Motown Strong: Pole Dancing

Thursday, August 29, 2013

Pole Dancing

The Fine Five - August 29, 2013

(1) Special thanks to Bobbie Brubaker, Wellington High School art teacher extraordinare, for allowing me to use her Exacto knife and other implements of destruction to create around 16 large plastic arrows, which will be used to create a debate-themed directional pole in the classroom. (There's a pole in the center of the room used for ethernet hookups, and it's just ... sitting [OK, standing] there, looking lonely and forlorn. We creative types can't just let that sit there unattended!)

(2) I started painting the arrows after school today (whoever left the two cans of silver spray paint, thank you!) and will continue tomorrow morning. The debate students will then add their flare to the signs by painting locations of tournaments we will be attending this year (or other major debate tourney locales from past years) - New Haven, Gainesville, Orlando, Fairfax, Philly, Decatur, etc. - as well as the distance to said tournaments. They will be blue-on-silver variations of the old M*A*S*H signs from the late-1960s movie and long-running TV show of the same name. (I am trusting the students to do the actual sign writing ... which is a very scary thought, to be honest!)

(3) To help prepare my debate students for not only upcoming current events that may (and in some cases will) be on the Congressional Debate docket, they have more research due tomorrow, on the following eight umbrella areas: (1) Immigration Reform; (2) Health Care Reform [focusing on the Affordable Care Act/Obamacare]; (3) Education Reform; (4) Space Exploration; (5) The Middle East [Afghanistan, Pakistan, India – I know India isn’t really in the ME, but it has a history with Pakistan]; (6) The Middle East [Iran, Iraq, Egypt, Israel, Palestine]; (7) The Middle East [Syria, Jordan, Turkey]; and (8) The Pacific Rim [Japan, China, North Korea]. Here's to teaching good research skills!

(4) College football officially kicked off (get it? "kicked off"?) tonight, but my season doesn't start until Saturday, when my Central Michigan Chippews travel in-state to Ann Arbor to take on the Michigan Wolverines. Yeah, a MAC-Big Ten matchup. Right now it's a 31-point spread in favor of the Wolverines. This does not bode well. Sigh ... it's going to be a long season ...

(5) If you've not read the amazing piece in Rolling Stone on New England Patriots tight end Aaron Hernandez and the plethora of demons and warning signs that were emanating from his very soul and being prior to his arrest on murder charges, do so - even if you're not a sports fan. There are so many questions of ethics and responsibility on multiple levels here. The article is at times scathing toward Patriots coach Bill Belichick, and owner Bob Kraft, the latter of whom contributing editor Paul Solotaroff essentially labels as "guilty by omission" in dealing with the numerous red flags that were raised. This is probably because in early July, Kraft claimed he felt "duped" by Hernandez ... which seems laughable at best now, given the evidence he and other Patriots brass were well aware of the ticking time bomb that was their player.

Scary News of the Day

From BBC: "'Million-dollar dating scam mum and daughter jailed" - You'd hit them ... with a baseball bat. Or two.

Weird News of the Day

From The DesMoines Register: "'Why are so many cars with Iowa plates parked in Brooklyn, N.Y.?" - Ummmmm ... to escape Iowa, perhaps?

Stupid News of the Day

From Opposing Views: "Fox News Uses MLK Celebration To Attack Rap Music, Jay-Z" - Because apparently those anti-Vietnam War protest songs in the 1960s were never a problem with the right-wing establishment. You know, those lyrical attacks on violence by Woodstockesque musicians like CSNY, Jefferson Airplane, Bob Dylan, Creedence Clearwater Revival, Country Joe & The Fish, Woody Guthrie, Buffalo Springfield, Barry McGuire ...