The Daily News

1   It occurred to me yesterday that I haven’t been to Disneyland in a billion trillion years.

2   That’s the happiest place on Earth.

3   What’s with the delay?

4    Somebody talk me into it.

5    I went to school yesterday and everything had turned remarkably back to normal.

6    And the first thing I  thought about was Disneyland.

7    The other day I was at Fed Ex, the former Kinkos, running some vocabulary lists. While they were running, I walked over to a small bookrack they have conveniently near the copy machines.

8   Almost every book had something to do with improving your life.

9   One book was called The Bucket List. I glanced through it, and really had no inkling of doing a zip line in Belize, or of tiger hunting in Africa, or of throwing down vodka shots and eating hard-boiled eggs in Ukraine.

10   Not my style. I’m a tad too parochial for those sorts of outings.

11   And any time I mention Disneyland, someone inevitably tries to steer me to Disney World in Florida. Or Disney World Resort, or whatever they call it.

12   Dude.

13   First off, it’s Disney World, not Disneyland. That’s the colloquial name for it.

14   Second, it’s in Florida.

15   You have to go there.

16   They have alligators and people who wear funny hats.

17   Disneyland is forty-five minutes away.

18   It’s Disneyland.

19   It’s the original.

20   They have hidden Mickeys.

21    I’m not old enough for a bucket list anyway. I’m still young enough for Disneyland.

22    As I said,the last time I went was the minimum day before Christmas a billion trillion years ago. I had my luggage in a backpack. The bell rang ending school; I strapped on my backpack and my guitar, walked out of YB to a waiting rented car containing my family. It was a luxury Impala, the most comfortable ride ever.

23   I walked up with my backpack and guitar in hand, looked at the trunk, watched as it magically opened, and put my gear in.

24   As soon as I got in, a car stopped at one end of the street, and another at the other end. Car doors slammed, and some gangstas started chirping.

25  One of my daughters, Caitlin or Nicole, can’t remember which, shouted, “Let’s get outta here! They be poppin’!”

26   We were actually pretty scared, because when that happens, it’s a good time to remove yourself from the premises.

27    We bolted. We bounced. We jammed. Whatever we did, it was remove ourselves from the premises swiftly. Within seconds, we found ourselves screaming down the 101.

28   It’s okay for me to say “the 101″ because we were goin’ So-Cal.

29    Those people down there call freeways “the”. When in La-La Land, do as the La-La’s do.

30    With all due respect to any friends in the LA area, I have this built-in disdain for Los Angeles. Can’t help it. I was brainwashed at birth, and baptized a Giants’ fan.

31   Even if a hundred per cent of my trips to LA were always amazing, I still have this thought that it is over-crowded, polluted, fake, and all the rest.

32   I’ve never had a bad time down there. Not once. I have deliberately avoided Dodger Stadium. I once traveled to a Niners/Rams’ game when they were in LA. We won, and I was in my Niner gear chirping away at their fans.

33  Looking back, I was probably lucky to have gotten away with my life.

34  My fondest memories are of times with friends, and of Disneyland.

35  In recent years, I’ve become a bit too complacent.

36  That trip was for the ages. Just me and my family, laughing our asses off all the way down. It was Christmas time, which made it unique. The Haunted House had a Nightmare Before Christmas Theme. My daughter Caitlin knows precisely how to navigate Disneyland so that we could get it all in.

37   As I recall, we were there on a Saturday and Sunday, and on Sunday the place was empty. We were able to ride on Pirates of the Caribbean twice in a row with no waiting. Yo ho! We also did back-to-back Indiana Jones, which inspired me to buy the T000000NDRA, which has become a permanent Disney ride to this minute.

38   Somebody talk me into it.

39   I don’t have time to write as much here as I had hoped.

40    Somebody talk me into it.

41    Peace.

~H~

www.xanga.com/bharrington

 The Daily News

1   I don’t really feel that I should address Friday’s full lockdown at our school, but I’m guessing one or two people out there might wish to know about it.

2   On Friday, right after school began, our Associate Principal went on the speakers and announced that there were “rumors” that a student had threatened to “shoot up the school.” He figured it was probably a prank, but that he should warn us. He told us that the San Jose Police had several officers on campus.

3   When he went off the speaker, my class of sophomores had become nervous. I reassured them that we have safety training, and that if it goes any further to be ready to go into what used to be called “Code Red,” a training similar to a fire drill, or an earthquake drill. I told them that this stuff is usually nothing, to stay calm, and to do things normally.

4   My job in all of that is to keep the students calm, to lock the doors to my room, and to pull the curtains down. We don’t really need to do that, but I instinctively did anyway, just in case it was actually happening. The San Jose Police Department instructs us to do that during a Code Red. This was a mere warning, but I didn’t want to take any chances.

5   Lessons went on, and I stayed completely calm. I had been through this sort of thing a few times in my career. In fact, when I was in high school. I recall a series of bomb threats our school had, and as students, we were evacuated several times in my senior year.

6   So it’s all part of the routine. It comes with the territory.

7    My first class, which is second period, went by silently. I could tell that students were a little scared. The last time this happened was a few years ago. Word reached the school much earlier, and about half of the student population had cut school in fear.

8   At that time, I did the same thing. I locked my door, and the poor kids who were there were petrified. At that time, I  turned the heater on for comfort, and we watched a movie.

9   On Friday, it was entirely different. We had no warning. Two students then told me that it had been on  Facebook since Wednesday, and that it was supposed to be taking place by a “white dude” after school in front of the main office.

10  The period ended, and I decided to notify the office with that information. Ironically, I had received a personal threat two days earlier. Every now and again we get these, occupational hazard. I didn’t think much of it, but it certainly crossed my mind. I was more concerned with the safety of my students. I notified the office through email, both about the information those student had given me, as well as the personal threat I had received two days earlier. I kept my computer open awaiting any sort of news or response.

11   When my next class came in, a class of seniors, I told them that although these are usually pranks, I was going to lock the door, and I wanted bathroom privileges limited. They laughed and remained relaxed. Their attitude was pretty cavalier, as was mine, despite the personal threat.

12   Just last month we had a fire drill during my last class of the day. It was sunny outside, and everybody almost cheered because we got to evacuate. One teacher in my building actually kept his class inside so that he could complete his lesson. That alarm turned out to be real. There was a fire in our building, and soon sirens rang, and a fire truck came down the road. There was a small fire going on in someone’s room in my building. I never heard more about it, but I did evacuate my students.

13   The point is, we should take any sort of alarm seriously, even if it is a mere practice.

14    A few minutes into third period, the APA came on the speaker once again and said, “Attention staff and students. We are now going into full lockdown. Please lock all your doors and screen your windows. We’ll let you know when there is an all clear.”

15   Instant fright.

15   I stayed really calm, albeit worried for my students’ safety. I again locked the door, only this time I decided to create a barricade, which is what we do during a “Code Red,” which used to be the command for a Columbine-type response. They changed all the names of these things, and even in-serviced us on the new names, but to me, a “full lockdown” meant a Code Red. Our job in that instance is to lock our rooms down, screen them off, barricade the door with cabinets and whatever it takes, pull the desks into a circle outside the line of gunfire, and stack desks to make a second barricade within the room. The students are to remain absolutely silent, and the lights in the room must be turned off.

16   It is a scary situation, and my main job was to keep the students calm and quiet.

17   Once they were huddled, I went to my computer. I was pretty convinced there was more to this than met the eye. There was no response to my email. I also opened the website to the Merc News to see what was happening on the outside.

