Welcome to "The Gods Are Bored," wishing on a star since 1975! Dunno why those dreams haven't come true.
Today I woke at 5:45 and got in my new car to drive to the teacher meetings that herald a new year of school.
My heart wasn't exactly light, but I did feel a touch of optimism as the shiny Subaru cruised to our mid-county campus. After all, wasn't it good to be working toward a cause, educating and inspiring young people? Wasn't it right and fine to be heading to a job?
That noble feeling lasted about one hour. First they overlooked me for my five years of service. Then they started in on evaluations, standardized testing (15 days this year), contract negotiations, and our district's draconian implementation of the state "reform" requirements.
I'll let this cat express my feelings about what is expected of me this year. And oh, I do feel sorry for my students!
Showing posts with label made Anne rage. Show all posts
Showing posts with label made Anne rage. Show all posts
Tuesday, September 02, 2014
Thursday, August 21, 2014
Teardown Times Three
There's a tenet of Paganism called the Threefold Law: Any harm you do comes back upon you threefold.
Today I am sending the intention of the Threefold Law against the developer who built this hideous mess:
This mess of McMansions sits on land that was once a farm. The land is about five miles from Antietam Battlefield.
Sitting in the midst of this heinous assault upon the rural countryside was this:
A Regency Era home (just ditch the porch and you'll see it) with the original cellar, flooring, and kitchen cabinetry. In 2008 I toured this home, because the developer of the McMansions expelled the tenant and left the place unlocked, hoping it would be vandalized.
There are all sorts of rules and regulations about tearing down houses that are on the Historical Register. Houses that probably served as hospitals during the Civil War. Houses that retain their original architectural elements.
Rules don't mean squat.
Today on her Facebook page, my sister lamented the overnight destruction of this property. It has been completely razed.
I tried to alert the county Historical Society to the plight of this home. I also fruitlessly searched for an old friend who was once a preeminent historian in the county. Sis, who lived within 200 yards of the house, did nothing.
There are three abandoned McMansions in Sis's neighborhood. The grass has grown up around these houses, and it's not clear if they are even up for sale. The families just stole away in the night, probably after being unable to make the mortgage note.
This is rural disaster. This is the character of a region being sucked down the drain.
I feel guilty. I should have done more to try to save that house.
But worse, I feel furious. This is a historic area, prime valley farmland, full 70 miles from Baltimore and Washington.
Threefold cursed be they who ordered the teardown of this house. Threefold cursed be they who carried out the act. And may the owners of the McMansions on the tract, one and all, face the reality of modern home construction. What do you think my sister's house will look like when it is as old as the one that was just razed?
Today I am sending the intention of the Threefold Law against the developer who built this hideous mess:
This mess of McMansions sits on land that was once a farm. The land is about five miles from Antietam Battlefield.
Sitting in the midst of this heinous assault upon the rural countryside was this:
A Regency Era home (just ditch the porch and you'll see it) with the original cellar, flooring, and kitchen cabinetry. In 2008 I toured this home, because the developer of the McMansions expelled the tenant and left the place unlocked, hoping it would be vandalized.
There are all sorts of rules and regulations about tearing down houses that are on the Historical Register. Houses that probably served as hospitals during the Civil War. Houses that retain their original architectural elements.
Rules don't mean squat.
Today on her Facebook page, my sister lamented the overnight destruction of this property. It has been completely razed.
I tried to alert the county Historical Society to the plight of this home. I also fruitlessly searched for an old friend who was once a preeminent historian in the county. Sis, who lived within 200 yards of the house, did nothing.
There are three abandoned McMansions in Sis's neighborhood. The grass has grown up around these houses, and it's not clear if they are even up for sale. The families just stole away in the night, probably after being unable to make the mortgage note.
This is rural disaster. This is the character of a region being sucked down the drain.
I feel guilty. I should have done more to try to save that house.
But worse, I feel furious. This is a historic area, prime valley farmland, full 70 miles from Baltimore and Washington.
Threefold cursed be they who ordered the teardown of this house. Threefold cursed be they who carried out the act. And may the owners of the McMansions on the tract, one and all, face the reality of modern home construction. What do you think my sister's house will look like when it is as old as the one that was just razed?
Saturday, June 16, 2012
Every Happy Dictator Should have a Mommy and a Daddy
Welcome to "The Gods Are Bored," and welcome to Anniebolic Steroid Anne! GrrrrrRRRRRrrrrr!
How angry am I? I've been blackballed from Anger Management classes!
Just kidding. But I am just. a. bit. out. of. the. sweetness. and. light. place.
I am an absolute sucker for people sticking their hands out for money. I have finally controlled the urge to give to the Knights of Columbus and the Salvation Army, but quite often I'll drop a dollar into a jar for a cause I know nothing about.
