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but damn, the last line made me laugh.

Bill Clinton: 'Screw It, I'm Running For President'
from The Onion

CHARLESTON, SC—After spending two months accompanying his wife, Hillary, on the campaign trail, former president Bill Clinton announced Monday that he is joining the 2008 presidential race, saying he "could no longer resist the urge."

"My fellow Americans, I am sick and tired of not being president," said Clinton, introducing his wife at a "Hillary '08" rally. "For seven agonizing years, I have sat idly by as others experienced the joys of campaigning, debating, and interacting with the people of this great nation, and I simply cannot take it anymore. I have to be president again. I have to."

"Damn, this feels good," Clinton told supporters as he shook hands in Charleston Monday.He continued, "It is with a great sense of relief that I say to all of you today, 'Screw it. I'm in.'"

In a show of respect, Clinton then completed his introduction of Hillary Clinton, calling her a "wonderful wife and worthy political adversary," and warmly shook her hand as she approached the podium. A clearly shocked Mrs. Clinton got halfway through her speech about the nation's obligation to its children before walking briskly offstage.

A spokesman for Sen. Clinton's campaign had no comment.

"No longer will I have to endure watching candidates like Hillary Clinton engaging in single-pump handshakes with voters, as I use every last ounce of restraint not to shout out, 'No! Warm double-clasp! Warm double-clasp!'" Clinton said. "America deserves someone who can do it right."

While the announcement has come as a surprise to many, Beltway observers said it was not completely unexpected, citing footage from a recent Democratic debate that showed Clinton fidgeting in his seat, gripping the arms of his chair, and repeatedly glancing at all the television cameras while rapidly tapping his right foot. Analysts also noted one debate in which Clinton mouthed responses to all the moderator's questions while making hand gestures to himself.

Clinton told reporters Tuesday that seeing so many "Clinton '08" posters "really got [him] thinking," and said that the fact that he was already wearing a suit, and smiling and waving on the campaign trail was an added motivator.

"From signing healthcare reform legislation, to working with politicians from across the aisle, to brokering international peace treaties with foreign dignitaries, I goddamn love being president," Clinton said. "For too long has this nation been deprived of a Bill Clinton presidency, and for too long have I been deprived of being president. Now I get to experience all these wonderful things again myself."

"And the applause," Clinton added. "I look forward to the endless roar of applause perhaps most of all."

Since his announcement two days ago, Clinton has raised a staggering $550 million. He has also surged in national polls, rising from a mere 2 percent prior to his candidacy to a commanding 94 percent, ahead of former front-runners Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, who are now tied with 3 percent each. John Edwards withdrew from the race Tuesday, saying only, "I am not worthy."

Although some have pointed out that it is unconstitutional for Clinton to run for a third term in office, he has silenced most critics by urging voters "not to worry about the Constitution for now" and assuring them he will address those legal issues immediately after regaining control of the White House.

"All I am asking of the American people is four more years," Clinton said at a fundraiser Tuesday where tens of thousands of South Carolinians gathered to stare in gape-jawed wonderment at the former president. "Well, maybe eight. Actually, you know what, definitely eight. Eight more years."

Thus far, the response among voters has been positive.

"I love Bill Clinton," said Orangeburg, SC resident Marsha Demarais. "God, he was just so great as president. Can we just make him president again right now?"

Clinton also noted that, if elected, the timing would be perfect for his family, as his wife has recently expressed a desire to move back to the D.C. area.

Friday

So now they are coming on "Friday," whatever Friday really means, perhaps the day after tomorrow. Or perhaps they checked the forecast and saw the chance for snow.

"Okay, we'd be glad to see you."

"I know you don't believe me."

"Well, I know you mean it when you say it, but whatever day you tell me, in the end you're never here. "

"I want to come," she insists.

"Just you?"

"No, I ask him and he wants to come, too." The baby is fussing in the background; I count back and recall: she'll be four months old on Monday.

"Well, good."

She sounds surprised every time we have this conversation, as if saying that she wants to come should have magically transported her here. And we always wind around to the same follow-up question, "Ms. P, are you gonna be mad?"

It's almost a dare, from the girl who has always looked both for an excuse and for her adults to fail her, the remains of her see-this-chip-knock-it-off strategy, a guaranteed exit from a difficult path, but now I hear "please do be" and "please don't be" at once. Last time she left us, before she admitted this ambivalence, she stomped off to Florida, found her boy, soon enough made her baby in the first purposeful act of her life. What's done so definitely done. So, no, I'm not gonna be mad; I'm way past, regardless. It's time to salvage whatever we can.

"Look, every day you don't come, it gets harder to come back. And every day you don't come, it gets harder for you to pass. But when you come back, I'll be glad to see you. All we can do is talk to the office and find out what we can do."

"On Friday?"

"Sure, on Friday."

"Okay, thank you."

"Okay."

The futility of hope

Democrat John Edwards is exiting the presidential race Wednesday, ending a scrappy underdog bid in which he steered his rivals toward progressive ideals while grappling with family hardship that roused voters' sympathies, The Associated Press has learned.

The two-time White House candidate notified a close circle of senior advisers that he planned to make the announcement at a 1 p.m. EST event in New Orleans that had been billed as a speech on poverty, according to two aides. The decision came after Edwards lost the four states to hold nominating contests so far to rivals who stole the spotlight from the beginning _ Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama.

The former North Carolina senator will not immediately endorse either candidate in what is now a two-person race for the Democratic nomination, said one adviser, who spoke on condition of anonymity in advance of the announcement. Clinton said Edwards called her Wednesday night to inform her about his decision.

Four in 10 Edwards supporters said their second choice in the race is Clinton, while a quarter prefer Obama, according to an Associated Press-Yahoo poll conducted late this month. Both Clinton and Obama would welcome Edwards' backing and the support of the 56 delegates he had collected.

Edwards waged a spirited top-tier campaign against the two better-funded rivals, even as he dealt with the stunning blow of his wife's recurring cancer diagnosis. In a dramatic news conference last March, the couple announced that the breast cancer that she thought she had beaten had returned, but they would continue the campaign.

Their decision sparked a debate about family duty and public service. But Elizabeth Edwards remained a forceful advocate for her husband, and she was often surrounded at campaign events by well-wishers and emotional survivors cheering her on.

Edwards planned to announce his campaign was ending with his wife and three children at his side. Then he planned to work with Habitat for Humanity at the volunteer-fueled rebuilding project Musicians' Village, the adviser said.

With that, Edwards' campaign will end the way it began 13 months ago _ with the candidate pitching in to rebuild lives in a city still ravaged by Hurricane Katrina. Edwards embraced New Orleans as a glaring symbol of what he described as a Washington that didn't hear the cries of the downtrodden.

Edwards burst out of the starting gate with a flurry of progressive policy ideas _ he was the first to offer a plan for universal health care, the first to call on Congress to pull funding for the war, and he led the charge that lobbyists have too much power in Washington and need to be reigned in.

The ideas were all bold and new for Edwards personally as well, making him a different candidate than the moderate Southerner who ran in 2004 while still in his first Senate term. But the themes were eventually adopted by other Democratic presidential candidates _ and even a Republican, Mitt Romney, echoed the call for an end to special interest politics in Washington.

Edwards' rise to prominence in politics came amid just one term representing North Carolina in the Senate after a career as a trial attorney that made him millions. He was on Al Gore's short list for vice president in 2000 after serving just two years in office. He ran for president in 2004, and after he lost to John Kerry, the nominee picked him as a running mate.

Elizabeth Edwards first discovered a lump in her breast in the final days of that losing campaign. Her battle against the disease caused her husband to open up about another tragedy in their lives _ the death of their teenage son Wade in a 1996 car accident. The candidate barely spoke of Wade during his 2004 campaign, but he offered his son's death to answer questions about how he could persevere when his wife could die.

Edwards made poverty the signature issue of both his presidential campaigns, and he led a four-day tour to highlight the issue in July. The tour was the first to focus on the plight of the poor since Robert F. Kennedy's trip 40 years earlier.

But even as Obama and Clinton collected astonishing amounts of money that dwarfed his fundraising effort, Edwards maintained a loyal following in the first voting state of Iowa that made him a serious contender. He came in second to Obama in Iowa, an impressive feat of relegating Clinton to third place, before coming in third in the following three contests.

The loss in South Carolina was especially hard because it was where he was born and he had won the state in 2004.

If you spent two years locked in a room with nothing but a map, you'd learn it, too.

