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Come, Have An Aneurysm With Me!

October 5, 2008 – 12:43 am

Mamacita says:  This is my answer to a teacher forum question:  Why does it seem that students have so many issues nowadays?”

Many parents don’t want to take the responsibility and administrators don’t want to anger these parents. Too many parents expect the school to supply everything and BE everything because the parents don’t know how, don’t want to, it’s inconvenient, they’d rather buy cigarettes and beer than mittens and socks, and they themselves were brought up to believe that society OWED them, when in fact society owes nobody anything. Our schools are expected to feed, clothe, counsel, medicate, analyze, supply, and educate each child according to his/her individual requirements, and no institution or individual can do that properly if all are to be accommodated - there aren’t that many hours in the day.  Somebody has to be ignored and that ’somebody’ is our good, well-behaved, average-and-above kids, who get pretty much nothing while the misbehaving attention-grabbing brat kid next to them gets all kinds of attention.

Our schools should be there to educate those who wish to be educated. Our schools are not should not be places to park a kid who has no intention of cooperating with the teacher or doing a lick of schoolwork. Students who need a little extra help and who respond to it, yes, give them that extra help. This rant is not about that; it’s about a kid who knowingly and eagerly disrupts and cares nothing about learning, only about making waves. Besides, I’m willing to give a kid the benefit of the doubt, at least in the beginning; whereas, their parents are supposed to be adults who should know better if they’re worth a toot.

Our schools should not be substitutes for a home, and unfortunately, for far too many kids today, school is the closest thing to a decent home a kid has, because at his real home, mom is shacked up with his seatmate’s dad, REAL dad is in jail or living with his parents who are enabling his immature behavior, every adult in the kid’s life is behaving more like a child than the children are, nobody is training him, nobody is disciplining him, and everywhere he goes, he gets his own way because nobody wants to deal with a tantrum, a fit, or anything from him that indicates displeasure of any kind. OR, he’s completely ignored because Mommy and/or Daddy have their own lives to pursue, and those lives are mostly in pursuit of pleasure  on someone else’s dollar. Either way, genuine consequences as a result of his own actions are unknown, because the school is required to throw a cushion over him to protect him from such things, and 86-year-old Grandma is too tired and too disgusted with her own kids and too out-of-touch to raise a child in the 21st century, and because, oh poor little thing, his life is AWFUL and we must all tiptoe around him. The home has no books, no magazines (except the dirty ones the child has full access to, in Mom and Uncle Daddy’s bedroom) the house is full of liquor and tobacco and worse, they can’t pay the rent but they’ve got a full liquor cabinet and a huge flat-screen LCD tv and plenty of cigarettes, there are no bedtimes and no privacy and no personal possessions - either at home OR at school - and most of the meals are supplied by our tax dollars. Nobody in this kid’s life works, except for his teachers, and they are referred to at home as “suckers,” and expected to fill in for ho-babe mommy and her various live-ins, none of whom have a job or intend to ever get one, and the kids are great sources of extra welfare money.

This is pretty harsh, but it accurately describes about a third of most of the public school kids I’ve had, and their “families.”

The rest of the kids were sweet, well-mannered, well-behaved, smart, and worked hard, but the majority of the time, attention, and money went to the lowest common denominator. This is unacceptable.

I am extremely harsh with adults who do not act as such. They do not deserve sympathy; their children do, but the adults in their lives do not. It’s a shame we can’t permanently remove innocent children from these dens of disgusting, immoral adults and put them with loving families who would take proper care of them.

My college students often write about their childhoods, and the majority of them wish somebody in authority would have removed them from their mothers’ homes and placed them with somebody who was actually grown up, and who did not subject them to such antics as shacking up with men who didn’t care enough about them to make it legal, and forcing a child to witness it. Even the drugs and booze didn’t affect my students as much as having to live with adults who didn’t love them enough to make the relationship legally bonding.  What do you think goes through a kid’s mind when he knows either Mom or Dad could walk out the door any time things didn’t go his/her way?   And yes, I know that many marriages don’t work out, but I also believe most of those would if both parties would just buck up and GROW up and act like the adults they’re supposed to be.  That means, of course, that people would need to keep their hormones under control, therefore keeping unlawful penii out of their pants, and one’s own out of unlawful pants.  That’s too difficult for some people.  We all know what kind.

