Wednesday, February 15, 2006

Mum's the Word...

As was the case with Cindy Sheehan and, arguably, Hurricane Katrina, a key Administration member's refusal to engage with something they'd rather not deal with has caused the inflation of what 'might-have-been' into 'what-is' -- in this case, Vice President Dick Cheney's reportedly accidental shooting of one of his Texan millionare cronies.

Cheney is reportedly breaking his silence with Cheney-friendly Fox Network tonight. It should be interesting -- not that we can take anything he says at face value, after his ridiculing of John Kerry's hunting outfit during the last Presidential campaign, not to mention his outrageous public lies (including his reprehensible claim that he'd never met Senator Edwards during the one and only Vice Presidential campaign during that same election season).

Like most Americans, I wonder what the treatment of anyone else would have been if they'd just blasted a Texan millionaire in the face, neck and chest with birdshot. I reckon only millionaires can get away so blithely with shooting other millionaires.
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I love teaching in a place where a student questions my evening show of some Tex Avery cartoons with a plea for "the comparative subtleties" of Friz Freleng's works.

I love teaching in a place where I get to draw from the live model, too -- and structure lessons around studies I stupidly skirted when I was the same age as my students. It's never too late for this old dog to learn some new tricks.

I love teaching in a place where daytime conversations dance from the niceties of cat adoption capacities to potential book projects, from student anthology projects to whether Texan chili outstrips VT chili.

I love teaching at CCS, where everyone seems as happy to have me involved as I am to be involved -- other than spending time with my wife Marj and/or my own now-adult kids, I can't imagine a better way to spend part of my week.
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I've also begun working with a local nine-year-old student whose main pleasure in life seems to be cranking out endless 'monster drawings' in a ceaseless stream of inventive variations on all imaginable forms. This kind of 'tutoring' work is something I've done in the past, but again, it's nice to be working with a school that seems as happy to have me involved as I am to be working with them.
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Criswell, at it again...

"I Predict... that the farsightedness of many persons in Wyoming will make them the safest persons in the atomic holocaust of 1987. They will have shelters, and after the brief but costly war, we will depend upon the many survivors who live in Wyoming to help rebuild many cities of the country."