Limits

So tell me, dude, what exactly do you want me to do?

I don't think the budget's ever going to allow for getting my job description back from the printer's--that sucker must be huge--but even in the fine print it surely doesn't insist that I pull Angel out from underneath his covers and get him and his sister to the bus stop on time. Even I draw the line.

Trust me: I'm sick of it, too! The waltzing in thirty or forty-give minutes late, disrupting my class, grinding things to a halt--think if he were twenty percent of your class's enrollment! So, yes, I feel your frustration, in fact was just as irritated by his sister's tardiness as you were by his today--oh, that's right. I told you. On the phone. When you called me! Extending the disruption to everyone because you wanted, what exactly? I answered because you have two other students who may have really needed something, but dude. I am not the principal, the attendance office, and most definitely not his mother, though you are not the first one around here to make such a mistake. Just tell me: did his native language make him late? I'm just his English teacher. Or at least that's the theory.

Not that I believe it either, or would stand for it, really, but this same day, this same kid was sent back from guidance with the warning signs I'd gathered to me, the Not a Counselor, because I am "not a stranger" though I've never met his family. This seems to be my primary qualification, my universal role. When I know what I'm doing, or when it makes sense, or when there's something to do, I'm glad to, even if someone else could. But they just aren't my students, not mine alone. Because you know what? I'm not a counselor, or, for Pete's sake, the business teacher. Does anyone have a Pawn Shop sign?

Krugman: Lessons of 1992

In January, 1992 I was still Miss M, teaching white seventh graders out on the prairie. A literal lifetime ago, considering many of my current students either hadn't been born or were babies, perhaps toddlers in another country or on another continent. Life's unpredictable, but one thing seems always to be true: Paul Krugman just makes sense.

Lessons of 1992
By PAUL KRUGMAN

It’s starting to feel a bit like 1992 again. A Bush is in the White House, the economy is a mess, and there’s a candidate who, in the view of a number of observers, is running on a message of hope, of moving past partisan differences, that resembles Bill Clinton’s campaign 16 years ago.

Now, I’m not sure that’s a fair characterization of the 1992 Clinton campaign, which had a strong streak of populism, beginning with a speech in which Mr. Clinton described the 1980s as a “gilded age of greed.” Still, to the extent that Barack Obama 2008 does sound like Bill Clinton 1992, here’s my question: Has everyone forgotten what happened after the 1992 election?

Let’s review the sad tale, starting with the politics.

Whatever hopes people might have had that Mr. Clinton would usher in a new era of national unity were quickly dashed. Within just a few months the country was wracked by the bitter partisanship Mr. Obama has decried.

This bitter partisanship wasn’t the result of anything the Clintons did. Instead, from Day 1 they faced an all-out assault from conservatives determined to use any means at hand to discredit a Democratic president.

For those who are reaching for their smelling salts because Democratic candidates are saying slightly critical things about each other, it’s worth revisiting those years, simply to get a sense of what dirty politics really looks like.

No accusation was considered too outlandish: a group supported by Jerry Falwell put out a film suggesting that the Clintons had arranged for the murder of an associate, and The Wall Street Journal’s editorial page repeatedly hinted that Bill Clinton might have been in cahoots with a drug smuggler.

So what good did Mr. Clinton’s message of inclusiveness do him?

Meanwhile, though Mr. Clinton may not have run as postpartisan a campaign as legend has it, he did avoid some conflict by being strategically vague about policy. In particular, he promised health care reform, but left the business of producing an actual plan until after the election.

This turned out to be a disaster. Much has been written about the process by which the Clinton health care plan was put together: it was too secretive, too top-down, too politically tone-deaf. Above all, however, it was too slow. Mr. Clinton didn’t deliver legislation to Congress until Nov. 20, 1993 — by which time the momentum from his electoral victory had evaporated, and opponents had had plenty of time to organize against him.

The failure of health care reform, in turn, doomed the Clinton presidency to second-rank status. The government was well run (something we’ve learned to appreciate now that we’ve seen what a badly run government looks like), but — as Mr. Obama correctly says — there was no change in the country’s fundamental trajectory.

So what are the lessons for today’s Democrats?

First, those who don’t want to nominate Hillary Clinton because they don’t want to return to the nastiness of the 1990s — a sizable group, at least in the punditocracy — are deluding themselves. Any Democrat who makes it to the White House can expect the same treatment: an unending procession of wild charges and fake scandals, dutifully given credence by major media organizations that somehow can’t bring themselves to declare the accusations unequivocally false (at least not on Page 1).

The point is that while there are valid reasons one might support Mr. Obama over Mrs. Clinton, the desire to avoid unpleasantness isn’t one of them.

Second, the policy proposals candidates run on matter.

I have colleagues who tell me that Mr. Obama’s rejection of health insurance mandates — which are an essential element of any workable plan for universal coverage — doesn’t really matter, because by the time health care reform gets through Congress it will be very different from the president’s initial proposal anyway. But this misses the lesson of the Clinton failure: if the next president doesn’t arrive with a plan that is broadly workable in outline, by the time the thing gets fixed the window of opportunity may well have passed.

My sense is that the fight for the Democratic nomination has gotten terribly off track. The blame is widely shared. Yes, Bill Clinton has been somewhat boorish (though I can’t make sense of the claims that he’s somehow breaking unwritten rules, which seem to have been newly created for the occasion). But many Obama supporters also seem far too ready to demonize their opponents.

What the Democrats should do is get back to talking about issues — a focus on issues has been the great contribution of John Edwards to this campaign — and about who is best prepared to push their agenda forward. Otherwise, even if a Democrat wins the general election, it will be 1992 all over again. And that would be a bad thing.

Frank Rich: The Billary Road to Republican Victory

As little sleep as I get through the week, I'm grateful to no longer be prone to nightmares. As a kid I had a couple of recurring bad dreams, images that visited me so often I can still see them today: Walking up the curved gravel of a street in my town, sliding across the puckered black vinyl of the back seat of a Chevy my grandpa once owned, and having that driverless car take off as if that hilly neighborhood were a roller coaster. Out of control, unstoppable. The familiarity made it far more terrifying than any monster my imagination could conjure. Likewise, it's the "could happen" nature of this scenario, despite its assumptions, that spooks me.

The Billary Road to Republican Victory
By FRANK RICH

IN the wake of George W. Bush, even a miracle might not be enough for the Republicans to hold on to the White House in 2008. But what about two miracles? The new year’s twin resurrections of Bill Clinton and John McCain, should they not evaporate, at last give the G.O.P. a highly plausible route to victory.

Amazingly, neither party seems to fully recognize the contours of the road map. In the Democrats’ case, the full-throttle emergence of Billary, the joint Clinton candidacy, is measured mainly within the narrow confines of the short-term horse race: Do Bill Clinton’s red-faced eruptions and fact-challenged rants enhance or diminish his wife as a woman and a candidate?

Absent from this debate is any sober recognition that a Hillary Clinton nomination, if it happens, will send the Democrats into the general election with a new and huge peril that may well dwarf the current wars over race, gender and who said what about Ronald Reagan.

What has gone unspoken is this: Up until this moment, Hillary has successfully deflected rough questions about Bill by saying, “I’m running on my own” or, as she snapped at Barack Obama in the last debate, “Well, I’m here; he’s not.” This sleight of hand became officially inoperative once her husband became a co-candidate, even to the point of taking over entirely when she vacated South Carolina last week. With “two for the price of one” back as the unabashed modus operandi, both Clintons are in play.

For the Republicans, that means not just a double dose of the one steroid, Clinton hatred, that might yet restore their party’s unity but also two fat targets. Mrs. Clinton repeatedly talks of how she’s been “vetted” and that “there are no surprises” left to be mined by her opponents. On the “Today” show Friday, she joked that the Republican attacks “are just so old.” So far. Now that Mr. Clinton is ubiquitous, not only is his past back on the table but his post-presidency must be vetted as well. To get a taste of what surprises may be in store, you need merely revisit the Bill Clinton questions that Hillary Clinton has avoided to date.

Asked by Tim Russert at a September debate whether the Clinton presidential library and foundation would disclose the identities of its donors during the campaign, Mrs. Clinton said it wasn’t up to her. “What’s your recommendation?” Mr. Russert countered. Mrs. Clinton replied: “Well, I don’t talk about my private conversations with my husband, but I’m sure he’d be happy to consider that.”

Not so happy, as it turns out. The names still have not been made public.