Y’all should just read some of my students’ essays some time. Sometimes, I cry over them, late at night, and wish I could go back in time to somehow get some grown-up sense in their parents’ heads before they ruined an innocent kid. With some mentalities, though, I have also come to believe that no amount of anything can change the way people are wired, and some people are wired to look out for #1 and do whatever feels good for THEM. Nobody else has any rights.

Bah. Bad day, can ya tell?

I’m reading an essay by a forty-year-old man who is telling me of his life with his mother, who had him at thirteen, kept him so she could be “loved unconditionally, and get a lot of welfare money, too” and ended up raising himself because Mommy had a right to be a free and fun-loving teen, didn’t she? Her life shouldn’t stop because of one stupid mistake, should it?  She’s got a right to a life!  He writes of his mom’s string of shack-ups and how, after the first five or six, he stopped trying to bond with them because it hurt too badly when they left, and they all left. He writes of a mother who has dated his classmates. He writes of Uncle Daddies who claimed to love him but left him anyway. He writes of wanting desperately to go with some of the Daddies but Mommy wouldn’t let him go because “she couldn’t LIVE without her baby” which didn’t take him long to translate into “I can’t LIVE without the welfare money you bring in because it buys my cigarettes.”

And this is only one of many, all similar, all wishing their parents had been committed adults, instead of adults who should have been committed.

To some of our kids, the word “adult” means “dirty.” They don’t even KNOW any grownups, except for us.

Many of you younger teachers think I’m jaded and opinionated and judgmental, and that you have a perfect right to live as you please and old fogies like me should butt out. I used to think like that, too, until experience, and interaction with children of these dreadful non-existent “families,” taught me otherwise.

I do not say these things to pick on or hurt anyone; but I hope some people can learn from them. Not that getting older and more experienced makes you judgmental, but that experience forces you to see things as a child might see them, and might go out and do likewise.

I’m stopping now before I have an aneurysm.

Jane Goodwin | Education, Jane Goodwin, JaneG, Jobs, Mamacita, MamacitaG, Politics, Things Nice People Already Know, etiquette, schools | Comments (11)

Quotation Saturday

October 4, 2008 – 12:01 am

Mamacita says:  I’m not much of a political blogger, nor have I any desire to be one, but today’s antics by our elected representatives bring to mind the phrase “taxation without representation.”

It also brings to mind this old piece of political advice: “People elected you to be their honest representative.  Don’t let them down.”  But that’s behind the times.  Apparently now it’s more like “Every man for himself” in D.C.  Or maybe “Many Americans have lost their jobs to foreign soil, will soon be homeless, and trusted the bank to take good care of their money.  But who cares as long as I’ve got mine, hahahahahahah!”  Shame on all who voted for it.  Shame.

I mean, what do most big-time politicians know about ordinary people?  They know nothing about us, and they don’t care to know.  Mortgage?  Debt?  Insurance?  Medicine?  Education?  What do big-time politicians care about such mundane things?  Will those things put lots of cash into their own pockets?  No?  Then big-time politicians don’t care about those things.  And from what little I’ve heard, the more a politician talks about how much he cares, the less he really cares.

1.  Integrity is telling myself the truth.  Honesty is telling the truth to other people. –Spencer Johnson

2.  Honesty is the best policy.  If I lose mine honor, I lose myself.  –Shakespeare

3.  If it is not right do not do it; if it is not true do not say it.  –Marcus Aurelius

4.  To be persuasive we must be believable; to be believable we must be credible; to be credible we must be truthful.  — Edward R. Murrow

5.  The trite saying that honesty is the best policy has met with the just criticism that honesty is not policy.  The real honest man is honest from conviction of what is right, not from policy.  — Robert E. Lee

6.  In politics, nothing happens by accident.  If it happens, you can bet it was planned that way.  –FDR

7.  Politics is the diversion of trivial men who, when they succeed at it, become important in the eyes of more trivial men.  –George Jean Nathan

8.  The incestuous relationship between government and big business thrives in the dark.  –Jack Anderson

9.  There is little place in the political scheme of things for an independent, creative personality, for a fighter.  Anyone who takes that role must pay a price.  –Shirley Chisholm

10. When buying and selling are controlled by legislation, the first things to be bought and sold are the legislators.  –P.J. O’Rourke

11.  Policies that emanate from ivory towers often have an adverse impact on the people out in the field who are fighting the wars or bringing in the revenues.  — Colin Powell

12.  If you ever injected truth into politics, you would have no politics.  –Will Rogers

13.  Trade is much superior to piracy.  You can rob and kill a man but once, but you can cheat him again and again.  –Louis L’Amour

