Election 2008

On my morning drives to work I've been hearing stupid commercials for Yes on Proposition 8 for about a month. They claim that if Prop 8 is voted down, it will force everybody to accept gay marriage and 'people could be jailed for their beliefs'. Only in the past week have I heard reasonable rebuttals in the form of No on 8 commercials. Nice to see the school super getting in the mix, too. It'd be nicer if we could get a yard sign to counter the numerous Yes on 8 signs in our neighborhood.

Also in the 'nice to see but did it have to come so late' category are the mailers from congressional candidate Tim Prince. Sad to see he's using a Prodigy email address but I like that he nabbed a good domain to talk about the incumbent, Jerry Lewis: www.yourcorruptcongressman.com.

Mongoloid

Recently I and my fellow faculty were given a lecture by a (retired) veteran teacher. He seemed a nice enough guy and obviously has many years of teaching experience under his belt but his lecture was little more than inspirational phrases that had little narrative connection between them. This is not unusual in education.

What is unusual in education is when he used the term 'mongoloid' to describe a hypothetical student that could not be educated. I found this a little troubling and was surprised to find that many of my colleagues did not know the term. Happily, they all agreed that any term that is used both for people with Down syndrome and those who are ethnically southeast Asian is an offensive term.

Bob Grant

Back when I lived in New Jersey I spent a great deal of my car-time listening to talk radio. WABC provided a good deal of entertainment for me, with lots of dopey conservatives shouting all day long. One guy who was on in the evening was Bob Grant, who sounded like the stereotypical 'angry old man' whose views of the world were a little behind the times, to say the least. It was always fun when folks would call in to disagree with him and he'd just respond with an angry 'Get - off - of - my - phone!!!'

This week, I had the chance to get reacquainted with him as the poor old fool didn't recognize the flag of Ohio when it was behind Obama. In his defense, however, I will note that when one looks at all the US State flags together (as I did once at Philadelphia's Independence Hall), the Ohio flag does look a little silly next to the others with its non-rectangular shape.