Just before the holidays, investigative reporters at both The Washington Post and The New York Times tried to find out why, with no help from the Clintons. The Post uncovered a plethora of foreign contributors, led by Saudi Arabia. The Times found an overlap between library benefactors and Hillary Clinton campaign donors, some of whom might have an agenda with a new Clinton administration. (Much as one early library supporter, Marc Rich’s ex-wife, Denise, had an agenda with the last one.) “The vast scale of these secret fund-raising operations presents enormous opportunities for abuse,” said Representative Henry Waxman, the California Democrat whose legislation to force disclosure passed overwhelmingly in the House but remains stalled in the Senate.

The Post and Times reporters couldn’t unlock all the secrets. The unanswered questions could keep them and their competitors busy until Nov. 4. Mr. Clinton’s increased centrality to the campaign will also give The Wall Street Journal a greater news peg to continue its reportorial forays into the unraveling financial partnership between Mr. Clinton and the swashbuckling billionaire Ron Burkle.

At “Little Rock’s Fort Knox,” as the Clinton library has been nicknamed by frustrated researchers, it’s not merely the heavy-hitting contributors who are under wraps. Even by the glacial processing standards of the National Archives, the Clintons’ White House papers have emerged slowly, in part because Bill Clinton exercised his right to insist that all communications between him and his wife be “considered for withholding” until 2012.

When Mrs. Clinton was asked by Mr. Russert at an October debate if she would lift that restriction, she again escaped by passing the buck to her husband: “Well, that’s not my decision to make.” Well, if her candidacy is to be as completely vetted as she guarantees, the time for the other half of Billary to make that decision is here.

The credibility of a major Clinton campaign plank, health care, depends on it. In that same debate, Mrs. Clinton told Mr. Russert that “all of the records, as far as I know, about what we did with health care” are “already available.” As Michael Isikoff of Newsweek reported weeks later, this is a bit off; he found that 3,022,030 health care documents were still held hostage. Whatever the pace of the processing, the gatekeeper charged with approving each document’s release is the longtime Clinton loyalist Bruce Lindsey.

People don’t change. Bill Clinton, having always lived on the edge, is back on the precipice. When he repeatedly complains that the press has given Mr. Obama a free ride and over-investigated the Clintons, he seems to be tempting the fates, given all the reporting still to be done on his post-presidential business. When he says, as he did on Monday, that “whatever I do should be totally transparent,” it’s almost as if he’s setting himself up for a fall. There’s little more transparency at “Little Rock’s Fort Knox” than there is at Giuliani Partners.

“The Republicans are not going to have any compunctions about asking anybody anything,” Mrs. Clinton lectured Mr. Obama. Maybe so, but Republicans are smart enough not to start asking until after she has secured the nomination.

Not all Republicans are smart enough, however, to recognize the value of John McCain should Mrs. Clinton emerge as the nominee. He’s a bazooka aimed at most every rationale she’s offered for her candidacy.

In a McCain vs. Billary race, the Democrats will sacrifice the most highly desired commodity by the entire electorate, change; the party will be mired in déjà 1990s all over again. Mrs. Clinton’s spiel about being “tested” by her “35 years of experience” won’t fly either. The moment she attempts it, Mr. McCain will run an ad about how he was being tested when those 35 years began, in 1973. It was that spring when he emerged from five-plus years of incarceration at the Hanoi Hilton while Billary was still bivouacked at Yale Law School. And can Mrs. Clinton presume to sell herself as best equipped to be commander in chief “on Day One” when opposing an actual commander and war hero? I don’t think so.

Foreign policy issue No. 1, withdrawal from Iraq, should be a slam-dunk for any Democrat. Even the audience at Thursday’s G.O.P. debate in Boca Raton cheered Ron Paul’s antiwar sentiments. But Mrs. Clinton’s case is undermined by her record. She voted for the war, just as Mr. McCain did, in 2002 and was still defending it in February 2005, when she announced from the Green Zone that much of Iraq was “functioning quite well. ” Only in November 2005 did she express the serious misgivings long pervasive in her own party. When Mr. McCain accuses her of now advocating “surrender” out of political expediency, her flip-flopping will back him up.

Billary can’t even run against the vast right-wing conspiracy if Mr. McCain is the opponent. Rush Limbaugh and Tom DeLay hate Mr. McCain as much as they hate the Clintons. And they hate him for the same reasons Mr. McCain wins over independents and occasional Democrats: his sporadic (and often mild) departures from conservative orthodoxy on immigration and campaign finance reform, torture, tax cuts, climate change and the godliness of Pat Robertson. Since Mr. McCain doesn’t kick reporters like dogs, as the Clintons do, he will no doubt continue to enjoy an advantage, however unfair, with the press pack on the Straight Talk Express.

Even so, Mr. McCain hasn’t yet won a clear majority of Republican voters in any G.O.P. contest. He’s depended on the kindness of independent voters. Tuesday’s Florida primary, which is open exclusively to Republicans, is his crucial test. If he fails, his party remains in chaos and Mitt Romney could still inherit the earth.

That would be a miracle for the Democrats, but they can hardly count on it. If Mr. Obama has not met an unexpected Waterloo in South Carolina — this column went to press before Saturday’s vote — the party needs him to stop whining about the Clintons’ attacks, regain his wit and return to playing offense. Unlike Mrs. Clinton, he would unambiguously represent change in a race with any Republican. If he vanquishes Billary, he’ll have an even stronger argument to take into battle against a warrior like Mr. McCain.

If Mr. Obama doesn’t fight, no one else will. Few national Democratic leaders have the courage to stand up to the Clintons. Even in defeat, Mr. Obama may at least help wake up a party slipping into denial. Any Democrat who seriously thinks that Bill will fade away if Hillary wins the nomination — let alone that the Clintons will escape being fully vetted — is a Democrat who, as the man said, believes in fairy tales.

Hello, chicken!

"You have a necklace," I say, looking for a visual. She's learning the English names for clothing.

"Yes, a monkey."

"Oh, is it for luck?" I ask, grasping, knowing luck is probably outside the bounds.

"Um. . . Chinese. . . ."she looks for a word.

I catch one of the Marias brightening, figuring it out a step before me: Chinese horoscope! And the animals that correspond to the years. Li smiles at being understood on a word-by-word basis as we establish that Maria is also a monkey and that Chica's a snake, so I pull out the dictionary we've been using and point to a picture: I'm a rooster (and a teacher happy to find common ground).

"Chicken!" she says, with her most random vocabulary. What exactly did they teach in Nanning?

"Rooster," I shrug and start to say "in English, a boy chicken is a rooster," as if this is a priority, but then Rafa, who has pulled up a chair here at the end of the hour, pipes up with an alternate lesson plan:

"How you say chicken in Chinese?"

So suddenly the girl three weeks out of China is teaching the boy three months out of Brazil to say "ji" until he proclaims, "I speak four languages! Portuguese, Spanish, English, Chinese!"

I tick off the words she's taught us so far: wěi, nǐ hǎo, ji. "Rafa," I tease, "you can say, 'Yes, hello chicken!'"

And that's good for a laugh and yet another, "Oh my God," from Li. It's the only interjection she's brought along on her journey, but it's getting a workout as she gets to know us, becomes one of us here on the other side of the world. Seems a good sign to me. It's proof that we communicate, that she understands--a notion too many in that high school deny. "She doesn't understand one word I say." Oh, I know it ain't easy, but come on. Hello, chicken! See what happens when you try?

One perspective

"Before we go in there, just let me say I have no idea if this is going to be any kind of educational experience for you today."

"Well, I understand things can be unpredictable. . ." says the petite grad student who'd get stopped for a pass if I sent her down the hall on her own.

I'll say! Two suspensions, three Saturday Campuses (think The Breakfast Club minus the John Hughes charm), a pair of in-schools that are about to be multiplied, and a tardy issued before 8:30? Yeah, except for the habitual lateness I never would have anticipated as much office activity in an hour as my students have churned up in years. But bad judgment seems contagious, spreading like a paperwork plague through my still off-kilter group, leaving the few, the curious, the yet to be summoned to be observed by our new aspiring ESL teacher friend.

"I can tell they're good kids," she says, and I give her points for being perceptive.

"It's not like you're not busy," she says, as I stare hard at my desk to summon something from the piles, and I give her points for being generous, or at least polite.