14.  Private and public life are subject to the same rules; and truth and manliness are two qualities that will carry you through this world much better than policy, or tact, or expediency, or any other word that was ever devised to conceal or mystify a deviation from the straight line.  –  Robert E. Lee

15.  If you want to gather honey, don’t kick over the beehive.  –Dale Carnegie

16.  Some men change their party for the sake of their principles; others their principles for the sake of their party.  –Winston Churchill

17.  Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler.  –Einstein

18.  Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired, signifies in the final sense a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. –DDE

19.  A business that makes nothing but money is a poor kind of business.  –Henry Ford

20.  He that is of the opinion money will do everything may well be suspected of doing everything for money. –Benjamin Franklin

21.  Whenever the people are well informed, they can be trusted with their own government; that whenever things get so far wrong as to attract their notice, they may be relied on to set them to rights.  –Thomas Jefferson

22.  If a free society cannot help the many who are poor, it cannot save the few who are rich.  –JFK

23.  The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy.  –Martin Luther King Jr.

24.  Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man’s character, give him power.  –Abraham Lincoln

25.  You cannot shake hands with a clenched fist. –Golda Meir

26.  No man is above the law and no man below it.  –Theodore Roosevelt

27.  I always remember an epitaph which is in the cemetery at Tombstone, Arizona. It says: “Here lies Jack Williams. He done his damnedest.” I think that is the greatest epitaph a man can have.  –Harry S Truman

28.  Few men have virtue to withstand the highest bidder.  — George Washington

29.  A politician thinks of the next election - a statesman, of the next generation. –James Freeman Clarke

30.  What has destroyed liberty and the rights of men in every government that has ever existed under the sun? The generalizing and concentrating of all cares and powers into one body. –Thomas Jefferson

31.  It’s not the employer who pays the wages. Employers only handle the money. It’s the customer who pays the wages. –Henry Ford

32.  No amount of charters, direct primaries, or short ballots, will make a democracy out of an illiterate people.  –Walter Lippman

33.  Beware the politically obsessed.  They are often bright and interesting, but they have something missing in their natures; there is a hole, an empty place, and they use politics to fill it up.  It leaves them somehow misshapen.  — Peggy Noonan

34.  There is no more independence in politics than there is in jail.  –Will Rogers

35.  Government has come to be a trade, and is managed solely on commercial principles.  A man plunges into politics to make his fortune, and only cares that the world shall last his days.  –  Ralph Waldo Emerson

36.  The flood of money that gushes into politics today is a pollution of democracy.  –T.H. White

37.  Politics, it seems to me, for years, or all too long, has been concerned with right or left instead of right or wrong.  –Richard Armour

38.  Reporters thrive on the world’s misfortune. For this reason they often take an indecent pleasure in events that dismay the rest of humanity.  –Russell Baker

39.  The most important political office is that of the private citizen. –Louis D. Brandeis

40. An election is coming. Universal peace is declared and the foxes have a sincere interest in prolonging the lives of the poultry. –T. S. Eliot

41.  It is better to be violent, if there is violence in our hearts, than to put on the cloak of nonviolence to cover impotence. –Mohandas Gandhi

42.  When one may pay out over two million dollars to presidential and Congressional campaigns, the U.S. government is virtually up for sale. –John W. Gardner

43.  Life without liberty is like a body without spirit. –Kahlil Gibran

44.  We live in a world in which politics has replaced philosophy. –Martin L. Gross

45.  We would all like to vote for the best man, but he is never a candidate. –Kin Hubbard

46.  Whenever a man has cast a longing eye on offices, a rottenness begins in his conduct. –Thomas Jefferson

47.  Ninety percent of the politicians give the other ten percent a bad reputation. –Henry A. Kissinger

48.  Instead of giving a politician the keys to the city, it might be better to change the locks. –Doug Larson

49.  I don’t make jokes. I just watch the government and report the facts. –Will Rogers

50.  Suppose you were an idiot, and suppose you were a member of Congress; but I repeat myself. –Mark Twain

Political?  Nah.  Opinionated?  Perhaps.

Disgusted?  Definitely.

The Founding Fathers, and the Founding Mothers, too, are turning over in their graves.  And no, Virginia, the Constitution is not now nor will it ever be outdated.

The inmates are running the institution.  God help us all.