Thus Spare and I were at the local grocery emporium the other day, in a big ol' hurry, and there was a guy asking for change and handing out orange bookmarks. Never saw the guy, never heard of his outfit --New Jersey Council for Children's Rights. Children's rights? Well, everyone's in favor of children's rights ... oh ... except for genocidal dictators, those kind of vermin. So I dropped 27 cents into the jar.
The guy gave Spare a bookmark, saying, "You might need this." (Nope. Graduating on Tuesday.)
We got into the car, and Spare said, "Oh, crap! Look at this thing!"
There was a graphic of a little kid, with each hand being held by an unseen adult. "Because every child needs a mommy and a daddy."
Time to call Anniebolic Steroid Anne!
Last night when I ran into the store to get a bottle of olive oil, the dude wasn't around. So I scattered the change on the sidewalk. Hey, a kid has a right to a candy bar ... wasn't much more money in there than that.
Today I sat down with a little challenge. The kind of thing a school teacher can do in the summertime.
Here are some folks who grew up in traditional two-parent families (that being a mommy and daddy):
Adolf Hitler
Josef Stalin
Mao Zedong
Pol Pot
Mussolini
Emperor Hirohito
Fidel Castro did grow up in a single-parent household. Small potatoes compared to our nice, stable list above.
Granted, I did use Wikipedia, which I usually don't. But even if one or two of those dudes didn't deserve their Wiki press, that's still a pretty jaw-dropping load of genocidal maniacs.
I didn't even start on the serial killers, your basic Jeffrey Dahmers and Ted Bundys.
Suffice it to say that many children who got in the way of the group above had their rights (and their lives) snatched from them in an untimely and unsavory manner.
So, Anniebolic Anne made up a little list of these heartless dictators and went back to the store. First, she asked for her 27 cents back (even though she spilled more than that on the pavement yesterday). Then she informed the dude (same guy) that oftentimes children are far better served if one parent removes them from the daily battering and abuse of the other (personal experience).
I gave him back the book mark and said, "You are basically slapping the faces of a third of the people who walk into this store."
He asked if he could keep the list. I graciously allowed him to do so.
Then he asked if I had ever read the First Amendment to the Constitution.
Good news! I didn't punch him.
How angry am I? I've been blackballed from Anger Management classes!
Just kidding. But I am just. a. bit. out. of. the. sweetness. and. light. place.
I am an absolute sucker for people sticking their hands out for money. I have finally controlled the urge to give to the Knights of Columbus and the Salvation Army, but quite often I'll drop a dollar into a jar for a cause I know nothing about.
Thus Spare and I were at the local grocery emporium the other day, in a big ol' hurry, and there was a guy asking for change and handing out orange bookmarks. Never saw the guy, never heard of his outfit --New Jersey Council for Children's Rights. Children's rights? Well, everyone's in favor of children's rights ... oh ... except for genocidal dictators, those kind of vermin. So I dropped 27 cents into the jar.
The guy gave Spare a bookmark, saying, "You might need this." (Nope. Graduating on Tuesday.)
We got into the car, and Spare said, "Oh, crap! Look at this thing!"
There was a graphic of a little kid, with each hand being held by an unseen adult. "Because every child needs a mommy and a daddy."
Time to call Anniebolic Steroid Anne!
Last night when I ran into the store to get a bottle of olive oil, the dude wasn't around. So I scattered the change on the sidewalk. Hey, a kid has a right to a candy bar ... wasn't much more money in there than that.
Today I sat down with a little challenge. The kind of thing a school teacher can do in the summertime.
Here are some folks who grew up in traditional two-parent families (that being a mommy and daddy):
Adolf Hitler
Josef Stalin
Mao Zedong
Pol Pot
Mussolini
Emperor Hirohito
Fidel Castro did grow up in a single-parent household. Small potatoes compared to our nice, stable list above.
Granted, I did use Wikipedia, which I usually don't. But even if one or two of those dudes didn't deserve their Wiki press, that's still a pretty jaw-dropping load of genocidal maniacs.
I didn't even start on the serial killers, your basic Jeffrey Dahmers and Ted Bundys.
Suffice it to say that many children who got in the way of the group above had their rights (and their lives) snatched from them in an untimely and unsavory manner.
So, Anniebolic Anne made up a little list of these heartless dictators and went back to the store. First, she asked for her 27 cents back (even though she spilled more than that on the pavement yesterday). Then she informed the dude (same guy) that oftentimes children are far better served if one parent removes them from the daily battering and abuse of the other (personal experience).
I gave him back the book mark and said, "You are basically slapping the faces of a third of the people who walk into this store."
He asked if he could keep the list. I graciously allowed him to do so.
Then he asked if I had ever read the First Amendment to the Constitution.
Good news! I didn't punch him.