"I see what comes through that door!" she says, as I begin to explain, quite unnecessarily, as she's just watched me try to simultaneously help Li do Geometry and Josh finish his 10th grade enrollment and Maria do her Algebra and Angel do ANYTHING and Rafa finish his Civics while I appease the Biology teacher and confer with the colleague who's dropping off Eduardo's mountain of assignments--now they're coming "Monday"-- how the job is different from the theory she's studying, and I give her all the points I have left for volunteering to help.

The boys, of course, think she's too pretty to last. "I'm surprised you made it, Ms. P," adds Maxi, and I say a silent thank you that he's at least back to feeling like himself.

"I haven't made it yet!" I retort, mentally amending my gratitude to add that if she could tongue-tie the kid it might be a bonus. Regardless, I'd welcome her back if she's willing. Besides, if her illusions are going to be shattered--already, we've started--at least I'd do it with the best of intentions. And perhaps, even probably, she'd teach us something, or remind us of something we already knew but forgot in the day-to-freaking-school-day.

Education's a funny business, not being a business at all. That being so, one never knows who'll show up to apply. If I were the universal principal, teachers would work 48 or 50 weeks a year, just like everyone else. Wouldn't do anything for the teacher shortage, as I predict applicants and education majors would either run screaming in revolt or drop dead in horror, but it sure would clear out the deadwood, and something might actually get done. Why, teaching might even become a profession, instead of a solution for stay-at-home-moms at loose ends. It'd cost money, of course, and thus is a proposal deader than curricula that do not culminate in state-mandated tests. And teachers, whether many or most or all, would resist and rebel quite vehemently. I did not say it was a perfect plan. But competitive pay and time that no one has when the kids are there? I still think that it'd work.

Captain Obvious Gets a Byline

One of the current headlines on NYTimes.com is "Voters Showing a Darker Mood Than in 2000 Race." Why, you think there might be some connection there, between the eventual end of that contest, the shit that's been running downhill since, and our reported "darker mood"?

Krugman never fails

As I await John Edwards' appearance on The Late Show with David Letterman, I belatedly give you a recent column by Paul Krugman that gets to the heart of this whole Reagan spat between Hillary and Obama.

Debunking the Reagan Myth
By PAUL KRUGMAN

Historical narratives matter. That’s why conservatives are still writing books denouncing F.D.R. and the New Deal; they understand that the way Americans perceive bygone eras, even eras from the seemingly distant past, affects politics today.

And it’s also why the furor over Barack Obama’s praise for Ronald Reagan is not, as some think, overblown. The fact is that how we talk about the Reagan era still matters immensely for American politics.

Bill Clinton knew that in 1991, when he began his presidential campaign. “The Reagan-Bush years,” he declared, “have exalted private gain over public obligation, special interests over the common good, wealth and fame over work and family. The 1980s ushered in a Gilded Age of greed and selfishness, of irresponsibility and excess, and of neglect.”

Contrast that with Mr. Obama’s recent statement, in an interview with a Nevada newspaper, that Reagan offered a “sense of dynamism and entrepreneurship that had been missing.”

Maybe Mr. Obama was, as his supporters insist, simply praising Reagan’s political skills. (I think he was trying to curry favor with a conservative editorial board, which did in fact endorse him.) But where in his remarks was the clear declaration that Reaganomics failed?

For it did fail. The Reagan economy was a one-hit wonder. Yes, there was a boom in the mid-1980s, as the economy recovered from a severe recession. But while the rich got much richer, there was little sustained economic improvement for most Americans. By the late 1980s, middle-class incomes were barely higher than they had been a decade before — and the poverty rate had actually risen.

When the inevitable recession arrived, people felt betrayed — a sense of betrayal that Mr. Clinton was able to ride into the White House.

Given that reality, what was Mr. Obama talking about? Some good things did eventually happen to the U.S. economy — but not on Reagan’s watch.

For example, I’m not sure what “dynamism” means, but if it means productivity growth, there wasn’t any resurgence in the Reagan years. Eventually productivity did take off — but even the Bush administration’s own Council of Economic Advisers dates the beginning of that takeoff to 1995.

Similarly, if a sense of entrepreneurship means having confidence in the talents of American business leaders, that didn’t happen in the 1980s, when all the business books seemed to have samurai warriors on their covers. Like productivity, American business prestige didn’t stage a comeback until the mid-1990s, when the U.S. began to reassert its technological and economic leadership.

I understand why conservatives want to rewrite history and pretend that these good things happened while a Republican was in office — or claim, implausibly, that the 1981 Reagan tax cut somehow deserves credit for positive economic developments that didn’t happen until 14 or more years had passed. (Does Richard Nixon get credit for “Morning in America”?)

But why would a self-proclaimed progressive say anything that lends credibility to this rewriting of history — particularly right now, when Reaganomics has just failed all over again?

Like Ronald Reagan, President Bush began his term in office with big tax cuts for the rich and promises that the benefits would trickle down to the middle class. Like Reagan, he also began his term with an economic slump, then claimed that the recovery from that slump proved the success of his policies.

And like Reaganomics — but more quickly — Bushonomics has ended in grief. The public mood today is as grim as it was in 1992. Wages are lagging behind inflation. Employment growth in the Bush years has been pathetic compared with job creation in the Clinton era. Even if we don’t have a formal recession — and the odds now are that we will — the optimism of the 1990s has evaporated.

This is, in short, a time when progressives ought to be driving home the idea that the right’s ideas don’t work, and never have.

It’s not just a matter of what happens in the next election. Mr. Clinton won his elections, but — as Mr. Obama correctly pointed out — he didn’t change America’s trajectory the way Reagan did. Why?

Well, I’d say that the great failure of the Clinton administration — more important even than its failure to achieve health care reform, though the two failures were closely related — was the fact that it didn’t change the narrative, a fact demonstrated by the way Republicans are still claiming to be the next Ronald Reagan.

Now progressives have been granted a second chance to argue that Reaganism is fundamentally wrong: once again, the vast majority of Americans think that the country is on the wrong track. But they won’t be able to make that argument if their political leaders, whatever they meant to convey, seem to be saying that Reagan had it right.

End of the road

Once upon a time I put a car--a rental car, natch-- in a ditchwhen I was driving south from Green Bay to catch a plane in Chicago. But the road was snow-packed, and a pick-up truck was spinning toward us up the opposite ditch that divided the highway, so. It was momentarily scary, but not tragic--especially since there wasn't a scratch on that Dodge, and I had cash for the tow in my wallet. Didn't even miss the plane. But I kind of missed a pick-up, that same year or the next when I drove down, again from Green Bay to Chicago, to pick up my friend from O'Hare. Except they re-routed the plane to Midway. So I went. Except, while I was driving cross-town, they sent the plane back to O'Hare. So I went. Back to where I just was. Except, at that point, hours later. And you know, O'Hare does not at all resemble a mammoth haystack for one person seeking one other, especially in those days just before cellphone ubiquity. It was awesome. Awesomely frustratingly awful. Suffice it to say I am not at all scarred to this day, and that it's only coincidence that I've never stepped foot there since. These are my Chicago Airport Stories I'd Rather Not Re-Live or Recall.

But at least I am not that erstwhile lucky bastard, who, I can only assume, kept his plans and left Lambeau after the NFC Championship Game to make a 6 a.m. flight from O'Hare. Could have been an improbable, worth-the-pain ending to a remarkable day. A story to tell and retell. Coulda been. Can I imagine what it was like to be him, heading south in that frigid dark? Oh, I could, but I won't. I'm trying to move on.

Aftermath

My brother's girlfriend doesn't like sports. I don't get it, but it's true. So, when, last night after The Game, I received a forwarded text from her that read, "Give Allison my condolences," I had to smile and laugh a little. I mean, I could use some condolences; I'm sad. But what must that mean to her? Jennie, are you making fun? Could be she got a little play-by-play of me yelling at the TV or leaping out of my seat, but that is just part of the game--one I can't imagine not playing.

Although, the way I feel reading my box full of commiserating e-mail--some more effective than others: "I bet Brett Farve really feels bad about throwing that interception in OT." Yeah, I bet he is disappointed. Do we really have to talk about it?!?--I'd almost admit that there might be something to limiting oneself to the heartbreak one creates in one's own life. But, nah. I don't believe it. Even in the too-abruptly completed 18 weeks of football, there's been too much I wouldn't have missed. Too much excitement, too much fun. A roadtrip and a home game turned away. The slow and perhaps futile education of my daughter (the child thought the Super Bowl was over!), all those talks with my mom. It was a great run, and the best part? The Packers are young.