18   Although we are not supposed to really use the computer, it was my main means of receiving information. I figured the telephone would not be the best of all worlds, because we are understaffed, and we have a student population of almost 2,700. I assumed that parents were tying up the lines. The computer seemed the most logical place to be. I also had my cell phone so that I could text my family. I told them that I loved them, and for them to feed any outside news directly to us.

19   Midway through the period, the APA again went on the speaker and said, “We are still in a full lockdown, and we may be for at least three hours. Teachers, please keep your students inside, and do not let them leave during break.”

20   My students by then had made it a mini-camp.The door barricade was awesome. It was a folding eight-foot table right against the doorway, and a ridiculously heavy cabinet was slid tightly against it. An elephant couldn’t get into our room. They had adjusted the desk barricade to allow for small openings and paths to their backpacks. I allowed one student at a time to get a sandwich, or to get their cell phone.

21   We’re technically not supposed to jam the airwaves with cell messages, but the students were on their cells texting. I decided to make that an information center that could keep us posted as to what was going on outside, since we didn’t know. I couldn’t find my radio, so we were a bit isolated from the outside world.

22   And no news, was of course, good news.

23   They eventually gave an “all clear,” and the school returned to normal. I dashed to the office and asked if they got my email. The principal saw it, but never read it, which is understandable. They had to take care of the situation at hand, and not chase down blind leads.

24   There is much more to the story, only I won’t go there. No point. We had a scare, and it’s over. That’s the bottom line.

25    It was important to me to get right back to my classes and carry on. I had gotten to the administration and stayed only to share any information I had with them and with the police. The Principal offered to let me go home, but I thought it important that the students see we have no fear of things like that. She did say she got a sub for my last two classes, but I balked. I finally said “Okay” to having a sub for my last period, but only because it was a little extra pay for another teacher.

26   Because I had information to deliver to them, I was in the middle of the madness, sitting in a conference room waiting for audience with the police, and with the APA. They were busy dealing with finding the alleged shooter, following other leads, dealing with changes in the schedule, answering phones from concerned parents, and trying to get newspeople out to the district office. I wasn’t their key concern, although I had some important information.

27   The APA came in and said, “Give me the brief version of your story,” and I did.

28    It was certainly a scary situation. The rest of it is all in the Merc News of the past two days. I don’t want to say too much more, because whatever is out there is out there.

29    I assumed that DN people had perhaps heard about it, and that they would want to hear my angle.

30   As of now, it seems it was a prank. They caught the guy who they had suspected, but found no evidence that he ever put anything into Facebook, or Twitter, or whatever the rumor was.

31   Yesterday I went on Facebook and cruised students’ profiles looking for any mention of a rumor, and found none, even going back to Wednesday. In fact, even the lockdown was amazingly unmentioned. They were doing the usual Facebook things: wishing each other Happy Birthdays, worrying about tests, and just enjoying life as though nothing happened.

32   That’s exactly the way it should be.

33   I’m going in today confident that the school did the right thing, and that whoever did this realizes that one person has no control over an entire community.

34   As I said, there is a lot more to this story, but it is pointless to do anything but move on.That is practical.

35    We’ll leave it at that. If anything, all this did for me was to realize that I am going to not let the school rule my life the way it has this year. My family and friends are much more important. I took time to enjoy family, to talk to my Dad, to write old friends, to spend a day doing everything and nothing, and to put the school on hold.

36  I decided to take back my life. 

37   So there you have it. 

38   Have a great Monday, my good friends.

39   Peace.

~H~

www.xanga.com/bharrington 

 The Daily News

1   Last night I decided to watch old movies. Some old ’66 picture called The Liquidator, starring Rod Taylor, Trevor Howard, and a rather beautiful Jill St. John.

2   I have no idea what the film was about, some sort of James Bond offshoot. I didn’t care. Robert Osborne, TCM’s spokesperson and film expert extraoridinaire brought us Rod Tayler movies all night. Taylor is perhaps most famous for his rolls in the 1960 film The Time Machine, and Hitchcock’s immortal 1963 film The Birds, co-starring Tippi Hedron. He is probably unknown and underrated as the voice of Pongo in the Disney classic, 101 Dalmations.

3   I love underrated actors, as well as old movies. I made some popcorn, and told the rest of the world to chill.

4   In this life, is there anything that comes close to popcorn and an old movie?

5   A couple of years ago I ran into an old friend of mine, Rob Rainey. It was after some Giants’ game at what was then Pac-Bell Park, and I ran into him after the game at MoMo’s.

6   It is always great to run into old friends. We were at MoMo’s only because we each needed somewhere to go while the traffic cleared. We naturally fell into reminiscing about good times, always a pleasure.

7   At one point I said, “Rob, you always make me laugh. You simply LIVE in the past!”

8   His retort: “What’s so great about the present?”

9   With all due respect to the present, I laughed and laughed. Truer words, truer words. I’ve been a bit bothered lately about the State of the World ever since the State of the Union address. It really has bothered me, to the point of distraction. My insomnia increased twofold, making it a little more difficult to fully function.

10  I handled yesterday with relative ease.

11  I had nightmares the night before last. I had listened to Obama, and the reality of the now struck me. I absolutely couldn’t sleep thinking about what sort of world we are living in.

12  It tortured me, because I want my children, and their children, and on and on, to enjoy all the good gifts that life has to offer.

13   And then I watched all the donkeys, elephants, and greedy bastids who really control the world yammering on and debating about their usual boushit.

14   Whats so great about the present?

15   Well, a lot of stuff.

16   It’s just that every time elections come around, I get depressed. I keep hoping that one truly honest and goodly politician would step up and guide this confused and flustered nation.

17   I never find one.

18   Fortunately, family keeps it real. After that old movies and old friends.

19   Last night worked. I got home, and the world was still twisted and weird. Fortunately, my idiotic addiction to grading papers and working myself to death was interrupted by a couple of students who earlier had come in to ask me if I had any good ideas for monologues for Monday’s Grease audition.

20   I immediately thought of all the great shows we had done . We then talked about all the great shows that are out there. We focused a bit on Wicked, since all three of us had seen it in San Francisco.  

21   Talking with a couple of young people about auditions and shows made me put Mitt, and Newt, Obama, and all the rest on the shelf.

22   I got home feeling pretty positive about the hopes and dreams of the younger generation. 

23   I thought about how our anticipation for Grease has been everywhere at the school, and about how all the anticipation is now over. It is the hour.

24   I thought of how much the present is becoming real.

25   I thought about how I still have music. I thought about how I have family, and about how I have old friends. And I thought about how I have old movies.

26   I conked out early again, and later woke up and turned on the teevee.

27   Robert Osborne was on talking about the career of Rod Taylor, and talking charmingly about The Liquidator being a low-budget James Bondesque film. Perfect. It was the Monkees of Bond movies. I got it.

28   I didn’t pay much attention, just hopped up, made some popcorn, poured a glass of chilled orange juice, and put on the movie.

29   It was really a lava lamp of sorts. I began tacking away at this nonsense, and soon got lost. I kept glancing up each time he would smooch with St. John, anytime one car would chase another, or anytime guns with silencers would appear. Needless to say I glanced up quite often.

30   Once the popcorn was ready, I put this down and watched, trying to figure out the plot. It didn’t even matter. There is something intrinsicly pleasing about munching on popcorn under a cozy comforter and watching an old film.

31   So I’d type a few words, clean my fingers with a towel, eat some popcorn, type a little more, and smile.

32   It relaxed me, and brought Rob’s comment into focus. What’s so great about the present?

33   Well, a lot of things. It’s just that when we think of the good things in our pasts, we forget about the bad things. We remember fondly all of the good. I tend to put bad things behind me, and to smile any time I take a stroll down Memory Lane.

