Sentential Links #240

Posted on March 14, 2011 by Kelly Sedinger

Linkage….

:: Manning is alleged to have committed serious crimes. The correct response would be to put him on trial. To hold a person without trial in solitary confinement under degrading conditions is a perversion of justice. (If there’s one area in which the Obama Administration is proving to be a big disappointment to me, this kind of thing is it. Come on. “Rule of law” and “Due process” either mean something, or they don’t and we’re just another country.)

:: The King was fat, and if he were alive today he would love the Fat King Sandwich with peanut butter, banana, honey and bacon on two slices of honey oat bread fried in butter.

:: Maybe it’s because the notion of “merit” in the rock hall seems even fuzzier; it’s not strictly commercial appeal, for certain. One can argue the inclusion or exclusion of sports figures in their respective halls. But the music selections seem more arbitrary.

:: Home schooling works for some, private school for others, but as a state, as a nation, these are not solutions that will render us competitive on a global state. Public education is the key to the future success of America, and we’ve got to strengthen our schools and reverse the appalling dropout rates rather than eviscerate the education budget and vilify our teachers. I’m teaching my children the value of education, and how to be a part of the solution, not part of the problem.

:: What these fights are both about is: who decides what a community is? What it looks like? Who sets the rules? Where are we going as a group? Do we go together or do we fracture?

:: But since this is the Internet, it’s not enough to make a sweeping declarative statement: We need to turn it into a pointless, absurd comparison! (Woo, Internet!) So let’s go ahead and pit the Disney films of their classic era against the Pixar films of today, and see who comes up top. (A Bug’s Life over Pinocchio? That is just insane. I’m sorry, but if A Bug’s Life had been made, exactly as it is, by someone other than Pixar, I really don’t think anybody would even remember it.)

:: And hey, look at that. I just wrote a piece about “Kim”. (Sometimes I wish I had any kind of tolerance at all for rap music. It’s just not my cup of tea at all, but I do grant its artistry.)

:: I will make myself crazy worrying about it all, so I am planning on starting a quake kit this weekend — water, food, backpacks, cash, flashlights, batteries, blankets, eyeglasses, shoes, First Aid kit…

More next week!

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3 Responses to Sentential Links #240

  1. Roger Owen Green says:
    March 14, 2011 at 9:51 am

    great quotes about film and especially public education!

  2. Lynn says:
    March 14, 2011 at 2:30 pm

    I really hate that phrase "vilifying teachers". Expecting teachers to be accountable is not vilifying teachers. Suggesting that perhaps not every teacher is the perfect, infallible, holy being they present themselves as is not vilifying teachers. And asking that teachers share some of the pain of budget cuts just like everyone else is certainly not vilifying teachers. Teachers need to get over themselves. Maybe I would be more sympathetic if teachers as a group didn't consider it part of their job to vilify parents.

  3. Roger Owen Green says:
    March 14, 2011 at 9:17 pm

    I SO disagree with Lynn's point. This "shared sacrifice" thing by the public employees, when those making a whole lot more get a free pass – see any number of episodes of The Daily Show in the last month, is as much about destroying workers' rights, i.e., union busting, as saving money. Perhaps moreso, since the Wisconsin teachers agreed to budget cuts, but that wasn't enough.

    As I'm married to a teacher, the notion that they "as a group…consider it part of their job to vilify parents" is absurd.

    No one suggests that teachers are perfect, but the notion that

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