Friday, February 03, 2012
Better Go Give Blood, Because ...
Okay, so I know we are all supposed to be rational, thinking beings, able to calmly and rationally think away everything that makes us feel bad. It's called the Power of Positive Thinking or something like that.
What I want to know is this: Who thought up all this "rational" business? Did that person ever feel anything at all? I'm not Mr. Spock, and damn it, I don't want to be! The pox take rationality! A plague upon its house!
My sister and cousins decided to sell the family farm in Appalachia. I can't stop them. This isn't some George Clooney movie.
And yes, you kind readers have reminded me that I will always be an Appalachian, even if my name isn't on some parchment in the Bedford County Courthouse.
And yes, the man buying the property has called me multiple times (mostly on weekends at happy hour, when he's feeling particularly garrulous) to assure me that I will always be welcome to come and walk the land.
And YES, Bedford County long ago named the road where the farm is JOHNSON ROAD, so never mind that there's not a single Johnson left on it now ... it used to be nothing but Johnsons. Ergo, the name, Johnson Road. With all the Johnsons gone.
I am a raging beast over this.
What makes me rage is the fact that most rational, educated Americans are just that -- Americans. They may know what country their ancestors came from, but it's a dim memory. So they tell me to ground, center, grieve, and move on.
Trouble is, the rational Americans have gone unglued from their origins. They are blissfully unaware of the agony their ancestors must have felt when leaving the parent country behind. Let me tell you, being a first-generation expatriate is one agonizing haul. The Israelites were Psalming about it back in the Old Testament, when they got carted off to Babylon!
I am happiest now amongst my students, many of whom are expatriated from the Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico, and most of them not completely. They still identify as "Dominican" even if they have citizenship. It's great to be around them, because they have the same pride of place that I have, the same white-hot links to a home land. Make no mistake, Appalachia is the Dominican Republic within America. Many of the people who live in Appalachia consider themselves part of another nation, same as the Native Americans. Same as my Dominican students. Same as the Israelites, who wanted to dash their captors' children's heads against the trees.
I'm not going to dash anyone's head against a tree, but I can understand the passion that propels such feelings in an expatriate. In short, I feel like an exile. Maybe I'm not Dante, banished from Florence upon pain of death. But that's how I feel.
Therefore, I, Anne Johnson, do hereby plan to have the Zip code of Artemas, PA tattooed onto my back. I'm going to use part of the ill-gotten gains from the sale of the property to have this done.
Go ahead and be rational if you like. You might devise a method of purifying water ... but you won't write Inferno.
What I want to know is this: Who thought up all this "rational" business? Did that person ever feel anything at all? I'm not Mr. Spock, and damn it, I don't want to be! The pox take rationality! A plague upon its house!
My sister and cousins decided to sell the family farm in Appalachia. I can't stop them. This isn't some George Clooney movie.
And yes, you kind readers have reminded me that I will always be an Appalachian, even if my name isn't on some parchment in the Bedford County Courthouse.
And yes, the man buying the property has called me multiple times (mostly on weekends at happy hour, when he's feeling particularly garrulous) to assure me that I will always be welcome to come and walk the land.
And YES, Bedford County long ago named the road where the farm is JOHNSON ROAD, so never mind that there's not a single Johnson left on it now ... it used to be nothing but Johnsons. Ergo, the name, Johnson Road. With all the Johnsons gone.
I am a raging beast over this.
What makes me rage is the fact that most rational, educated Americans are just that -- Americans. They may know what country their ancestors came from, but it's a dim memory. So they tell me to ground, center, grieve, and move on.
Trouble is, the rational Americans have gone unglued from their origins. They are blissfully unaware of the agony their ancestors must have felt when leaving the parent country behind. Let me tell you, being a first-generation expatriate is one agonizing haul. The Israelites were Psalming about it back in the Old Testament, when they got carted off to Babylon!
I am happiest now amongst my students, many of whom are expatriated from the Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico, and most of them not completely. They still identify as "Dominican" even if they have citizenship. It's great to be around them, because they have the same pride of place that I have, the same white-hot links to a home land. Make no mistake, Appalachia is the Dominican Republic within America. Many of the people who live in Appalachia consider themselves part of another nation, same as the Native Americans. Same as my Dominican students. Same as the Israelites, who wanted to dash their captors' children's heads against the trees.
I'm not going to dash anyone's head against a tree, but I can understand the passion that propels such feelings in an expatriate. In short, I feel like an exile. Maybe I'm not Dante, banished from Florence upon pain of death. But that's how I feel.
Therefore, I, Anne Johnson, do hereby plan to have the Zip code of Artemas, PA tattooed onto my back. I'm going to use part of the ill-gotten gains from the sale of the property to have this done.
Go ahead and be rational if you like. You might devise a method of purifying water ... but you won't write Inferno.
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