34   I don’t think I ever saw The Liquidator, and that might have added to it. It was almost as though I was living in the past and seeing the picture for the first time. Nothing was different than when I used to do this same thing on a rainy Saturday.

35   And for one shining moment, all of my thoughts and worries left me.

36   I would never want to live in the past. But visiting the past and floating away from all of the stresses of the present is pretty healing.

37   I think I’ll do the same thing way later tonight, since it’s the weekend.

38   You know you’re getting old when you’d rather sit in your own living room with popcorn and an old movie on a Friday night.

39   There’s a lot to be said for getting old.

40   Have a great weekend.

41   Peace.

~H~

www.xanga.com/bharrington

  The Daily News

1   What’s in the Daily News?

2    I’ll tellya what’s in the DailyNews.

3

     Story about a man bought his wife a small ruby
       With what otherwise would have been his union dues.
       That’s what’s in the Daily News.

       What’s happening all over?
        I’ll tell you what’s happening all over.
        Guy sitting home by a television set
        That used to be something of a rover.

4    That’s what’s happening all over.

5     I took a walk down Facebook Lane last night and saw a post by the immortal Cindy Barrett. Her post sent me into a stream of Broadway songs. Here is her post; I’m pretty certain she wouldn’t mind me posting this:

      At some point in every conversation I have- a song from a musical will start going through my head. I can’t help it. It must be a mental illness. Instead of voices- I hear Broadway.

6    No kiddin’!  Every year just before February I start feeling exactly the same.

7    It is especially true when the sky starts adding cumulus to its luster, and we get days when the hills are alive and lush, when the rain washes the streets where we live, and when high schools begin their musicals. 

8     Our school is just about to embark on their very first musical. Auditions begin Monday. The air crackles with electicity and excitement. I’m smiling.

9    When I ran Activities, I tried to make that happen, and the musical I chose was Grease, because I thought it would make a statement in the community. I approached Steve Barnhill, a trusted mate from years of being in Performing Arts, and we discussed it. 

10   The time just wasn’t right. I also toyed the next year with the idea of doing Romeo and Juliet in the Fall, and Godspell in the Spring. I figured Romeo and Juliet would be a blockbuster, because all the English teachers would make it an assignment. 

11   When we did Shakespeare at YB, the teachers did make it an assignment, or extra credit, and Shakespeare brought crowds. I always appreciated teachers who sent kids our way. I  still give extra credit for shows. I just think it’s an awesome gift for young people, something they could enjoy the rest of their lives. Shows bring the community alive. We’re still a growing school, so this is especially exciting.

12   Ah, musicals and shows. February brings those things out in a guy. Or a doll.

13   When I was the Activities’ guy, I remember going into our  theater, looking around and thinking that our community needed good live theater. Ours is a beautiful venue, and still relatively pristine.

13   The time just wasn’t right. 

14    So when I heard we were doing Grease this year, I got pretty excited. I’ve always had a pretty special bond with the drama kids at our school, because it’s always been a part of me. They know this instinctively.

15  Yesterday in class I thought I’d give my students a dose of what they might be in for. They were doing some group work. Each September I have students make their own magazines for Back-to-School Night. Yesterday I looked in the back of one of my classes and saw this student who had written an article about famed 50′s Rock ‘n’ Roll icon Dion in his magazine.  His uncle had introduced him to Dion (not literally, just musically) so without a word, I streamed Runaround Sue. He’s a reasonably shy kid who probably thinks I never notice him.

16  The song began with it’s classic, slow tempo:

         “Here’s my story it’s sad but true, 
          about a girl that I once knew…”

17   He was still chatting in his group and wasn’t really listening. The song continued.

          “She took my love then ran around,
           with every single guy in town…”

and then it broke:

            “Hayp! Hayp!
             Bumda hady hady hayp hayp
             Bumda hady hady hayp hayp
             Bumda hady hady hayp! Awwwwww….!”

      He looked up as I pointed directly at him. The class laughed, and I said, “The artist’s name is Dion!” He broke an enormous smile. This guy lit up. He has a pomp, and even resembles Dion. It was a moment.

18   I became more of a DJ than a teacher. They worked in their groups as I streamed The Wanderer, and Teenager in Love while letting them know that our school was about to make local history with Grease audtions coming up Monday and Tuesday.

19    We rocked it the rest of the day. I’m thinking of giving them little bits of Rock ‘n’ Roll history as this all unfolds. Perhaps the most interesting thing about Dion is that because he and his band at the time The Belmonts had THE sound of the late 50′s, he was invited to perform with Buddy Holly, The Big Bopper, and Ritchie Valens at the Winter Dance Party tour. They rocked it royally at a concert in Clear Lake, Ohio on February 2, 1959. All the others took a flight to the next concert, but Dion stayed behind, not wishing to spend the $36 it would have cost. The plane crashed, killing everbody on board, a moment immortalized in later years in Don McLean’s 1971 hit American Pie. The line “The day the music died” referred to that crash.  Here’s a little Dion for you:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wGAer6SxkRk

20   Anyway, after rocking Dion, I later decided to shuffle it up, and rained 50′s hits on these guys, including Elvis’ eternal I Can’t Help Falling in Love With You, and even Sinatra doing Luck Be a Lady.

21   This Lilo and Stitch crowd broke into song. They were jumping up, putting vocab words on the board, dancing, and waxing nostalgic. Great day.

22   After school I continued the concert, sitting at my desk and listening to all sorts of music. I played I Can’t Help Falling in Love With You again, and sang along. My cough disappeared, at least for the moment. Felt grand. I was even wearing a Sinatra hat.

23   It was utterly astounding. I played Buddy Holly’s Oh, Boy!, It’s So Easy (To Fall in Love), and followed it up with Linda Ronstadt’s classic version.

24   Fun day. I had gotten myself so buried in papers and lessons that I completely forgot how fun it can be to play a little music while getting stuff done. We had a meeting yesterday that was us being told that we are going to need to do still more work in order be accountable. After all, we are professionals. I get it, but walking back to my room I just thought, “My students not only learned a bunch of vocab and grammar today, but they also learned about Dion!” The contrast to the rolling eyes and whispers at the meeting was palpable.

25   So I decided that there is music in the air. I turned off the lights so that the room was lit naturally, took off my shoes, and turned on the music. My pencil danced as I got my work done. I worked through the afternoon, until it began to get dark. I even turned a small lamp on so that I could keep going.

26    I finished at sunset. I got to school at sunrise and finished at sunset. I felt a bit like a farmer.

27   I thought that on the way home, and Oklahoma! jumped into my head. It just happens.

28   So much music, so little time.

29   I don’t want to overdo it, because the students might get bored. But I have always had some sort of quiet music playing when they get in groups. It’s a nice bonding thing. I occassionally take requests as well. I’ve played music from Ancient Mesopotatoes to Bach, from Ancient Egypt to Jason Mraz, from Miles Davis, Muddy Waters to Rap, and from  Disney to Broadway.

30   I keep thinking of teaching them the lyrics to We Go Together during my poetry unit. I think it would be awesome, and a fun move away from some of the tedium that standards inevitably bring.

31   I just don’t want to get the rep of being all show and then nullify what they have accomplished in writing and vocab. So it’s a thin line, but I’ll tell you one thing: When I was in high school, my favorite classes were the fun ones, and it worked for me.

32   So we’ll have to see. Recent studies show that engaging students in groupwork, interaction, music, and technology engages them. Duh.

33  So I’ll keep it up. And later we’ll move to Shakespeare, student poetry in the Café Verona,  Midsummer, Much Ado, Grease, and finally the quintessential Taming of the Shrew.