You may quote me.
Jane Goodwin | Education, Jane Goodwin, JaneG, Jobs, Literature, Mamacita, MamacitaG, Politics, Quotation Saturday, Steve Spangler, Things Nice People | Comments (2)

Things Nice People Already Know: Elevator Etiquette

October 2, 2008 – 4:29 pm

Mamacita says:  When the elevator door opens, dear ones, don’t make a mad dash for it.  Wait until the people who are already on there get off, before you try to enter.  Don’t stand directly in front of the elevator door, either.  Stand to the side, so people have room to exit the elevator.  Don’t even START to move toward the open door until everybody is off; it’s pushy and rude.

That’s just basic etiquette, which apparently many people in my building don’t understand.

Seriously, I don’t get it.  People crowd up close to the elevator and start pushing their way in before the doors are even completely open!  This pushes the people who are already in there to the back, where they then must start pushing people aside in order to get OUT.

The world would be a better place if people would wait their turn and stop pushing.  This applies to pretty much everything.

Oh, and the guy with the small dog who pushed his way into the elevator last night?  Thanks so much for both the poop and the dander reaction.  Next time, please hire a sitter for your animal; don’t bring it to school with you.  Public buildings are not a proper place to bring a pet.

Besides, it might ruin the curve.

Jane Goodwin | Jane Goodwin, JaneG, Mamacita, MamacitaG, Scheiss Weekly, Things Nice People Already Know, etiquette, schools | Comments (4)

Carnival of Education, in a Waffle Cone

October 1, 2008 – 9:09 pm

The Carnival of Education is up.  Click on over there and catch up on what’s happening in the world of education.  If you don’t keep up, then you should keep your mouth shut about it, and about all other topics you don’t keep current about as well.

I was so sleepy after class tonight that I was afraid to pull onto the interstate.  That’s why I went to Bruester’s and bought a dip of chocolate pecan ice cream in a waffle cone.

Oh, the sacrifices I make for the safety of the world!

Thanks to ice cream, I made it home without harming myself or anyone else.  This proves, scientifically, that I should begin every trip home with a dip of chocolate pecan in a waffle cone.

Too bad it wasn’t raining tonight.  The world would have been even safer with two dips.

Although, if you count the driver, there actually WERE two dips in my car tonight.

One of them was delicious, and the other one used to be.

P.S.  The waffle cone was so fresh, it was STILL WARM.

Jane Goodwin | Carnival of Education, Jane Goodwin, JaneG, Mamacita, MamacitaG, Scheiss Weekly, schools | Comments (2)

Ten Things Tuesday

September 30, 2008 – 12:01 am

The thunder is rolling and the lightning is flashing and smart people everywhere are turning OFF their computers but please notice:  I’m still writing at mine.  I’m not really addicted to it; I can quit any time.

This Tuesday, my ten things are about things I hate find wanting.

1.  I hate greatly dislike drivers who don’t use their turn signals, or who use them and let them continue to blink as they drive blithely down the road.

2. I loathe am somewhat put off by people who park in the handicapped spots when they have no license plate or hangar that gives them rightful permission to do so.  I would LOVE to see every single one of these offenders ticketed and fined a fortune.

3. Litterbugs are disgusting. Period.  No exceptions.

4. People who hold conversations in movie theaters: are such beings even human?

5. Anyone over the age of 12 who still writes in teenage cutesy code, ie texting symbols, when they’re not texting. Or when they are.

6. “Anyways” is not a real word. People who use it apparently don’t know any better, which is never a viable excuse for anything.

7. “Lose” and “loose” are not interchangeable. Please learn the difference and never choose the wrong word again. I’ve voted “no way” on scholarship applications before, based on spelling.

8. Yes, Virginia, capital letters ARE necessary at the proper times, and if you don’t use them you appear stupid.

9. I do not wish ill fortune or harm to anyone or anything, but someday, if WalMart should catch fire (God forbid) I want to see the fire trucks ram all the cars parked in the fire zone - yes, even those who are there “just for a minute” - clear across the parking lot into next week.

10. Fat people who wear short shirts. Why? Have they no regard or respect for those who have to see that?  The horror! COVER IT UP!!!! NOW!!!! EWWWWWW! I think of them whenever I see cottage cheese, or the overhang from an ice cream cone. Not attractive. Ever.  And why, for the love of God, do they always wear low-slung jeans, too? That is not a love handle; that is a fully-blown-up inner tube around their waist.  People who have a fat flap should not let it ever see public light or air.

I might be in a mood.  Why, does it show?  Many apologies.  I didn’t mean to loose my cool.  anyways, U haf 2 cut me sm slack, 4 im tird - n - stff thse dayz.