Of course, these are dark days now, and not just because that game ended the way that it did. I mean, it's basketball season. And I just don't get basketball. At all. Ever. No way. And hockey? I actually do like hockey, go figure, but it's terrible on TV. And neither are good for an every Sunday habit anyway. A four-and-a-half-month habit is beyond a rut; it's entrenched behavior. NOW what am I going to do? My homework? Ye gods.

Oh, why not: The Packers Prayer

Oh, youbetcha it's cheesy. It's WISCONSIN.


Our Favre,
Who art in Lambeau,
Hallowed be thine arm.
Thy bowl will come,
It will be won.
In Phoenix as it is in Lambeau.
And give us this Sunday,
Our weekly win.
And give us many touchdown passes.
But do not let others pass against us.
Lead us not into frustration,
But deliver us to the valley of the sun.
For thine is the MVP, the best of the NFC,
and the glory of the Cheeseheads,
now and forever.
Go get'em. Amen.

Given the opportunity. . .

It's ten minutes past pumpkin, and though I've done all I can do, it's not enough to prepare me for the three hour afternoon meeting I'm required to attend tomorrow chaired by a box of rocks. But you know what? I'm done. And this post from the Green & Gold blog on PackersNews.com (you bet there's a such thing) sends me off with a smile:

View from Georgia: Oh, yeah, he's primed
Bruce Van Vreede checks in from Atlanta:

"Last Thursday, Jan. 10, ... I'm at work, slugging through another day, waiting for the weekend and, most importantly, the Packers game on Saturday. My ex-girlfriend randomly e-mailed and said she had a line on a ticket for the Seahawks game and would I want it? I didn't really believe her, but after a million questions and making sure she could, she actually came through. Oddly enough, it came from a client based in Virginia. Beats me, so don't ask.

"At 2:38 p.m. on Jan. 10, she initially e-mailed about the ticket. And by 4:35 p.m. on Jan. 10, I had a flight booked and called my sister to tell her the good news. (She lives in Appleton and has season tickets.) Naturally, I completely abandoned work and weekend plans and immediately packed. About 40 hours later, I'm tailgating at Kroll’s West, downing deep-fried cheese curds and a few PBRs.

"The entire day was one of the top five moments in my life. How could it not be? How cool was that that 72,168 of us did what millions of sports fans everywhere would die to do: See a (snowy) playoff game at Lambeau with Favre under center.

"And, as an added bonus, he pulls out that ridiculous scramble/pitch. I was sitting next to a Seahawks fan and he was beside himself. He admitted he didn't care about winning, just that he couldn’t believe he was at Lambeau, watching Favre, in the snow. He spent more time taking pictures and saying, 'I can’t believe I'm here' than rooting for his team. By the third quarter, the smile on his face was permanent; he cheered at anything and giggled a lot. Basically, he was like the rest of us. He said he couldn't convince his friends to join him on the trip. Morons.

"But it can't stop there. Sunday, the G-Men pull out the win. After yelling and high-fiving with the family, for some reason, I ran outside and start screaming 'Yesssss!!!' Then, I immediately got on the Internet and checked out the flights, tickets, etc. This time, I'd have to pay. But, whatever. It is the NFC championship game.

"Plus, the Packers are undefeated when my sister and I see a game together (basically every year at Lambeau since 2000, at St. Louis this year, at Atlanta in 2005). So, I can't screw up that vibe; I have to return for the NFC championship game. But I also really can't miss work this time. The only affordable, possible way is to fly into O'Hare on Saturday, drive three hours north to Appleton and return on a flight that leaves Chicago at 6 a.m. on Monday. You got it … I am driving through the night after the game. I may be a complete idiot, but I am loyal.

"By the way, my sister just texted me and said she just picked up my game ticket. Yes!

"Play the music! I don’t want to work … I wanna bang on the drum all day!"

Them and Me

It dawns on me, finally, what she's asking, obliquely, from three different angles. It just never would have occurred, though it's not, in the end, such a crazy question, such a proposal recently on some ballot.

"No," I shake my head with certainty. "It would not be illegal to invite this family into your home."

And I scrape up some kind words, thank her sincerely for her care and concern, and try to do right in my default position as ambassador and emissary. In other words, I do not say, "Lady, there is no way these people are going to come stay with some random white woman, no matter how big your house or how crowded their lives." But I do say that I will pass along her offer, trying gently to explain how this community takes care of its own.

This morning I did what I promised, relayed what the biology teacher is willing to do, minus all the conditions and concerns for liability.

The responding, "really?" is full of surprise, but I'm not when it's followed by a blunt, "That's nice, but it's just too much." Some borders aren't crossed. I vaguely nod as I reiterate the kindness behind her gesture, the impulse to help, and then conclude: "not that it'll ever happen." The girls laugh, knowingly, automatically including me, who has crossed so many lines and born so much witness. These two I've known since the beginning, since they really were kids, before they were mine.

The verbal tic of teachers to call their students "my kids" once grated on my last nerve. Granted, my default position is to be annoyed by educators--go figure--so perhaps expecting the unprofessional or the insincere I found it. Anymore, though, I can't stop saying it. And nothing else fits, my concerns stretched way past student. Given the size of my group, what they share unbidden, there's just no distance. Their habit--perhaps they're even taught it--is to keep their circle small, and since I have the trust, I'm the first stop by default.

So, in a week like this one, when our foundation has been shifted, kicked off-kilter, it all comes tumbling out through the cracks. Details of family life that just need an ear. Talk of drinking that sounds serious--thank goodness the counselor's a friend. Teen parents that still won't come to school until "tomorrow." Nearly grown boys who wonder if maybe they should just work, at least one who quits to find out. Thank baby Jesus for the freshman duo whose biggest concern this week was if they should really go out for soccer lest their skin become too dark in the sun. (Their mothers won't approve.)

Though chunks of Monday were indeed lost to the news of the weekend, the rest of our time was indeed devoted to school--how they love Frankenstein--and helping Li navigate her classes (two weeks in the U.S.; what must she be thinking!), with those larger realities filling the minutes before, and after, and in between. And lunch. And my ironically named plan time. They just know where to find me, and being found is all I can do. And, after all, I'll soon get a break. Retreat across the river to await the Sunday football (to be fair, my kids could tell you this, too, about Ms. P. and the Packers; the sharing is not all one-way) and Not Think About It for three whole days, though I will, in between the forgetting. But I won't have to live it, and that's a huge difference. The advantage I couldn't trade if I wanted, the gap no amount of empathy will fill. There is somehow still a border between them and me, a smudge of a line that will never be crossed.

Sportscasting genius Kenny Mayne

The hardest part

"My house looks like a flea market, I swear."

Rosa shakes her head, still deadpan, describing the chaos that has descended on her disciplined home.

And we smile, but our expressions are tired, as if this new phase had been wearing on for weeks and not days. Two extended families in a space meant for one, little kids jarred out of routines, excited for playmates, anxious for daddy. An uncle who might have drawn the agents' attention. Everything normal slipped away, gone.

"Do you know what it's like to see a cop car and wonder?"

She knows I don't, not directly.

"I didn't sleep on Saturday. . .now the hardest part is the babies, crying at night for their father." She's just talking to me as she works through the papers. I'm just listening from my desk. We're just going through the motions, feeling for our routine. Because school, school never changes, and sometimes that's a plus.

While all of us, to some degree, are concerned about the boy whose household is being dismantled by a sudden deportation, the most common comment, even among his friends, is some variation of, "that could have been me."

"I could be here one day, and gone the next," they say, as if the thought never occurred and maybe it didn't.

"I never thought that would happen, but it did."

"I know."

And now what do we do?

At the moment they're still waiting for things to settle, living in limbo, time frozen by ICE. Decisions have consequence and not everyone is innocent, but these kids, they're just at the mercy. Learning the lessons, hoping to influence adults who may or may not do what they wish.

Twice today I saw Rosa turning her state ID over in her hands. It's real, but it's a tiny shield, insufficient, and soon useless. 9/11 has guaranteed that. I suppose that would please many to know that this girl, so Americanized but not American, cannot get whatever we have coming. Cannot trade in on the clothes her mother washes or the the food she serves or the taxes that she does, in fact, pay.

"I know people say in Mexico you can at least be free"--yes, those were her exact words--"but I just can't picture my life there." Her mother is talking about returning, maybe moving to Joplin, the future of this most stable home uncertain, up in the air. And that, for us in the classroom, is the real smack to the gut, the reason for the shift in our mood. If this life can end so abruptly with a knock to the door, well, then, now what? How best to go on?