34   In the meantime, I think I’ll just keep filling the room with wonderful bits of music.

35   Thanks Cindy, for the inspiration. I now have about thirty songs spinning through my head. I think I’ll drift off to Feed the Birds from Mary Poppins. What do you think?

36   Or maybe something from Kanye…

37    Or howzbout For Good…

37   If music be the food of love, play on.

38   Peace.

~H~

www.xanga.com/bharrington

 The Daily News

1  ”This State of the Union Adress is ike this season’s Seperbowl. Two teams that no on cares about except East coast snobs and concrete dwellers. Good luck America…i” POSTED BY: DAVID | JANUARY 24, 2012, 9:52 PM 

<hiccup>

2    Welp, that about sums it up. Obama’s State-of-the Union Address might have been outstanding to some, but for the most part, it was pretty tepid coming from a guy who already doesn’t get listened to, and who is getting smeared through propaganda and intolerance.

3   DAVID, you said more in your drunken post than anything said by Obama. When the best he could come up with was “It’s time to apply the same rules from top to bottom: No bailouts, no handouts, no cop-outs. An America built to last insists on responsibility from everybody. Let’s never forget: Millions of Americans  who work hard and play by the rules every day deserve a government and a financial system that does the same, and blah, blah, blah,” I decided that he was probably done. I mean, nice words, but nothing stunning. He had the opportunity to give a towering speech. He needed thunder and lightning. He delivered a glass of lukewarm milk.

4   Polonius: What do you read, my lord?

     Hamlet: Words, words, words.

                                    —Hamlet, Act 2, Sc. 2

5   Indeed. Last night should have been a speech for the ages. I’m sorry. I didn’t see that. I heard a bunch of folderol and promises. I heard some interesting accomplishments. I heard some words, words, words that fell to the floor. I saw a President who could have taken it completely to the Repubz instead deliver some tepid buzz with nothing but promises nobody believed.

6   He played it pretty safe. I took a quick cruise down Facebook Lane last night and saw very little mention of the speech. More people were worried about something called the Timeline than they were about the future of their children.

7   I’m thankful that I stumbled upon some website where there was some sort of stream going on, because I think I found the voice of America. His name is DAVID, and his post articulated everything that I suspected.

8   We are in an absolute drunken stupor. It’s “ike this season’s Seperbowl.” I like “ike”.

9    There’s the guy I want at the ballot box.

10   Ladies and Gents, there’s a reason I have a job. When I tell you that I correct billions of words, words, words every single day, I point to fellows like DAVID as my proof. At least he put his name on his paper.

11   Thank goodness for the Repubz, because their circus is worse than Obama’s. At least Obama was articulate, albeit lukewarm. Through all the propaganda and boushit that is out there, we once again have two clear directions to go. With all due respect, Ron Paulers, you vote for that guy and you give a vote to the Repubz. He is doomed to death with his “racist” mantle. That isn’t going to go away. So what are you left with?

12   Same old same old. Is Obama Satan? Nah. Most of that stuff is stirred up by a propaganda machine made up of Anti-Semites and extreme right-wingers. All you have to do is dig beyond the mainstream, and then beyond the Alex Jones’ Boyz. There is so much propaganda coming at us every day it is impossible to believe anyone can cruise through the muck and mire of modern politics.

13   That’s what happens when we have had years and years of our government being run by a CIA family. They managed to control everyone for their own greedy needs. They managed to control the media. They have scrambled the minds of so many people that nobody knows what to do unless guided by Facebook, Tumbler, Twitter, and all the rest.

14   What we are left with is the same old choices. When you vote, you will go into a ballot box and vote for one of two guys: a Democrat, or a Republican. That’s the bottom line, sorry to say. In that regard, you had better think of your children’s future. There are clear lines. I won’t stay too political here, but I go with my intelligence, as well as with a history of watching where most of the greed lies.

15   I’m a bit disappointed by Obama, but since he was elected, he has been dropped in the middle of a starving economy and two wars, as well as a propaganda machine that comes directly from the CIA-drenched Bush family.

16   I have given resources on this site, really good resources, not boushit resources. I have studied a lot of this stuff for years, trying desperately to measure “both sides” of it. The sad truth is that there aren’t two sides. I should be clear as a bell. One guy didn’t kill Kennedy. Whoever did took power. Once that power was taken, it was never taken back. It has its roots in Texas oil and multi-billionaires.

17   Look past the Ron Pauls and the Alex Joneses. Research who is really behind those two guys. Look to authors like Russell Baker, author of Family of Secrets, one of the most important books of this generation.

18   Obama had the opportunity of a lifetime last night. I heard a lot of words. Like silent raindrops they fell, and echoed in the wells of silence.

19   Too bad.

20   We have a new generation that doesn’t seem to get it. They never saw the lies and corruption that we elders have. I taught a lot of it for years. Nearly everything I researched has come to fruition. I know where to go for good sources, and I didn’t always. Most journalists know what is going on, they’re just afraid. Like anybody, they fear for their jobs, and for the safety of their families. And like Obama, they take the safer route.

21   I’m going to keep this one short. Sometimes I feel I am forced to comment on world events. Sometimes I do; sometimes I don’t. What I did with the State-of-the Union address was I first listened to it, waiting for something JFK or MLK. Or even, “It’s the economy, stupid!”

22   What I got was, “No bailouts, no handouts, no cop-outs!” Thunderously boring.

23   I listened to the Republican response. Just as boring. I searched the web for somebody with some sort of grasp or insight. Found none. I hit Facebook. Most people were talking about the same stuff. “Cut my nails yesterday. ‘Bout time!” Farmville. Pictures of babies. Worries about something called the Timeline. One or two people mentioning the speech.

24   And the seasons, they go round and round, and the painted ponies go up and down.

25   And so we live another day.

26   That’s a lot. That’s good news. Always is. I enjoy life, despite all this. I don’t want to get political on the DN. Just every now and again I like to say that I live the American dream. I want a better world for my children, and for their children, and on and on. Last night we had a chance to see greatness. Last night we had a chance to see another I Have a Dream speech. Last night Obama had that chance. Last night he gave us “No bailouts…” The Milleniums didn’t watch, or probably yawned. Closing walls and ticking clocks. I just decided to conk out. I woke up and wrote this, and I’m going to conk out again.

27    I’m going to bow out early on this one. Too political. I don’t really enjoy reporting the real news, especially when it is once again no news.

28    Sorry. It could have been monumental, and instead it was as dead as an empty bowling alley.

29    So good night to all, and to DAVID, I hope you don’t have too heavy of a head, dude. Sorry the Seperbowl (How’d he miss? The “e” is three keys away from the “u” and uses an entirely different finger!) isn’t going to float your boat.

30   Good luck America.

31   Peace.

~H~

www.xanga.com/bharrington

The Daily News

1  Time to move on, people. Heidi and Seal are breaking up, and I am soooooo hurt.

2  Dude, really?

3  Who give’s a rat’s ass?

4   Honestly.

5   No news.

6    Moving Backwards, Part One: I have to make a public apology. In my lilting embrace of the Niners yesterday, I mentioned that they converted zero first downs. The statistic was wrong. They converted one. The team needs work, but so do all the teams, which includes the Packers. All have flaws. I just think ours has the fewest. And they will be back. Anyone who thinks otherwise is a moron.

7    Moving on, Part the First: I’ve loved the rain. My cough almost vanished because of the moisture in the air. Yesterday was pretty gloomy, but sort of perfect in a soothing sort of way.

8    It was pretty wonderful seeing students coming to school dressed in their Niner best yesterday. It was a bit funereal, but very sweet. They were genuinely crushed.