P.S.  Wassuuuup?

Jane Goodwin | Jane Goodwin, JaneG, Mamacita, MamacitaG, Scheiss Weekly, Ten Things Tuesday | Comments (4)

Crop Circles and the Salty Devil

September 28, 2008 – 4:58 pm

Mamacita says:  My hero Steve Spangler will be appearing on Ellen again this Tuesday; don’t miss it! Check your local TV Guide for the time and station.  Steve is SO MUCH FUN to watch!!!!!!!!!!!  Let your kids watch, too.  You’ll all learn something.

I took the small mower out to what I like to call the North Forty yesterday, to try to get some of that tall grass down before velociraptors started making creepy trails underneath it, and before the neighbors showed up at the door with a petition.  After about six turns around the acreage, the mower died.  It still had several gallons, or approximately twelve thousand dollars worth, of gas in it, so I couldn’t figure out why it had died.  I pulled up the blades and turned the key; it started right up.  I put down the blades and it instantly died again.  Rinse, repeat.  So I gave up and drove it back to the garage, called it a few choice names which I shall not repeat here lest I lose my wholesome reputation - but then, it’s probably far too late to worry about that, isn’t it, mwahahahaha - and haven’t had time to try again.  So, my house is now the one with the really odd formations in the grass; no doubt a television crew will show up any minute now to make a big deal out of how the aliens have been in the county again.

If you like poetry, please consider calling in to Fausta’s Friday Night Poetry Slam, at 7:00 p.m. southern Indiana time, and I couldn’t tell you what the official name for our time zone is because it keeps CHANGING, thanks to some politicians who shall not be elected ever again.  Use these next few days to find a poem you especially love, call in to Fausta’s podcast, and share it with us.  If you say you don’t like poetry, I don’t believe you.  Somewhere on this planet there is a poem you like, even if it’s one that begins with “There was a young girl from Cape Cod.”

So here I am tonight,  my house in the midst of alien crop circles, my freezer full of fresh vegetables and frozen berries, a fresh loaf of whole wheat bread in my breadbox, a new loaf of white hidden safely in the oven (I have bread-loving cats) and a gallon and a half of milk, neither of which will expire for over a week, in my refrigerator.  I’m going to gather up all of the processed, salt-laden foods in the pantry later tonight - anything to get out of grading essays - and package them up for giveaway.  If you want some, come on over.

And by the way, don’t pay the least bit of attention to the clever marketing device called “euphemisms for salt on labels.”  “Low sodium” probably means 500 mg instead of 800.  “Healthy choice” probably means 450 instead of 900.  “Less than half the sodium” means 450 instead of a thousand.  Forget it, because there ARE no completely sodium-free packaged processed foods out there.  Give up and go home and make something from scratch, and even then you have to read the labels carefully on packages of flour and bottles of oil.   Somewhere out there is a very clever salt merchant who made a deal with the devil.

I’ve met the devil, actually.  I used to work for him.  I’m not kidding.

But I digress, and don’t you hate it when people use that expression?  But I really WAS digressing.

Where was I?  Oh yes.  Crop circles and the salty devil.

I could probably make a poem out of that.  Maybe I will.  I’ve got several days until the Slam on Friday.

Jane Goodwin | Baking, Jane Goodwin, JaneG, Literature, Mamacita, MamacitaG, Politics, Scheiss Weekly, Steve Spangler, schools | Comments (7)

Sarah, Sarah, Plain and Tall, What’s The Deal With Jacob, Y’all?

September 27, 2008 – 8:07 pm

Mamacita says:  Consistency in literature is very important to me, possibly more important than it is in real life.  For example, when Jacob Witting tells his new wife Sarah that he and his brothers and sisters all loved the land, he should not then turn around in the next volume and tell her that he was an only child whose father walked out on the family early on, forcing a very young Jacob to quit school to help support his mother because there was no one else to do it.

What the heck?  Not even Christopher Walken could get away with an inconsistency that big! What’s the deal, scriptwriters?

And since it was Christopher Walken, I suppose I should have said “brahthahs and sistahs.”  But since it was Christopher Walken, who really cares?  That man is SEXY, whether he be a sweet wholesome father or one of the creepy murdering sexy psychopaths he usually plays.  Sexiest of all, of course, is when he sings and dances.  He’s even sexy when he dances and lip-synchs.  Or asks for more cowbell.

