and principals report to me that the relationships they used to have with the district personnel were “almost familial.” New principals were mentored by old. If a principal encountered a problem, he or she could call up the district and get advice from people who had once stood in her shoes.

One principal reported to me that in her first months as a new principal, the district superintendent showed up one morning before school, meeting her unexpectedly in the doorway. The two of them sat downstairs at the security officer’s desk and together went over a document the principal had written about her plans. Similarly, the week after 9/11, the district realized that they had a brand new principal in a school and sent a district representative over to spend the day with her, to give her support and make sure she was all right. Interestingly, this was District 2, the same district that had 4 or more schools in the vicinity of the World Trade Center, schools that had had to be evacuated and temporarily housed elsewhere. Obviously, District 2 had a lot on its plate. But the people in the district remembered the new principal they had just assigned to a school and were nursing along, and they were committed to helping her.

Now, in stark contrast, principals report to me that the only time representatives of the DOE show up is on testing days, when they stand and observe, eyes squinted, arms folded, while the principal unpacks the tests and distributes them to the classrooms. Now, because of Klein’s destructive policies, most of the district personnel, many of them nationally respected educators, have “retired,” and are no longer available to shepherd our schools. Instead, principals are either on their own, as part of the misleadingly-named “Empowerment Zone,” or they’ve had to sign on with privately-run “school support organizations” that they have to pay for out of their own budgets. I was on the School Leadership Team of my son’s school when the principal was charged with choosing a “new” support organization, and we ran around trying to gather information and figure out a workable solution, an unconscionable waste of principals’ precious time – and a complete distraction from the hard work of actually running a school – when we already had an outstanding district support team in place. Shelley Harwayne, we sorely miss you!

As a parent who has been a public school parent for 8 years now, I have seen how hard the teachers and principals work. These are people who not only have experience every day in the trenches, but who have academic backgrounds, advanced degrees, in education. Education is a field, just as law is, or business, and I object strenuously to the characterization that Klein and Co. are working against “entrenched interests.” What they’ve done time and time again is arrogantly refuse to listen to or respect the professional educators who have devoted their lives and careers to educating our city’s children.

District26 said...

As a parent of 2 children in NYC public schools, and a past PTA president and a current Pres. of a Community District Education Council I would greatly enjoy Joel Klein leaving our schools. He has sought to reform public schools in the image of corporations and has insisted upon accountability for every person in the system except himself and other DOE bureaucrats. To satisfy his data driven system, our schools seek growth over substance by pushing standard Test scores that reduce curriculum to test prep. Test scores are looked to for Principal and teacher merit and our children suffer as they are expected to grow their scores each year. As our schools stress the tests, our children cannot alleviate their stress in Art, Gym, or other classes as these have been reduced to unimportant impediments to test score growth.
Any claims that Klein has administrative skill are false. During his reign, we have had 2 overhauls of our schools organization that have left all baffled and bewildered and incapable of truly assessing his performance. He instituted a school budget program that claims to be fair, yet is the opposite since it rewards Principals who get senior teachers off of their school's budgets and punishes schools in middle class areas. He has failed to make any meaningful effort to reduce our students' overcrowded classrooms.
While instituting his special brand of education he dutifully ignores any meaningful input from parent organizations, even those appointed pursuant to statute, teachers, and administrators. Instead, he accepts advice only from his cronies (none with an education background) and paid for consultants. His alleged accomplishments are budget savings and test score improvements that are questioned by independent sources. His real impact: a demoralized teaching staff, a frightened group of principals, and alienated parents. For these and other reasons, I sincerely wish him well in pursuing this higher office.
However, I cannot enjoy our gain in his leaving if he is inflicted upon the rest of the country. We have suffered through eight years of ignorant federal education policies, our nation cannot afford one year more of the ignorance and arrogance that Klein would bring. The failings of the No Child Left Behind policies need to be corrected, not exacerbated. Klein has shown no desire to confront NCLB failings during his reign. He has not made any effort to seek accommodations for NYC in meeting NCLB goals, and in fact has instituted policies that often implement additional standards on our schools-none after consultation with experts, administrators, teachers, or parents. At the risk of 5 more years of him destroying NYC public schools, he should not be given the chance to bring his special brand of expertise to the President Obama cabinet.
Robert Caloras
President, CDEC26

Ann Kjellberg said...