9     I was born in San Francisco and raised the first ten years of my life surrounded by Niners’ fans. I didn’t even know the Raiders existed, or that anyone in the Bay Area was anything but a Niner’s fan. I lived in South City, a wet punt away from Candlestick Park.

10   So if the Niners ever got close and then lost <ahem>, the entire neighborhood would mourn, and shout the immortal phrase, “Wait ’til next year!”

11   But Sannozay is a bit different. It has much more diversity when it comes to sports teams. Nearly EVERYBODY in Sannozay is a Sharks’ fan, but with football, it’s pretty diversified. We are mainly Niners and Raiders, but we have Steelers’ fans, Saints’ fans, Broncos’ fans, and on and on. So the students who were Niners’ fans showed up representing yesterday, and many had to experience high tech mockery because of it. They were SO crushed, and the day SO mournful that I had to step up.

12   I should preface this with the fact that on Friday, I  wore my Montana 16 jersey, a gold shirt and tie underneath, and a Niner straw hat. I got an earful from a lot of different fans, but I stood tall, and boasted, “Niners by ten!” I truly believed that as a good prediction. I laid out the reasons in Friday’s DN. I would predict it again if there were another game.

13   But that’s all water under the turf. What it did was put smiles on all the young Niner fans’ faces. We had a right to peacock it a bit. We had been through a lot, and now it was our turn. That’s sports. That’s what being a fan is about.

14   Yesterday was so exquisitely painful for those kids. People yelled at them, called them names, and railed at them. But they wore their gear proudly, and I was proud of them.

15   Each period, I said this: “There was New Years. There was Christmas. There was Thanksgiving. And now there is The Niners. It is time for us to put that season behind and to move into the season of Love.”

16  Corny? Okay. But to a whole bunch of them, it put it gently into  perspective.

17   I should have said it was the season of New Years, in order to really make it work.

18  It worked. I saw it in their faces.

19  There are worse things than your team not making it all the way. If I may embrace the Occupy thinking for a brief second, ninety-nine per cent of sports teams don’t win the championship. One per cent do.

20   Okay math whizzes. Go ahead. Hey, I majored in English, not counting. I have the right to be an idiot. We ponder.

21   Moving on, Part the Second: Are other people planning your life and taking over?

22   I’m pretty tired of spending every waking moment I have grading papers, going to meetings, and putting up with the demands of every Tom, Dick, and Harry who thinks their stuff is more important than mine.

23   Yesterday I KNEW I had to hit a meeting after school. I also had to write a recommendation for a student. I also had about six-thousand papers to grade. I also had to somehow get home at seven, deal with some REAL issues, cook, eat, clean up, and somehow manage to sleep without hauntings.

24   The meeting became a bit of a filibuster, so anything I had to say I simply didn’t say. Why ever prolong a meeting? When the meeting ended, a couple of teachers criticized me because of my silence. They were the ones who kept talking, and I respected that their concerns far out-distanced my own.

25   I won’t go into a long diatribe about what it was all about, but I faithfully stayed late at the meeting because there were some serious issues being discussed.

26   When I got home, I immediately hopped on the computer and gathered all my info for that student’s recommendation. I flew past a few emails with other students asking for their recommendations, but each one takes a little time to do.

27   By the time I was done, it was time to have some food and go to bed. I opened the fridge and found some leftover meatballs from the Niner party. I speared a couple of cold ones, speared them with a fork, chewed them, and got them down safely.

28   That was dinner. I finished the recommendation, sent it to the student,  and waited ’til ten for a response. The deadline was midnight, but I wanted to make absolutely sure that the letter was good enough.

29   I finally gave up, hit the couch just to goof off on my laptop, and fell into a distant slumber.

30   I awakened at around two a.m. to roam the halls with my chronic insomnia, and to think of ideas for this folderol.

31   I goofed a bit on how our lives are frittered away by detail.

32    When I was in high school, I wanted to pollute Walden Pond  with a spray can, head to Walden, and tag any monuments to Thoreau. At the time, reading Walden was the hip thing to do, but when it became an assignment, I just couldn’t wrap my head around the guy. I thought he shoulda been jailed for being boring.

33   I remember my teacher, the immortal Sandy Jackson, teaching us about simplifying our lives. I later worked as a sub for her, and was struck by the lack of papers and pencils and paper clips she had. I remember opening her desk drawer and seeing a ruler and a pencil. She lived the life.

34   Fast-forward to my desk, which is actually a small metal filing cab. Stacks of papers everywhere. Paper clips, boxes of pencils, erasers, bottles of Visene, cough drops, staples, rubber bands, post-its,urgent memos: you get the drift.

35   It is a Nervous Wreck Headquarters. I’m thinking of hanging a sign over my desk that says, “NWH” just so I have a title.

36   I think last week I told you that I had actually toyed with the idea of taking a baseball bat to my computer.

37   Fortunately, I have Sandy and Thoreau to allow the idea of simplicity to settle in and to calm my frabjous nerves.

38   So I guess Walden worked after all these years. I loved Jackson. Stole her style and improved on it. She engaged students, and made me love literature and writing. I was lucky enough to have returned to Capuchino High School and work as a substitute. I ran across Sandy several times through the years, and it was always great.

39   I could go into a lot more about this, but the hours are moving like sand.

40   Eight or nine years ago I wrote a virtual yearbook on Xanga. It was all about Cap, and of teachers who inspired me. It had pictures, and it was a fantastic piece. I worked on it one summer, and had the time to make it real. I’ll try to dig it up. As I recall, Xanga kept removing the pictures for whatever reason, so I eventually left it. I’ll try to retrieve it and share it when time.

41   Right now, the clock is ticking; it is almost 4 a.m. and I must needs gather up some sleep.

42   Stay tuned. More to come.

43   Peace.

~H~

www.xanga.com/bharrington

The Daily News

1   Oh, Niners. Really?

2   Okay, so now I get to feast on a little crow. No excuses. In my entire life I had never been more confident about a football game.

3   What I didn’t expect was that we would rely on some little fellow named Kyle Williams to screw up nearly every play he would be in.

4   I expected Michael Crabtree (who?) to step it up, and for Alex Smith to go bold and gold. Didn’t happen.

5   Instead, we relied on trick plays, which didn’t work, and our running game. I expected Harbaugh to give Smith a little more freedom to throw. I expected miraculous third-down conversions.

6   Our defense did just about what I had expected. Well, the didn’t get enough pressure on Eli, but still, they kept the Giants to twenty, which should have been enough. But our offense?

7   Dude.

8    Both Harbaughs lose. Who knew? Great games, but great teams step up in great games.

9    I’m stunned. I honestly felt that we should have kicked those guys all over the planet. Really? Kyle Williams? Lawrence Tynes? Bleh.

10  Our defense, while bending a whole bunch, never broke. But a couple of guys who shall remain nameless simply didn’t show up.

11   We converted zero third down conversions, a little item that this team needs to work on. Really? That was perhaps the most important thing to do. You’re home. You have the crowd. You have the better singer of the National Anthem, even though she was a weird call.

12   Michael Crabtree, where WERE you?

12   And so this is January. And what have you done?

13   Well, you almost got to the Super Bowl, that’s what you have done.

14   To my Niners: thank you for an unbelievable season Thank you for bringing the magic back. Thank you Jim Harbaugh, for bringing it. Thank you Alex Smith, for enduring not only my wrath, but the wrath of so many people. We honor your guts and your belief. You are not the villain. There is no villain. The Niners played their hearts out yesterday, and I stand proud of their performance.