Ah, Christopher Walken, I know you were only reciting your lines, but after that huge inconsistency, a lot of the story was spoiled for me.  I still love the three books, of course, but I can’t quite believe anything Jacob says after he changes his story.

Few people are as picky as I am, of course, and thank goodness for that, but when it comes to a piece of literature - and yes, kiddie lit is literature - I want consistency.

As Jean Kerr says,  not in these exact words but ALMOST, it’s okay with me if you say the bed is a piano, but after that I expect that no one will sit on the piano.

Mm, Jean Kerr.  She was one of the funniest writers EVER.  If you don’t know Jean, shame on you, and go to the library as soon as it opens in the morning.  I mean, this is the woman who said:  “If you can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs, it’s just possible you haven’t grasped the situation.” and  “Now the thing about having a baby - and I can’t be the first person to have noticed this - is that thereafter you have it.” and”One of the most difficult things to contend with in a hospital is that assumption on the part of the staff that because you have lost your gall bladder you have also lost your mind.”  I adore Jean Kerr.

Besides which, the Kerrs lived next door to the Killileas!

Tangent much?

Jane Goodwin | Jane Goodwin, JaneG, Literature, Mamacita, MamacitaG, Movies, Scheiss Weekly, Uncategorized | Comments (4)

Quotation Saturday

September 27, 2008 – 12:05 am

Mamacita says:  I had such a good time last night at Fausta’s Poetry Slam!  It makes me really happy that she’s going to have another one next Friday night at 7:00.  Find your favorite poems and join us!  If you don’t have a favorite poem, because “poetry sucks, ewwwww,” just print out the lyrics to your favorite song because, guess what, song lyrics are poems.  Duh.  NOW tell me you hate poetry.  Yeah, that’s what I thought.

1.  The saddest thing I can imagine is to get used to luxury.  –Charlie Chaplin

2.  A man should keep his little brain attic stocked with all the furniture that he is likely to use, and the rest he can put away in the lumber room of his library, where he can get it if he wants it.  –Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

3.  It ain’t braggin’ if you can do it.  –Dizzy Dean

4.  All that hot stuff that happened in the bible is happening today on every street.  –Robert Fontaine

5.  I’ll try being nicer if you’ll try being smarter.  –Unknown

6.  He bears an unmistakable resemblance to a cornered rat.  –Norman Mailer

7.  Raphael was employed to decorate the Vatican not because he was a great painter, but because his uncle was architect to the Pope.  –Lord Melbourne

8.  He had a lot of fat that did not fit.  –H.G. Wells

9.  The world is gradually becoming a place where I do not care to be any more.  –John Berryman

10.  We are almost always wearied in the company of persons with whom we are not permitted to be weary.  –La Rouchefoucauld

11.  When a woman has had nine children, she begins to have suspicions about some of the beautiful passages in love stories.  –”Reflections of a Bachelor,” 1903

12.  Everywhere is walking distance, if you have the time.  –Stephen Wright

13.  Writing is easy; all you do is sit staring at a blank sheet of paper until the drops of blood form on your forehead.  –Gene Fowler

14.  The time you enjoy wasting is not wasted time.  –Bertrand Russell

15.  I wept not, so to stone within I grew.  –Dante

16.  An obstinate man does not hold opinions - they hold him.  –Joseph Butler

17.  From the earliest times, the old have rubbed it into the young that they are wiser than they, and before the young had discovered waht nonsense this was, they were old, too, and it profited them to carry on the imposture.  –W. Somerset Maugham

18.  To aim at the best and to remain essentially ourselves is one and the same thing.  –Janet Erskine Stuart

19.  Nature should have been plased to have made this age miserable, without making it also ridiculous.  –Michel De Montaigne