Over 100 parents have signed the following letter to President-elect Obama. If you would like to see the list of signatories, add your signature, or sign a longer letter with some policy recommendations, visit

Dear President-elect Obama,

First of all let us congratulate you on your election. Many of us worked ardently to advance your cause, and today we celebrate the bright and hopeful years before us under your leadership.

We write now as parents in the New York City public school system. We would like to urge in the strongest terms that you select a Secretary for Education with deep practical experience in teaching and learning. We feel that there is a fashion now for placing school reform in the hands of leaders outside the field. In our experience in New York this trend is catastrophic; in our view the administration of Chancellor Joel Klein has disastrously neglected the fundamental needs of children. To lead in education one must understand something about children, about human development, about the history of successes and failures in pedagogy.

Please appoint an experienced educator, a person close to the lives of children, to lead our nation's education system.

ira said...

Everyone here has said it so well already. No way should Klein get any more positions in education. He's a bean counter. Let him go back to being a claims attorney. He totally panders to private firms who think that students are just widgets. He reacts to any threat of a lawsuit by caving. He's created the worst possible environment for parents and students and educators. He's destroyed fabulous and up and coming schools. I've searched this listing for words like 'fear' and its all been said.

Lynn said...

Dear President-Elect Obama:

As a New York City Public School Parent, and proud supporter, I am writing to say -- please do not make Joel Klein the US Secretary of Education.

As the parent of 16-year-old twins (both of whom worked for your campaign) I write to let you know how unhelpful Joel Klein has been for the New York City School System. Unlike you, he has shown little interest in listening to children, parents, or the educators who work daily with the children. Like the Bush administration he has used education money to enrich the corporations that create standardized tests and that conduct standardized school evaluations– pointless “report cards” for the schools. He has expanded policing and surveillance in the public schools while basic education has been cut. In a particular note of disregard for the real life experiences of New York City children, he has objected to children having cell-phones at school. No parent disagrees with a policy to prohibit children from having their phones on while at school - but in a city where many children can travel more than an hour to get to their schools and where working public phones are now almost non-existent, this rule has seriously undermined parents' ability to stay in touch with their children before and after school.

While I have grown to respect many things about Mayor Bloomberg's administration, Joel Klein is not one of them. And, while it might benefit New York City to have Mr. Klein move on, I feel obliged to protect the rest of the country from his counter-productive approaches.

Lynn M. Paltrow

Susannah said...

Joel Klein does not have the right instincts to bring the changes so sorely needed to our national education system. He approached the task of familiarizing himself with the NYC schools by launching a massive data-gathering operation and ignoring inputs from the people already on the ground. He should have understood that children's education is a humanistic pursuit and that data such as he went after (notably via more and more high-stakes testing) only goes a small way to showing us what is going on in classrooms. And that, in the meantime, it turns off year after year of schoolchildren from engagement with living education rather than static, formulaic test prep, and test anxiety.

Furthermore, Joel Klein alienated both parents and teachers by his actions, policies, and attitudes. Children are greatly influenced by their parents (as President-Elect Obama surely knows; his comments about the importance of parents turning off the TV set, for example, say it so succinctly) and the teacher-student dynamic within the classroom also has great impact on whether a student will be inspired and able to learn. So both parents and teachers need to be on board with any program for running our schools. School administrations, government bodies, and private sector interests are also involved. It is imperative to have an education secretary who can bring these different constituencies into productive cooperation. Klein has been a divisive figure in NYC and this is not what we need at the national level.