15   Games in the rain. Every strategy is nullified. It becomes pretty much dumb luck, and we experienced dumb luck. We put too much stock in a player who had very few touches during the season. Maybe a smart strategy, maybe not. Harbaugh is a gambler. But he got us fourteen wins this season.

16   I really wanted this one, because I think football is going to go downhill in the coming years. As a season ticket holder, I am going to get priced out of the game, so I fully expect to give it up, as much as it is a large part of my life.

17   And next season, they will test for steroids during the season. I must say that I have looked the other way in football, which has always been an outlaw sport. But that will become an issue in the next couple of years.

18   So I really wanted one last shot at the Super Bowl. I thank Jed York and our entire operation for an awesome season. I remain a Niner Faithful, and I salute Alex Smith and Vernon Davis for all the crap they had to put up with for the past six or seven years. Especially from me. It was pretty frustrating, almost agonizing. And so there was yesterday. And what have we done?

19   We lost, yes, but on a fluke in overtime. You can’t battle better than that. I’m proud of the team for turning a long hiatus into almost certain victory. I loved the entire concept of the Harbowl, which somehow never came to fruition. But I love this team for all it did this year. I’m sorry we lost, but I’m not sorry of my bold prediction. Jim Harbaugh doesn’t believe in jinxes. He believes in mud and guts.

20   And his team believed in him. I still believe in him. I could complain about a lot of stuff in that game, but the reality is, in the end, it was one play that was going to kill either team.

21   In the end, we need to wonder a bit how we didn’t figure out time of possession, or how to gain yardage through the air.

22   Or having trick plays that use guys who didn’t touch the ball all season.

23   Hopefully Harbaugh will figure that out. I’m a bit disturbed that we came this far this season and didn’t get the ring, because football is going south, at least in my eyes. I won’t be able to root for a team that has priced its season ticket holders out of the market.

24   In the end, however, I wish to salute the players and the coaches of this awesome team. The very fact that I publicly expected them to win by ten is a testament to their amazing year. Nothing will ever take that away. I’m not going to grouse about the game; it was a shootout the entire time. We got to overtime in the NFC playoff game. Either team could have won.

25   I copied and pasted almost a play-by-play in today’s DN. I know we lost, but it was still an amazing season and an amazing game. One big play and we would be there. So thanks Niners, thanks Joe, and Steve, and Walsh, and Harbaugh, and Alex, and Vernon, and the entire team for bringing the gold back to San Francisco.

26   May the future bring more magic. I salute the 2011-12 Niners, and will evermore. Wonderful season, wonderful team.

27   Here’s the game, complete with Tweets, according to Michael Solomon of The Guardian:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/2012/jan/22/new-york-giants-san-francisco-49ers-live?intcmp=239

28   Kyle Williams. Who knew? Poor guy. Seriously. He could have been a contenduh.

29    I will stick by my support of this particular team. They let the entire world know that the Niners are back, and with the exception of one fumble, could have had it all.

30   Sadly, the NFL will never be this again. Too much boushit and all. Not trying to be negative, mind you. Just realistic. To be a fan next year knowing that the greed is going to be costly just won’t do it for me. This was the season; this was the dream; this was the destiny.

31   It just didn’t happen.

32   Kyle Williams. That poor kid. That’s about all I could think about.

33   Thanks Niners, for all the memories. You were a large part of my life. But I can’t afford $80,000 to retain my seats. Once that happens, I won’t want to watch anymore. I may, because it’s in my blood, but this game was it. I gave you this season, and now I just don’t know anymore. In my heart I will always be a Niner fan. But those issues are hard not to examine now that the season has ended.

34   Pitchers and catchers report in February. We have the Sharks.

35   <sigh>

36   Thanks for a great season. Truly. You guys played your hearts out all season long, and the entire Bay Area salutes you. You have earned that respect. Love you, Niners. Always will.

37    Peace.

~H~

www.xanga.com/bharrington

The Daily News

1   Niners by 10.

2   Just sayin’.

3   I’m thinking like a New Yorker.

4   Although the original New York Daily News keeps divvying out confidence builders for their team, facts is facts.

5   New York stopped Frank Gore in the last game, shut him down completely. But Gore had a bum ankle, and Kendall Hunter stepped up and gained 6.7 yards per carry in the second half.

6   The Giants have been inconsistent all year. They are 11-7 on the season. Gore is healthy, and so is Hunter. It looks like rain in the fourth quarter. Don’t underestimate what that will do for a team whose defense consistently takes footballs away from opponents the same way that bullies take candy from red-headed schoolboys. Don’t underestimate the rain. Yes, the Giants have been much better against the run, but with both Gore and Hunter healthy, they could be in trouble in wet weather. And don’t underestimate Candlestick Park, nor the intimidation of some very hungry and determined Niner fans.

7   Most of the Giants’ wins have been the result of inconsistent play, and a reliance on quarterback Eli Manning to deliver in the clutch. That’s nice, but it isn’t consistent, and it isn’t going to get any team to the Super Bowl. There’s a reason they have lost seven games, and there is a reason we have lost only three. Any sort of comeback in rainy weather is pretty iffy.

8   Candlestick Park is going to be rocking, and when Candlestick Park rocks, other teams roll. They roll outta here with tails between their legs. Expect fumbles, mistakes, and turnovers to happen to the Giants.

9   Their strength is supposedly stopping the run. Ain’t gonna happen. We will hit guys on the flat, and Alex Smith will play everything conservatively because of the rain. There will be at least two game-breaking passes to the determined Vernon Davis, and there will be at least two picks off Eli Manning. Our secondary is too much for their receivers.

10   The Harbaugh Factor: Where the storied head coach Bill Walsh was considered a “genius”, present coach Jim Harbaugh is a madman. He’s crazy. He’s a lunatic. To Harbaugh, football isn’t a game; it’s a war. And that will be the number one difference in the game. He is intolerent of anything less than perfect. He will lie, cheat, and trick. He scares referees.  He is a ticking bomb, and his players know it. The 49ers make the least mistakes of any team in the NFL. And they force a lot of mistakes by the other teams.

11   Our special teams will perform at least one mini-miracle. They are arguably our best special teams in the history of the franchise.

12   The Number Six: When the Niners won their fifth Super Bowl against no defeats, they had bragging rights. They no longer do, and haven’t for a long time. The Pittsburgh Steelers still own six. Harbaugh and Company want to right that one.

13   It’s gonna happen. Sometimes football unfolds in odd ways. This year, look to the Harbaugh/Harbaugh Super Bowl to be the most talked about in history. What makes the Ravens the Ravens?

14   Defense. No turnovers. Period.

15   The two teams are where they are because of these remarkably similar coaches.

16   I don’t want to look past the New York Giants mainly because of how they mangled the storied Packers. They can send anybody packing. They beat Green Bay at  Lambeau, which traditionally is something nearly impossible to do. But anyone with half a brain could see that they prepared for the game better than did the Packers. Green Bay beat themselves with a lack of adequate preparation. That ain’t gonna happen to the Niners.

17    The road to the Super Bowl goes through Candlestick. It might for many more years, beginning Sunday.

18    It will be a swirl of red, candy for the home team, and absolute Hell for the visiting Giants. I was at the game the last time the Giants met us at a playoff game. Candlestick was remarkably quiet in our comeback win.

19   It is going to be an entirely different Candlestick this Sunday. A storied franchise that has been mismanaged for ten years is hungry. The fans are ravenous. They will be loud. The coach is out of his mind. The stage is set.

20   My sister Gayle and her son Michael, both ravenous fans, will be out there, sitting in my Mom and Dad’s seats. Dad will be home, calm and funny as usual. Mom will be looking over the stadium from above, and will bring it,  the same way she brought it for the San Francisco Giants’ World Series.