Reality Check

A section of guardrail is missing from the Mississippi River bridge I traverse each week day; it may have been taken out last Thursday, during that wreck that flipped a truck end-over-end, or it may have been missing for months. I couldn't tell you. I don't consciously consider my safety as I speed from one state line to the other; I just do what I have to do and go on. Such is life. Someone noticed, though, this morning, and traffic slowed to a crawl as my fellow commuters passed the gaping hole in the metal and concrete. Then I saw it: the risk, however theoretical, that we were all taking high above the muddy water. I should have taken it as a sign.

Today I was twice shaken from my comfort along with those who surround me. The bridge was nothing; a phobia I cannot afford to develop. I may recognize the red Escape with the MAMACTA plate and the Lexus who travels even further than I do, but as long as they keep their distance, I am uninvolved. Not so once I arrive at school.

Being safely ensconced in my citizenship, it's usually easy enough for me to ignore the underlying angst that goes with living without papers. It's true that it's just the way that it is, unavoidable, frankly, for many. And beyond that, I talk most often to teenagers, cavalier about everything, or mostly. Until they watch six agents enter a classmate's apartment, looking for someone absent only by chance. Or until they help that suddenly displaced family, its breadwinner now likely bound for the border, cautiously retrieve its possessions from the home it will certainly abandon. Or until they see their class again collapse in emergency, their teacher by alternating turns serious and sad and efficient as she helps her student locate his brother in the system and prepare to go live with a sister. Tomorrow we'll all be changed, for the first time again.

At times we all think we'll live forever. At times we all think, "it'll never be me." But someone busted that guard rail. And now some of us have to drive by.

Go Pack Go

I've had the great fortune of attending many Packers games over the years, and they've all been memorable. But I can't imagine a better Lambeau experience than what this youtuber captured.

Understatement

The Pack wins.
The Cowboys lose.
That shrew Jennifer is eliminated from the Race.

Life is good.

Four Seasons in Four Minutes

When it comes to The Wire, I have that true-believer problem: I cannot explain why lovers of cop shows should watch it without going rapturously off the deep end, and convey what it's about? Well, it's complicated. "Just trust me," I end up saying, "and give it some time. It's the best show ever."

HBO, being bereft of the New Jersey mobsters, seems to have finally noticed its show about crime (and so much more) down the coast in Baltimore, now that it's 9 episodes from over forever. Among the ways they're promoting it is this video that does at least scratch the surface of the plot* thus far (while necessarily leaving out everything that makes The Wire, The Wire). If you have HBO and have considered watching The Wire, I can't decide if you should click play or not, though you should most definitely watch The Wire. All five seasons (1-4 on DVD). Since it's the best show ever. Just trust me.

*and contain at least two mistakes. does no one pay attention?

Sunday Morning Copy & Paste

So in the content pause that comes between that snowy Lambeau playoff game and watching Romo throw about six interceptions (shhhhhh! don't harsh my mellow), I give you something that amused me. But dude, he has a point:

from Chris Kelly at the Huffington Post
Mitticisms: "Amnesty"

Watching a Republican debate is like reading an Australian gossip magazine. You get the general sense that the subjects are important, but only from the way the people in the pictures are getting all worked up. It's all-rounders cheating on presenters, and I'm not precisely sure what either of those is.

I'm not saying the Republican candidates aren't sincere. I'm just saying I search my heart and I still don't see how their issues are issues. I want to get mad and shout things at the screen, but I can't even latch on. They might as well be debating last week's Wife Swap.

I don't know anyone who lists these as his top six problems:

Queers
The Caliphate
The Crushing Burden of the Capital Gains Tax
Death of Ronald Reagan
Other People's Weak Families
Mexicans

But, then again, I don't live in New Hampshire.

--

Which brings us to Amnesty. It's a charge almost too volatile to utter. The impression I get from the debates is that just saying the A Word is enough to make Rudy Giuliani's hump explode, Mike Huckabee's stomach staples snap and all of Fred Thompson's blood rush to his face, from wherever it is his people keep it.

Mitt Romney has been dropping the A bomb on John McCain in two campaign ads. One goes:

"On immigration, McCain supported this year's amnesty bill. Higher taxes, amnesty for illegals. That's straight talk for being in Washington too long."

John McCain didn't fight and die in Vietnam to come home and take that. So he struck back during Sunday's debate:

MCCAIN: It's not amnesty. And for you to describe it as you do in the attack ads, my friend, you can spend your whole fortune on these attack ads, but it won't be true.


(UNKNOWN): May I...

ROMNEY: No, no, no, no. I get a chance to respond to this ... I don't describe your plan as amnesty in my ad. I don't call it amnesty. What I say is -- and you just described what most people would say is a form of amnesty.

I think the man the ABC News transcript calls "Unknown" may have been Giuliani. Which might be a sign that skipping Iowa was a mistake. But let's not get sidetracked. McCain accuses Romney of accusing McCain of advocating A-----y, and Mitt indignantly denies it.

And then remembers that it's probably on videotape somewhere. So he clarifies:

I would never stoop to accusing you of doing the horrible things everyone knows you do. I'd just insinuate it.

But it's even more remarkable than that. Mitt Romney has the power to reverse-insinuate. Sometimes when he directly says something, it turns out he's really just hinting.

He can unsay things by saying them. Don't ask me how that's possible. It resists interpretation, like abstract expressionism.

George Stephanopoulos, paid agent of the drive-by media, wasn't content to let the mystery be. He followed up the next day:

STEPHANOPOULOS: Had you not seen your own ad?


ROMNEY: I hadn't seen that one and my staff told me afterwards it does say amnesty and I said well it's not supposed to.

STEPHANOPOULOS: It's two ads both of them saying it.

ROMNEY: Yes there's a man in the street, one that says amnesty, as well and I was simply incorrect. His bill -- he does not technically under the term support amnesty because he says, well, he makes them pay $5,000 and technically that's not amnesty and I guess that's true. You could say to somebody if you pay 5 bucks then it's not amnesty but the reality.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Is it amnesty or not?

ROMNEY: Well, you're going to have to define the word for me. I call it---

STEPHANOPOULOS: Well you're running for president, not me.

ROMNEY: Yeah, ok. When you ask the question, when you ask the question, you want a specific answer based on your definition. My definition is this, that if a -- if illegals are able to all stay in this country and thereby get an enormous advantage over everybody else, that is a form of amnesty.

STEPHANOPOULOS: So you do believe his plan is amnesty then?

ROMNEY: Not under a legal definition but under the normal colloquial definition, yes.

We need Mitt Romney is the White House. He's the one candidate who's ready to mislead on Day One.

Imagine if Mitt Romney sold you something -- let's say some land in Glengarry Glen Ross -- and you were trying to get your money back, and he started pulling this crap on you.

So maybe it's good that none of the Republican issues have any real bearing on governing, or any other aspect of life as we live it. Imagine if they were arguing about something important.

WHAT MITT MEANT:

When I didn't say that, I meant every word. And I stand by it, zero percent.

HOW TO USE "AMNESTY" AT HOME:

There's no human way to know what it means, so use it for everything. Like "smurf." "Thanks mom, these waffles are amnesty!"

Q & A

Honestly it wasn't that much of a tangent.

Frankenstein being partly about man's power over life and creation, we'd started by reading about the stem cells debate, but that, as I knew it would, took some background and clarification.

"Are we clear then," I queried the class, "about what an embryo is?"

Her face and her tone telegraphing her rightful uncertainty, my volunteer comes out with, "a sperm?"

And thus for the 418th time in my tenure and perhaps the third time Friday, I'm detailing the miracle of life except this time, you know, in a Petri dish (and with a detour for, "No, Angel, not from dead people!"). "I swear," I tell them, "I teach more Health and Algebra than I ever do anything else."

They laugh in recognition and latch right on to a plan: "You should totally do that! Will they pay you extra?"

"No and no!" Education is not piecework: we're not paid by the task or the accomplishment. Who could ever count it, for one thing, on a day like that one. They did, at some point, put pencil to paper: I will have grades to enter in the book. And we discussed and made connections, related science to a classic novel. All perfectly appropriate. But the few minutes when my room was again transformed into Health class, prompting a 17-year old senior to ask about the patch she saw on another girl's arm, might have been more immediately educational:

"Was that birth control?"

