Strange Little Collecting Project

  I recently read and taught A Tale of Two Cities for the first time. My only knowledge of the book before I started reading it was the infamous opening sentence: “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.” (Of course that is the 3.14 version of that opening sentence that goes on to make at least 6 more paradoxical comparisons). With my limited knowledge of the book, I was not expecting it to be as bloody and barbaric as it is. (Which is stupid because it’s about the French Revolution, aptly referred to as the “bloody revolution”). There were actually some sections of the book where I found myself feeling queasy at Dickens’ descriptions of the punishments and executions that were carried out. And having to explain to a room full of 14-15-year-old girls (whose school mascot is the teddy bear) what it means to disembowel and quarter someone is not exactly enjoyable. What struck me the most about the violence in the book was the barbaric perpetrators of these puni...

Whether you’re apathetic, emphatic, or absolutely effing nuts, presidential elections bring the fundamental differences that we have with one another to the surface even more so than usual. The common ground that is left between us is eroded and washed away by the flood of polarizing bipartisan rhetoric that pushes our political extremes even farther away from one another. Maybe this is why liberals and conservatives shout at one another, because it is hard to hear one another from opposite poles of the political spectrum. Moderates--that elusive species that seems to be going the way of the Siberian snow leopard--can still hear one another with out having to raise their voices. Ironically, it seems to be our society’s ability to communicate with more ease than this world has ever seen before that is contributing to the nastiness of our presidential elections. Social media is most definitely exacerbating the decline of civility in American politics. Right now on Facebook, I hav...

There’s a new show on HBO that I’ve recently started watching called The Newsroom. If you haven’t heard of it than you should probably check it out. I think it’s a very important show right now because it addresses a huge problem in our society: the ability of media networks to spin their journalism in order to obtain ratings. It is just another example of the bad synergy that an important aspect of our society—in this case, journalism—has with capitalism. (See also capitalism’s terrible marriage with environmentalism, public education, and the food industry…p.s. the list goes on). The show so far is about a famous cable news anchor named Will McAvoy who is known for his diplomatic, crowd-pleasing reporting. He bases his reporting on the ratings alone and so he frequently lets his guests off the hook, and he leaves his own opinions and beliefs out of his show. In episode one he has a very public meltdown , which directly and indirectly leads to his decision to become a more hone...

I don't typically spend a lot of time on playgrounds or in parks. Considering the fact that I have no children and I don't teach elementary school, this is a good thing. But as I approached my big move to New Orleans, I found myself becoming sentimental about my hometown.  Since I was living 2 blocks away from my elementary school, I started taking walks everyday to revisit the playground that helped socialize me. I don't know what I expected from those walks, maybe a more solid sense of what moving meant.  But for some reason I was definitely expecting the playground to look exactly like it did 20 years ago. I was disappointed when I realized just how different everything was. I'm not sure why I was so disappointed. I think it made me sad to realize that the kids that go to that school now are making entirely different playground memories than I did. And based on the new equipment I saw on the playground, those memories are going to be a lot less painful. The fi...

So, in case you haven’t heard North Carolina has been passing some pretty awful laws over the last few months. The Amendment One Crusade was followed by House Bill 819, the bill that has made science illegal when it comes to rising sea levels on North Carolina Coasts. Last Friday, the House passed a bill that would make fracking legal in North Carolina within the next few years. It passed in a 66 to 43 vote. The bill will return to the Senate today where it will likely pass. I think I’m most upset because many North Carolinians don’t know what fracking is, yet it is a process that is being voted on that could affect some of the most densely populated areas of the state. Fracking—also known as hydraulic fracturing--is the process of extracting natural gas from shale that lies deep below the surface of the earth…like a mile deep or more. Fracking uses vertical and horizontal drilling to reach the shale basins deep in the ground and then water, sand, and “other components” (la...

Recently I’ve developed this really persistent and abrasive cough. I’m not entirely sure where it came from, but my most educated guess is that it came from cleaning out 4 years of stuff from my classroom. The Donny Darko sized dust bunnies managed their way into my lungs and now I sound like Joan Rivers’ great-grandmother. The problem with coughing though is that it’s not at all socially acceptable. Even though I've managed to embarrass myself with a powerful sneeze, typically people don't seem to mind if you sneeze... especially strangers. Since most people have very distinct sneezes, strangers don’t know what to expect. They don’t find sneezes to be incredibly obnoxious…even if they are in fact obnoxious because of the uniqueness and novelty of the sound. But most people sound relatively the same when they are coughing which I think leads to an overall intolerance of coughing in our society. If you don’t believe me, think about what you say to someone who is sneezi...

We live in a country that is obsessed with information. I consume more information than I ever realize on a daily basis because it’s literally everywhere. If I’m pouring a bowl of Cheerios, I learn that “three grams of soluble fiber daily from whole grain oat foods, like Cheerios cereal, and a diet low in saturated fat and cholesterol, may reduce the risk of heart disease.” As I pour my soymilk (lactose intolerance sucks) over the cereal, I learn that soymilk contains isoflavones and “medical studies show isoflavones may have potential health benefits [such as] lowering LDL cholesterol, maintaining bone density, [and] providing antioxidant protection against harmful effects of free radicals.” I usually eat my breakfast while watching the local morning news, and there is usually a ticker-tape of news whizzing by the bottom of the screen giving me more information, so I can watch the news while I watch the news. A lot of times I will watch the news and eat my cereal while scrolling throu...