21  The Niners by ten. Let’s say 24-14, but only because of the late game rain.

22   Bold prediction. But the most underrated factor in all of this is how amazing Alex Smith has become since I told him and Singletary to take their dog-and-pony show somewhere else. I was absolutely convinced that Smith was a lame duck this year.

23   I had every reason to. After six years in the NFL, if you are showing absolutely no sense of instincts, reflexes and wisdom, you need to get another job. There was a time that I thought if Alex lost his job and got hired at McDonald’s, he would have flipped  burgers into car windows.

24   Enter Jim Harbaugh. In last week’s game, Harbaugh finally gave Alex the keys to the car. He put everything into Alex culminating in Alex’s walk-off throw to Vernon Davis, which was one of the greatest throws in NFL history. Davis’ grab is what people remember, but Alex’s throw was a screaming bullet. He knew what he had to do. Vernon knew what he had to do. They practiced that play a billion times. That’s how you win. That’s how they will win. By ten.

25   Alex’s story is now franchise history. Vernon’s story is now franchise history. It won’t end on Sunday no matter what happens.

26   Niners by ten.

27   Late.

~H~

www.xanga.com/bharrington

    The Daily News

1   The fighter still remains.

2   So does The Cough.

3   I have had this ridiculous Cough for well over a month.

4   I rarely get sick, and I almost never take days off.

5   I don’t feel sick at all, yet this Cough still remains.

6   I’m not experiencing any sneezes, wheezes,  nor prayers to Jesus.

7   I don’t mind going to school, because our campus is already infected with the thing.

8   We have almost three thousand students, many of whom cough into their elbows on a daily basis. It is epidemic. Nobody mentions it, because it is “cold season.”

9    I see people at the supermarket with it.

10   It is airborne and everywhere.

11   Students and teachers come to school with it, because it is reasonably easy to function when you have it.

12   But it is odd, because it is like nothing I’ve ever had before.

13   I used to get colds twice every year, once in September when school would start, and once in January, when winter would turn on the freeze.

14   Those colds were heroic. I would fight them with a bag full of Walgreens’ stuff: Sudafed, coughh drops, nose squirts, Visene, and on and on.

15   I remember a time years ago when it rained, and I drove down Story road to get home. I couldn’t see well because of the driving rain on my windshield. I had a horrible cold. Because it was difficult to see through the windshield, I swerved slightly. A cop pulled me over.

16   It was around six p.m. My chest felt cold. I was wheezing. I had a throbbing fever.The cop came up to the car window and pantomimed for me to roll it down.

17   “Good evening. Can I see your driver’s license?”

18   I just wanted to get home. I pulled it out, knowing this would probably be a forty-minute delay.

19   “Where you headed?”

20   “Now that you’re here, more than likely to Hell,” I thought. Always an annoying question. Personally, I always felt it was none of their business. Just get to the point. What was I doing to get pulled over, explain it to me, and give me a ticket. That’s your job. I was too tired and wheezy to bring up civil rights’ issues though. I wearily said, “I’m trying to go home.” Walter Mitty.

21   “Well you swerved back there; did you know that?”

22   “Yes, the rain made it difficult for me to see through my windshield. That’s why I’m not on the freeway. I just want to get home.”

23   “Have you been drinking?”

24

25    “No sir. The rain made it difficult for me to see through my windshield. Plus I have this lousy cold, and a fever, and I am exhausted.”

26   The guy shined his flashlight in my face and moved it up and down. With one look he knew I hadn’t had a drop.

27   “Wow. You really DO look bad.”

28   I didn’t say a word, but I felt like retorting, “Thanks for the compliment.”

29   He became pretty sympathetic. “Okay Mr. Harrington, what I’m going to do is ask you to drive your vehicle safely home. You were smart going the backroads and streets. Just be aware that you were swerving, and you need to avoid that and get home safely.”

30   “Uh…yeah. Thanks.” He went off, and I continued home. Good guy.

31   That night I was so weak that I took the next day off.

32   I rarely take days off unless someone in my family is sick, or unless I have a ridiculous grading deadline. Anybody who knows me knows that.

33  But I took the next day off to go see the doctor.

34   When I got there, she examined me, and her first words were, “Oh my God!”

35   Great bedside manner.

36   It turned out that I had pneumonia. I was told to stay in bed for at least five days. She gave me some sort of pills and sent me on my way.

37   Five days away from lessons was always a nightmare. I don’t remember what I used for lesson plans; I just remember letting the sub know that it was okay to tell my students that I was about to die. Well, that I was a tad moribund, a vocab word I always teach just in case I have to take an extended leave. It means “at the point of death.”

38   Yeah, I played the “D” card, but only so that they would behave for anyone who would take over.

39   Being absent for any extended time is really tough on both teachers and students. Quite often lesson plans go ignored, horror stories occur, and anger sets in. If you lay a word like “moribund” into the students’ vocabulary lessons, they are more likely to understand the gravity of the situation, and to behave more properly. Or not.

40  My recollection is that they misbehaved, and that on my return I had to lower the boom on them.

41  Thats the reason that to this day, I try never to be absent if I could avoid it.

42   Yesterday at the English meeting, the Cough returned. No fever. No oddities. Just this aggressive cough that sends everyone running. It was at the end of the meeting. Everyone smiled, but they commented politely, “Wow, you really should stay home.” “You are obviously sick.” What I really heard was, “Kill the monster!”

43   I got back to my room. As the union assembly rep, I was supposed to go to a meeting at four. The coughing continued ridiculously. I remembered the year I didn’t rest, and almost killed myself with pneumonia. If a doctor looks at you and says, “Oh my God!” you listen. You listen for the rest of your life.

44   I decided not to go to the meeting. All I could picture was a bunch of teachers thinking, “Why is he HERE?”

45   Because the Cough is everywhere. You are already exposed. It isn’t pneumonia, it’s just a naggy, repeating-rifle irritation. You can walk. You can think. You can work. But you can’t make it go away. It is epidemic in San Jose. It is probably epidemic in California.

46   I have had to cancel seeing friends, seeing family, going places, and even visiting new babies. This thing is pretty restricting.

47   I made chicken soup last night. It worked, even lured me into a false sense of security. I breathed nicely last night.

48   When I woke up this morning, another fit of coughing occurred. No fever. No sneezes. I took a pill, and it subsided, at least for now.

49   So I’m going back in. I will be coked to the gills on Wal-phed, Wal-tussen, Wal-nose squirts, Wal-cola, Wal-nex, and on and on. I can’t afford major brands of stuff anymore.

50   I have given my theories about it in the DN. Mainstream news seems to think it’s not all around us. It isn’t if you haven’t got it. If you have it, you know.

51   I’m not really trying to complain about it here; I’m just trying to get word out that we are in the middle of a serious epidemic, and it is being ignored by the mainstream news. Here is an article I found declaring it epidemic. It was written in July. My guess is that the numbers in this article were ridiculously low:

http://abclocal.go.com/kgo/story?section=news/health&id=7582798

52   I’ll keep fighting, but it is getting pretty serious. And I know there are people reading this who are thinking, “Just stay home. You are infecting everybody.”

53   Everybody is already exposed. I can’t take two months off because I have a cough.

54   Whoops.

55   I have THE Cough.

56   And I don’t want my students to be in the hands of someone who might mess up their learning. We’ve made a lot of progress this year. I want them to continue doing well.

57   I just coughed again. Nothing in the chest this time. Hmmm. Maybe it’s retreating?

58   I’m looking forward to the rain clearing the pollution out. Everything isn’t a conspiracy. The San Jose sky has been murky to a ridiculous degree for the past month.