20.  He felt like a nightmare that had yet to be dreamt.  –Stanislaw J. Lec

21.  Our names are labels, plainly printed in the bottled essence of our past behavior.  –Logan Pearsall Smith

22.  I listen to the voices.  –William Faulkner

23.  We have to distrust each other.  It is our only defense against betrayal.  –Tennessee Williams

24.  When women are depressed they either eat or go shopping.  Men invade another country.  –Elaine Boosler

25.  Circumstance does not make me; it reveals me.  –William James

26.  They always say that time changes things, but you actually have to change them yourself.  –Andy Warhol

27.  When it is not necessary to change, it is necessary not to change.  –JFK

28.  Is it progress if a cannibal uses a fork?  –Stanislaw J. Lec

29.  Be the change you want to see in the world.  –Gandhi

30.  Ninety percent of everything is crap.  –Theodore Sturgeon

31.  Forgiving those who hurt us is the key to personal peace.  –G. Weatherly

32.  Doubt is not a pleasant state, but certainty is a ridiculous one.  –Voltaire

33.  There is nothing certain in a man’s life but that he may lose it.  –Owen Merideth

34.  Acceptance of what has happened is the first step to overcoming the consequences of any misfortune.  –William James

35.  Laugh at yourself first, before anyone else can. –Elsa Maxwell

36.  No great deed is done by falterers who ask for certainty.  –George Eliot

37.  Dwelling on the negative simply contributes to its power.  –Shirley MacLaine

38.  Poor is the man whose pleasures depend on the permission of another.  –Madonna

39.  It is easier to fight for our principles than it is to live up to them. –Alfred Adler

40.  To each man is reserved a work which he alone can do. –Susan Blow

41.  Be not afraid of growing slowly; be afraid only of standing still.  –Chinese proverb

42.  We all have the extraordinary coded within us, waiting to be released.  –Jean Houston

43.  You have all eternity to be cautious in when you’re dead.  –Lois Platford

44.  The cure for grief is motion.  –Elbert Hubbard

45.  IF you’re looking for perfection, look in the mirror.  If you find it there, expect it elsewhere.  –Malcolm Forbes

46.  The course of life is unpredictable. . . no one can write his autobiography in advance.  –Abraham Joshua Heschel

47.  Having harvested all the knowledge and wisdom we can from our mistakes and failures, we should put them behind us and go ahead.  –Edith Johnson

48.  . . . (he) sold his soul and lived with good conscience on the proceeds.  –Logan Pearsall Smith

49.  Growing old gracefully should begin with youth.  –Walter B. Wolfe

50.  Without adventure, civilization is in full decay.  –A.N. Whitehead

And now I want a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, and I’m going to have one because it’s my house and I can.  Yes, I am quite sophisticated.

I wanted one last night, too, but we didn’t have any bread.  Now we do.  Come on over.  PB&J for everybody!  (Bring chips.)

P.S.  Happy Birthday to my Other Sister!  (It was yesterday.)

Jane Goodwin | Jane Goodwin, JaneG, Literature, Mamacita, MamacitaG, Quotation Saturday, Scheiss Weekly | Comments (5)

The Carnival of Education, and Homemade Bread

September 24, 2008 – 10:17 pm

The latest Carnival of Education is up over at Steve Spangler’s blog.  Be sure to check it out, because if you don’t keep up, you forfeit all whining rights.  Remember that on Election Day, too.

So, y’all want to learn how to bake homemade bread?  You’ve come to the right place.  Wash your hands.  We’re going to bake enough bread for you to have some, freeze some, and give some away.

Now, get out the largest bowl you own.  Put about 1/4 cup of yeast in it.  Add a tablespoon of sugar - MUST BE REAL SUGAR, no fakies.  Put in a cup of warm water.  Not hot; yeast is a living thing and you don’t want to kill it.  Your bread won’t rise if you murder the yeast.  Mix it up well.  Let it fester and rise for about twenty minutes.  It won’t smell very good.  It’s also fun to watch.  Bring in the kids.

To the smelly yeast in your very large bowl, add five eggs, 3/4 cup of melted butter or vegetable oil (depending on the state of your health), one cup of sugar, 5 teaspoons of salt, and two cups of milk.  Any kind of milk will do (except chocolate), and it doesn’t matter if it’s a little bit sour.  Open up a 5-pound sack of all-purpose flour and dump in ALMOST all of it.  Start stirring, and this will take some time.  Get it mixed together as best you can with a big spoon, and then dip your hands in that remaining flour and start mixing with your fingers.  If it feels at all dry, add more water or milk.  If it feels too goopy, add more flour.  No two batches are the same, and you have to just sort of play it by ear, with bread.  Once you’ve got a bowl full of right-feeling dough, set it in the middle of your very clean kitchen table to rise.  Don’t let it rise on your stove; sometimes, it overflows and you really don’t want that sticky dough down in your stove’s burners.  Set your oven timer for an hour, and go do something else.

When the timer goes off, check your dough.  It should have risen quite a lot.  Don’t worry if it seems to be climbing out of the bowl; that’s a GOOD sign.  Poke the dough with a flour-covered finger; if it doesn’t pop back up, the dough is ready to be kneaded.