"I suppose it could be."

And then she asks, in all curious sincerity, this girl with the 20 year old boyfriend, "does it work the same as a condom?"

I promise you I didn't even smile.

"How exactly would that be possible?" I ask, dying to hear the theory, on the verge of asking if she knows it comes out of the wrapper. But she just tells me she doesn't know what the patch is for, and I quickly explain how it's the same as the pill, and how they both work, but other than taking her word that she knows how a condom is used, I skipped back to my intended topic for the time being. I mean, I didn't even have a banana.

Maybe she's more innocent than I presume. I know she's more innocent than she dresses, given that she is not, in fact, a five dollar hooker, but generally a very sweet girl. Who, apparently, paid not one whit of attention (and yet, got a B) in the official health class she finished in December . At least she has someone to ask. At least she has a second chance to learn something, I suppose, from the fount of Is It My Job To Teach You Everything? Since the answer, we all know, is yes.

Oh, the profanity.

Most useful button on my keyboard, right there.

Or it would be, if it were connected. Its portability, however, might just come in handy, if I ever again stop after work for a drink, assuming some retarded city councilman gets his wish, or, rather, that his bill passes. Because along with table-dancing and drinking contests (and now what will I do with my weekend?) this proposal would outlaw profane language. In bars. No cussing. In bars! WTF? I knew there was a reason that I don't live there. Or you know, about 47, making that unenforceable quasi-constitutional proposal just the topper, but given that this space and my classroom are the only places where my speech isn't regularly punctuated by some of those infamous seven words plus, that restriction would quite definitely seal the residency deal. Having an English teacher hauled off for her extensive vocabulary? Why, it just wouldn't look right.

An appearance

Correlation does not imply causation, except of course when it does.

Not that I'm sure I want any credit for blurted frustration that channeled more ticked mother than teacher, but dios mio: in or out! Come or don't! I may be a favorite of the custodial mafia, but the odds of securing a ladder tall enough to provide egress out of the deep hole you're digging are already heading past slim.

So yes, yesterday, when the forbidden-during-school-hours text arrived that said--or so it was reported-- to tell me you'd finally see me Monday, a week after everyone, my relayed response (the part that prefaced, "put up that phone!") was, "in that case, tell them not to bother."

And then today, you bothered, about an after first block began. So much, I suppose, for the bus. Or, at least you came after you missed it. The spin can go either way. And so, at this point, can the semester, the year, the future. It's never really over. But choices and decisions, you see how things can go hard or easy? You see how you affect it? I kinda don't think you do. Life just happens. And yes, I know, tomorrow, baby's gotta see the doctor. Maybe Monday I'll see you.

Good Intentions

I could've asked, but there's no point it poking a hole in a dream half-deflated. Besides, it's my turn to hold on to the notion; I promised that I would.

"Ms. P?"

"Yes?" and I bite my tongue on the dear, let her identify herself, as if I don't know who it is exactly.

"We're not coming to school today," and I don't say no kidding to the voice on the other end of my classroom phone. "We don't have a car."

"What happened?" I ask, though I've already heard the story.

"My license plate expired at the end of December." I can hear the baby's fussing as she pauses. "But Eduardo," and she brightens, "he gets paid today, so we can get it and come tomorrow."

And I don't ask how he's gonna get that check, or about the work he must have been missing, you know, without the car. Though I don't doubt the tag's expired, don't doubt they're nervous to drive.

"Have you thought about taking the bus? You know, save the gas money?" I offer instead. "Would that work for you?" Like it could have worked today, the first day. She knows as well as I.

"Yeah, we were thinking about doing that," she says half-sheepish, "to walk down the hill to Angel's stop." It may be the phone, but she knows the look I'm giving. After all, she calls me to confess. And thus she swears out a new plan for tomorrow, gathers schedules and sounds so determined, clear until she hangs up and goes back to bed.

Day One

I don't really thrive on chaos. The best I can do is ignore it, seek out and perhaps imitate the eye that centers the storm. I have some experience in that regard, given that the first hour of every semester always ends up swirling around me, no matter what I prepare or what I resolve. It's not bad, exactly, just the way it is: I am never going to pass a dull ninety minutes passing out books and syllabi when we reconvene in any January. And, hell, who would want to. Good thing, not me.

Theoretically it would be nice not to be running the halls, looking for the lost, rounding up an AWOL Chinese tour guide-slash-interpreter, warning teachers about the new non-English speaking whom they'll be instructing, re-directing a roomful of kids on outdated schedules until I realize that my own class has been whittled to. . .three? That can't be right, though in a way it'd be lovely. Where are the rest and what has gone wrong? I'd investigate, except it's time for the bell.

And then came a class, actual students to teach, and glory hallelujah I actually did something right. The kids who for months have been shoved in a corner waiting for spare moments now have a class of their own and, by jove, it works. Or it did for a day, or for an hour and change, but I take what I can. I taught, and they learned. And I, at least, had fun.

Next time flat-out beginners will be joining us from continents south and east, and the days of tag-team-one-minute-please will return for round 2. It's inevitable, probably in my contract, that things stay a bit of a mess (enough with the meaningful looks at my desk). But little by little good things happen here, and somehow I stay a half-step ahead.

Kindred spirits

I'm with Michael Fauntroy: Lambasted for not drinking the Obama Kool-Aid.

It's hard out here for Black pundits/analysts/commentators who haven't come around to drinking the Democratic presidential nomination front-runner Barack Obama is the best-thing-since-sliced-bread-how-did-we-ever-exist-as-a-nation-without-him-this-is-our-last- best-chance-to-elect-a-Black-president-so-we-better-support-him-see-I-told-you-racism-is-dead Kool-Aid. I have learned an unfortunate lesson in observing the Democratic presidential nomination fight: In too many segments of the country -- black and white -- to express any skepticism about Barack Obama is considered political heresy. I'm blown away by this discovery, because it suggests a dangerous group think: Obama is the only agent of change and to not praise him at every opportunity is to support the status quo (And, oh, by the way, Hillary is the devil!).

This is a strange position for me to be in, as I think he has the instincts to be a really good president. I don't consider myself an Obama critic, just someone unwilling to critically analyze his candidacy. I am a progressive registered as an Independent and my preferred candidate is not in the race, so I get a little touchy when callers and blog respondents assume that because I'm not yet ready to drink the Obama Kool-Aid, that I must be in the tank for Hillary Clinton. Not true. I think it's narrow-minded to think that just because one is lukewarm to Obama that they must want Hilary to win. Between you and me: I'll take Al Gore over either of them in a heartbeat.

I realized all this during a radio interview in Atlanta the day before the New Hampshire primary. I had the temerity to suggest that we shouldn't overreact to his Iowa win. I reminded listeners that Jesse Jackson won Vermont -- a state every bit as white as Iowa -- 20 years ago and that many white Democrats have been voting for Black candidates for years, so we shouldn't jump up and down over Obama's caucus win. I knew I was in trouble, though, when the music bump before the interview began featured a caller who said she supports Obama "100 percent" and would vote for a black man over a white woman every time. I thought: "wow, by that logic, you'd vote for Ike Turner, Alan Keyes, and Clarence Thomas over Hilary Clinton." How ridiculous.

While I got slapped around by a few callers (and gently by the host, an Obama supporter), one caller was particularly unhinged. He called himself an "Obama Republican," which struck me as oxymoronic (or maybe just moronic), and went on about how Obama showed leadership in the Illinois legislature in opposing the war and that I was out of line for not giving him credit for this. I reminded the caller that Obama has not opposed one nickel of Bush spending to continue this travesty, but, alas, I was deemed unduly critical of "the Brother," not to be taken seriously. By the way caller: Do you know how easy it is to oppose something when you have no skin in the game? Can anyone say for sure that he would not have voted to authorize Bush's foolishness in Iraq if he were a member of the Senate in 2002? I'm willing to bet that Obama would have done as all the Senate Democrats who wanted to be president did: vote to support Bush so that their Republican general election opponent couldn't say they were soft on terrorism.

All I've tried to do is add some reason and caution to the over-the-top response that many voters have for Obama. And I'll keep doing it. I have thick skin, so it's no big deal to me.

Michael K. Fauntroy is an assistant professor of public policy at George Mason University and author of Republicans and the Black Vote. A registered Independent, he blogs at: MichaelFauntroy.com.

I found him on The Huffington Post, of course.

the night before

It could be so much worse.