59   Where there’s smoke?

60   Pray for rain.

61   Peace.

~H~

www.xanga.com/bharrington

The Daily News

1   And so this is Tuesday.

2   Really?

3   A  school week should never begin on a Tuesday.

4   That’s my feeling.

5    In fact, if you are any sort of DN aficionado, then you know of my mild campaign to eliminate Tuesday as a day of the week.

6    I could run for political office on that one issue alone.

7    Case in point: if we had already eliminated this ridiculous day as a day of the week, it would be Wednesday already. Wednesdays can be altered to be as useless as Mondays, if you really consider it.

8    At our school, the faculty brilliantly voted a few years ago to make Wednesdays minimum days.

9    I don’t get it, because it seems to me that Wednesdays should be the days when our best learning goes on. Mondays should be for minimum days and shorter periods, since Mondays in California are considered by most to be the tail end of the weekend, which in California begins on Thursday night.

10   Good God we are useless.

11   I mean Californians, not teachers. Teachers are just stupid, not incompetent.

12   For example, I think it was two years ago that our district voted to begin school in late August, and to end the school year in May, changing the entire classic landscape of learning for California kids.

13   The idea was that instead of the first semester going into January, it would end before Christmas. This would give the students a much-needed rest between semesters, and they could enjoy the holidays with family and friends.

14   <basketball buzzer> As a teacher, I saw it as a lousy idea. I assumed it would create tremendous stress on the students right before the holidays and I was right. I assumed that many teachers would give huge assignments and mountains of studies over the holidays anyway, and I was right. I assumed that it would make us work harder over the holidays to get grades done, and I was right. The grades used to be due well after Christmas. Finals usually were the second week of January, giving plenty of space for us to grade things, and more time for shopping, and for family and friends.

15   With the new decision, grades were due on the Wednesday of our return from Christmas. Sounds good on paper, but really? What the general public doesn’t understand about teaching is the amount of preparation time we put in.

16   If you are remotely close to being a good teacher, you spend the majority of your life grading papers and planning lessons.

17   By making Christmas the end of the semester, our deadline for semester grades comes in two weeks earlier. This means that whatever days we have for family and friends are annihilated. The grades are now due on the Wednesday of our return.

18   This means that we spend almost two straight weeks grading essays and finals, and then preparing for lessons that re-teach what we spent most of the first semester grading. The students will come in as zombies with no recollection of anything except constant studying, football games, candy, presents, and sugar highs. Most of what we taught won’t be remembered for at least two weeks. They will be hyper at the exact time that we need some quiet time to consider every kid’s grade; in my case, the number exceeds a hundred-fifty.

19   If the semester goes into January, we have much more time over the holidays to spend with family and friends, and by coming back and preparing for finals, we are back into the rhythm of normalcy. We also have three minimum days for finals the week after our return, which gives us hours more to work on grading and which gives us much more natural deadlines.

20   Graduation and summer would then hit in June, like normal, and school would begin in early September. That formula worked for ages. Everybody in America lived that sched as kids. Family vacations revolved around that, and traditions had already been established for decades.

21   But the teachers voted for this new idea, “for the kids”. The idea was that the students wouldn’t have to worry about school during the Christmas holidays, and that they could enjoy time with family and friends, and that the teachers were being selfish in wanting finals in January.

22   Okay, so we did this thing. From my perpsective, it was an absolute failure. I spent nearly half of the Christmas season in a race to meet the grading deadline that came two days after New Years. I had essays, finals, and normal homework stacked up higher than Everest. I had been grading each day until five or six, and still had mountains of papers. I couldn’t talk to family or friends because of those deadlines.

23   Heaven forbid if there was any sort of family crisis.

24   As for the students?

25   We had teachers giving them mountains of homework over the holidays, much like summer reading for Advanced Placement. The students had to worry constantly over their break about reading and being held accountable for massive amounts of homework which was divvied out by the same teachers who felt they should not need to worry about school during the holidays. This defeats the purpose of the change that was voted upon, which was to give the students an end and a beginning to the semesters. Fail. Big time. Fail.

26   I personally became sick because of the stress of the deadline this year. I had a little time to see people, but not nearly enough. The holidays demand lots of family time, so the time between visits was spent with stacks of papers everywhere in my living room, and School Loop demands from parents and students flooding in. “I DID that assignment!” “Why has my student’s grade gone from an A to a D?” “You haven’t gotten your TB test updated!” “I don’t mean to be pushy, but did you write my recommendation?”

27    It used to be normal to spend time with these issues. We had until the second week of January to iron all of that out. I knew it at the time the issue came to vote.

28   I tried talking to everybody and his/her brother/sister about it, but they were all sympathetic with the notion that “It’s not about us; it’s about the students.”

29   I was about the absurdity of changing not only Christmas, but summer as well. How many staff and students have traditional things going on during summer? How many people plan their summer vacations around the school year? Millions?

30   Tahoe was cold this last year, because we changed vacation plans. The water was freezing. Each year our entire family plans a huge two-week bash up there. It has been a tradition for years. This last year everybody’s vacations were altered, and that stupid vote had a huge impact on my family.

31   This didn’t just affect my family, it affected everybody’s. And it wasn’t just our district that decided school should begin in mid-August. It was a state trend, and to me, a trend that failed. I doubt very seriously that the students made any inroads into a better education. What I saw was disoriented students and teachers returning from the holidays completely dazed and out of it. Massive fail, in my eyes. The original vote to put this in place was really close, but somehow this decision is probably now set in stone.

32   I tried telling everybody I could see that changing traditional summer was a huge mistake, but it fell on deaf ears. There are still people out there who think this new scedule, passing by a slim margin, mind you,  is better for the students.

33   It will never revert either, because someone, somewhere thought they were innovative, and that more learning would take place, and studies prove this, because it worked in one Lodi school, and blah, blah, blah. Studies. Really? Anyone who has ever worked on a “study” knows how those things work.

34   I’m waiting for the school year to end in April and begin in July. That seems to be the idiotic trend. Someone probably already has studies that show this to be an intelligent thing. I could probably rig a few surveys to make it a reality; that’s the scary thing.

35   I wish that when people vote on things, they would think more carefully about the realistic impact of their decisions. Simplistic things like, “It’s about the kids” just don’t match up with reality. The kids had just as much, if not more homework over the holidays. I heard horror stories of “all-nighters”. Many kids took off on vacations that they are still on as of this writing. No consideration of Chinese/Vietnamese New Year ever entered the mix. No accounting for cultural differences. The kids returning from vacations this week are going to be screwed for the entire next semester.

36   So here I am at 5 a.m. scratching my head about yesterday. Our dog Phoebe was having multitudinous health issues, so she spent the entire day in surgery at the vet. I spent the day writing vocabulary lists and planning lessons while waiting anxiously by the phone.

37   I did get a chance to watch the Niners game. That I did make time for, but couldn’t enjoy it with my Dad because the stress of those deadlines got me sick.

38   We brought Phoebe home last night at around seven, and she wobbled sideways on the front lawn. She looked like a guy returning home after last call. She’s okay now, but she had a few teeth extracted yesterday, poor thing.

39    And so this is Tuesday.

40    Did I tell you about why I think changing the entire school year calendar was a really lousy idea?

41   Okay, so the coffee started bubbling, Phoebe is up, the lights are on, and I guess it’s time to prepare to go in there and try to teach after yet another “holiday”.

42   If Tuesdays were eliminated, today would be Wednesday.

43   Just sayin’.

44   Have a good one.

45   Peace.

~H~

www.xanga.com/bharrington