Dump all that leftover flour out of the bag and onto your clean kitchen table.  Turn the dough out of the bowl and right into the pile of flour.  Coat both hands, and the hands of any helpers, with flour, and stick them into the big lump of dough and start folding it, pushing it, folding it again, pushing it again, for about fifteen minutes, or five average songs.  (What, doesn’t everybody knead bread to music?  Well, you ought to!)  When your dough doesn’t “pop” when you squeeze a little piece of it, it’s ready to put into the pans. (The kneading’s purpose is to get all the air bubbles out of your bread dough.)

Then, divide your dough into loaves, the size of which will depend on the size of your bread pans.  Your loaves should not touch the sides of your bread pans.  Make sure you’ve buttered your bread pans well before you put the dough in them.  Shape your dough as you wish; many people get all artistic and make braids, etc.

Let the pans sit for about a half hour.  The dough should almost double in size.  If it doesn’t, don’t panic.  Yeast is very weather-sensitive, and sometimes your bread won’t do anything dramatic until it’s in the oven.

After a half hour, turn your oven on to 350 and let it pre-heat.  THEN put a few pans of dough in; my oven holds four pans at a time.  Set the timer for 30 minutes, and go take a shower or something.

When the timer goes off, check your bread; sometimes, it needs a few more minutes, and sometimes it’s done!  Flick the top of a loaf with your fingernail; if the bread is done, it will sound kind of hollow.  Remove the pans and put in another batch.  Don’t forget to set the timer for your second batch, too.

When bread LOOKS done, it’s probably done.

Let the hot bread “set” in the pans for about fifteen minutes, and then turn it out onto a clean dish towel to cool.  Don’t wrap it up until it’s cool, or it will sweat and be damp.  Some people like to brush butter on the tops of the loaves, and some people like the dusty feel and taste of browned flour on the top of the loaves.  Do as you wish there.

If your bread didn’t rise very much, don’t panic.  Eat it anyway; it will probably taste great.  If your bread rose a  LOT, don’t panic either.  Give it a chance.  Sometimes the best-tasting bread is the goofiest-looking.

Eat up.

Next time I’ll tell you how to make cinnamon bread/rolls.

Jane Goodwin | Baking, Carnival of Education, Jane Goodwin, JaneG, Mamacita, MamacitaG, Scheiss Weekly, Steve Spangler, music | Comments (7)

Ten Things Tuesday

September 23, 2008 – 12:01 am

Mamacita says:  I think I’ve forgotten Ten Things Tuesday these past few weeks, but I’ll try to do better now that things are settling down a bit here.

Just a bit, mind you, but that’s better than before!

1.  I love to bake homemade bread.  People are always threatening me with a bread machine, but I do not want one.  Not in the LEAST!  Bread machine bread is not homemade bread.  It’s only truly homemade bread if you mix it all up in a huge bowl, measuring with your eyes and the palm of your hand, throw it on the table and knead it with your own two hands, divide it into loaves yourself, and bake them in an oven.  Calling bread machine bread “homemade” is like calling Betty Crocker Cake Mix cake homemade.  They’re good, sure, but they are NOT “homemade.”  They are cheating.

2. I can not make good homemade cake, so I cheat with Betty Crocker.  Sometimes, I cheat with Duncan Hines.  It depends on who’s cheaper that week.  I am a discount cheater.

3. I want to dress up and go to a party.

4. I don’t understand why school textbook companies put such lousy poetry in their textbooks.  It’s almost as though they don’t want our kids to learn to love it.

5.  Textbook companies that put abridged versions of anything in their textbooks are not good companies.

6.  School systems that purchase a textbook containing an abridgement are not good school systems.

7.  I am bored.  Seriously, dangerously, bored.

8.  I am also exhausted.  Seriously, dangerously, exhausted.

9.  I want to bungee-jump off a bridge over deep water.  That way, if the cord breaks, I won’t splatter on concrete; I’ll just swim to a rock and hold on until a heliocopter drops a rope and rescues me.   Then I can tell people that not only have I bungee-jumped; I’ve also dangled from a heliocopter.

10.  When Kim had J.D.’s baby, Scrubs may have jumped the shark for me.

That’s ten things, so I’ll stop now.

Don’t forget:  The Carnival of Education is over at Steve Spangler’s blog this week, so get your entries in!

Jane Goodwin | Carnival of Education, Education, Jane Goodwin, JaneG, Literature, Mamacita, MamacitaG, Scheiss Weekly, Steve Spangler, Things I Haven't Done Yet, Uncategorized, schools | Comments (9)