My daughter started pre-K the year Klein started as schools chancellor in NYC. It has been painful and frustrating to see her be a guinea pig for his experiments in education. I would hate to see that happen to children around the nation. Klein should not be secretary of education.

Dara Furlow said...

As a former PTA President, President's Council President and CPAC member, I was horrified to hear Joel Klein's name floated as possible Secretary of Education. Joel Klein has been a disaster for NYC Public Schools. He has wasted vast sums of public money on standardized testing and a dubious school ratings system while alienating parents, teachers and administrators. He's good at doctoring data, but overall his performance deserves an "F."

Don Holley said...

As a father of two middle school sons solely educated in the NYC public school system, past president of a PA, currently on the SLT and proud parent who gives school tours to perspective parents, I must speak out. I have heard the words of Mr Klein up close and personal when he speaks about education being partnership between the schools and the parents (as long as the parents abide by all his decisions). He has elevated high stakes testing to an unthinkable degree (the numbers don't lie, do they Mr Bloomberg?). He had to receive a variance to become Chancellor as he hadn't earned appropriate teaching credentials .. and feel free to sing the praises, Mr. Klein, of the public schools your children attend. HE IS NOT AN EDUCATOR. HE IS A LAWYER and that doesn't make him a bad person, it has made him a bad choice to head the Department of Education in New York. He has hired other lawyers to run his no bid, opaque spend fest, without reducing class size or investing directly into the classrooms. Parents will never have a seat at his decision making table. Oh did I metion, its all about testing, Testing and more TESTING not education, and the buckets of money (that would be far better spent for instruction) have been pissed away keeping score. Years from now, when this failed experiment perpetratred on New York City's publically educated children is analyzed after having wasted our students' precious years, will we be thanking the God of your choice because he left NY to run our nation's education into the ground? President elect Obama, have mercy for the educational future of America's children...DO NOT APPOINT KLEIN. Hire an educator, just because.
Don Holley
Active Parent

Rochelle said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Anonymous said...

Please, if you're going to criticize Joel Klein, spell his first name correctly!

masters thesis said...

this kind of blog always useful for blog readers, it helps people during research. your post is one of the same for blog readers.


text:
Bumblebee Girl on Mission Possible

Posts tagged ‘body’

Clean living body care

Being allergic, intolerant and sensitive to almost every artificial substance is a challenge in our world both for external and internal use. Even before I really got in trouble I was interested in natural skin care and made many things myself. Therefore, I’ve developed my own routine and recipes and I’ll share it all in the section called body and skin care

Tag Cloud

%d bloggers like this:


text:
LA Times Won’t Release Obama-Khalidi Tape But Posts 24,000 Sarah Palin Emails

Posted on September 6, 2011

In 2008 The LA Times withheld a video that contained footage of Barack Obama celebrating with a group of Palestinians who were openly hostile towards Israel. Barack Obama reportedly even gave a toast to a former PLO operative, Rashid Khalidi, at this celebration. This was something the LA Times hid from the American public before the election. The media refused to release the video.

Terrorist Bill Ayers, Barack Obama and his good friend Jew-hater Rashid Khalidi

There were also reports that terrorists Bill Ayers and his wife Bernadine Dohrn were at the same Jew-bash.

Khalidi was thought to be connected to the PLO.

Fast forward to this week—

The Los Angeles Times released 24,000 Sarah Palin emails today.

More… Legal Insurrection added this: CBS News is leading the charge, but it will not release the full content of Obama’s donor conversation caught on an open microphone.

Posted in: Uncategorized


text:
I can't get my homepage to look like the demo

To set up your homepage like the demo, create a new page to use as your homepage, then go to Settings->Reading and select it as your static front page. Then go and edit that page, and set its template to 'Homepage', and use the module shortcode generator to build your layout. For your reference, the layout modules used in the demo are these: [loop category=world-news module=a ][loop category=games module=a ][loop category=all module=gallery][loop category=sports module=b ]