I could be 15 years old, or 13--right there! that would do it! and preparing to start high school tomorrow (not to mention high school in a language with which I'm not familiar) instead of just a teacher behind before I start. I could be the kid with no friends instead of the grown up who knows everyone, who has done it all before. I could be the one whose homework will be graded instead of the one who'll wield the pen. I could be the one who's worried instead of the one who'll calm the fears. Then again, I could be the one who'll actually get some sleep.

The end and the beginning

The first thing we do--no, not kill all the lawyers, that would take out all my candidates--the first thing we do, is cross out all the holidays, early dismissals, and other days without any school. That's the best thing about a new semester and blank calendar pages--no, not all the days I don't have to go--the best thing is the easy accomplishment, the illusion of organization that comes with filling in and arranging. The, "there, I did something, and I didn't even think." It may be the only time anything useful comes without effort, but at least there's a way to ease in.

The effort will come with the end of the first semester grading, from the evaluating to the dusting for finger prints. Not that I'll really bust out the forensics kit, but life sure would be easier for everyone if I'd noticed this anonymous work before we all headed for home. Handwriting I can usually match, and I am usually willing. Times New Roman? That's a different dilemma, though I suppose technically not my problem. I'd rather give the points than not, though, and will if the process of elimination allows: it wasn't even a graffiti font. That's progress of a sort.

And perhaps over the next eighteen weeks we'll make progress more significant as those empty boxes fill. Assuming that I keep writing things down and don't, as is my habit, try to hold it all in my head. Perhaps I should make a resolution; I'm only six days late. But it doesn't feel like January--it's seventy degrees! And it doesn't feel like Sunday, despite the fact that I'm grading and there's football on tv. I don't teach tomorrow, so my vacation is not quite over; I can still relax. When I watch The Race and The Wire returns, my attention won't be split. Assuming--huge assumption--that I sit here for the next few hours and FINALLY. GET. SOMETHING. DONE.

stages

Denial, I've read, isn't so bad. It's how we all get along. I'll pretend I don't know, and you feign innocence, and we'll make it from one day to the next. Studies prove it. And if you don't like that, just don't think about it. That's how it works, what makes the world go 'round.

Sigh.

But then of course there's the denial that comes when bad things happen. The oh, no! Couldn't possibly. There must be some mistake. It's the way the mind protects itself or buys some time to adjust. But, I didn't really know that little dead boy, so I didn't go there though of course I wished it weren't true. My daughter, on the other hand, who took care of him some Sundays--I'm afraid she might be stuck in that phase. Or I suppose that's really not it. She's not denying, but she's definitely not thinking about what happened while it's weighed heavily on her mother.

I got angry right on schedule, just as they say I should, but not at the universe, not even at the mother. She had not yet been charged with murder. At the time, just the other day, I was upset because people were talking. Perhaps it's just me, but if one is a supposed professional, a law enforcement officer, or better yet--or worse--a man of the cloth, a so-called shepherd of some inexplicably eager flock, and find oneself in possession of some hot tidbit, some rare bit of fact, not supposition, that would make half an audience lean intently forward while the rest recoiled in shock, should one not then stop. right. there. and seal it up forever? Is that not, in fact, the job?

Being told is the duty, the privilege that comes with position, but telling surely isn't. A life lost is just not a story to be cavalierly passed around. Some things are better left unsaid. Some images people don't need in their minds. At least I think they don't; I know I do not want these unsolicited pictures, these disturbing facts I cannot force from my thoughts.

In the scheme of things some might claim it doesn't matter who told what when; it all came out eventually, and, yes, people are going to talk. When a very young woman is hauled off to jail from a church funeral for the death of her very young son, people are going to talk. They will try to figure out why she chose to protect the abusive father over the innocent boy, as if that never happened before, as if life always makes sense, as if she necessarily thought she was doing right, or even making a choice. The talking, I understand, is inevitable. But any of it inspired by facts shared in confidence--now there's a misplaced word--still makes me mad, and I'll never really let that go. If people think they're better, let them then prove that they are.

My standards are perhaps arbitrary, and I don't equate gossips to killers, but I hate that in all the compulsive whispers the stark reality of a little boy gone fades if not disappears. That even though it's all about his too-brief life, somehow he's not even there. Conjecture and hypothesizing cover up the mourning. That's how people cope, or so it is explained. If only his mother had been able to, not to mention his awful father. Then there'd be no story, no phone calls and hushed voices. No sister lost to the system, no grief, no three times tragedy. Nothing to accept.

I demand

that the Democrats of New Hampshire (not that, to my knowledge, anyone from New Hampshire has ever visited here, and I do keep an eye on ya'll) vote for anyone but Hillary based on her evident pro-torture stance. I mean, it's grammatical and all, but this is a pretty torturous sentence:

"I feel that we executed what we thought was the limit of what we could produce in Iowa under the circumstances that we were facing," she told reporters at a cafe in Manchester.

And, liar, liar, pantsuits on fire.

And--and!--given the rest of her lines are all about not having "false hopes" and not taking a "leap of faith", if this fear-mongering scare-tactic crap starts to work, I'm just going have to get out my big stick and start using it. Surely not.

Er. Ahem. I mean, yay democracy! Vote for whomever you please, New Hampshire!

Just get it right.

Two dead in Iowa

Well, not in the literal sense, but Chris Dodd and Joe Biden have dropped out of the race for the Democratic nomination following tonight’s Iowa Caucuses. Whatever made them think America would vote for someone named Chris or Joe anyway? I wonder how long the lease is on the house Dodd rented in Des Moines?

My guy John Edwards finished second and there’s no shame in that. At least he topped Hillary. And Iowa launched a rock star in Barack Obama. Let’s just hope he doesn’t go screaming into microphones like the last guy.

I’ve mentioned before how out of perspective the Caucuses are, and tonight’s experience didn’t disappoint. Record turnouts for both the Democrats and Republicans were the ultimate test of the quirky caucus process. Somehow it worked, but it wasn’t anything like the folksy neighborhood gatherings the MSM likes to portray.

I walked to the elementary school that serves as the polling place in my precinct, taking a survey of neighbors who don’t clear their sidewalks. Upon arrival promptly at 6:30 we were at the end of the line that stretched out the door. By 7, we were in the gym.

You remember elementary school gyms don’t you? There may or may not be a regulation sized basketball court, but there are walls where bleachers go in high school. I found myself wondering about the capacity rating until it was finally announced, about 7:30, that there were 335 registered voters in the room. Of course, that didn’t count “observers” and children.

I’m all for teachable moments, but all those kids learned tonight was it was too damn hot in that gym with that many people in it.

We clustered for our candidates – although it was difficult to distinguish one group of sardines from another – and everyone was counted. Results were announced and supporters of unviable candidates – those with less than 15 percent -- were initially given 30 minutes to realign. Cooler heads prevailed and the game of musical chairs was reduced to 15 minutes.

It was around 8 when they finished the recounting. The results were fairly predictable for my precinct. Obama had around 200 supporters, Edwards had 71 and Clinton trailed with 60.

I’m not convinced the results would have been any different if, say, the polling place had been open all day and you could walk in at your convenience and cast your ballot in five minutes instead of two hours. But that’s just me.

The Iowa Caucus system pre-dates statehood, so I wouldn’t think to challenge it. But this first-in-the-nation stuff has to go. It’s one thing to have to put up with all of the phone calls and commercials. But when you interrupt the season premier of "The Apprentice" you’ve crossed the line.

Thanks for coming though.

Arianna Huffington on the Caucus

I expect we might see something here live from Cedar Rapids once it's clear who might place and show, but, in the meantime, I really liked this post from Lonnie's gal Adrianna over at the HuffPo:

I mean, I do think it's a little illusory, the caucus-night bubble of hope (see November 7, 2006). It's so early, such a long process. But Hillary did not win, and Edwards is hanging in. Those are good things. Plus, multiple Democratic candidates that people turn out for. Oh please, God. AND! Baby Jesus.

Obama Wins Iowa: Why Everyone Has a Reason to Celebrate Tonight

Posted January 3, 2008
09:30 PM (EST)

Barack Obama's stirring victory in Iowa -- down home, folksy, farm-fed, Midwestern, and 92 percent white Iowa -- says a lot about America, and also about the current mindset of the American voter.

Because tonight voters decided that they didn't want to look back. They wanted to look into the future -- as if a country exhausted by the last seven years wanted to recapture its youth.

Bush's re-election in 2004 was a monument to the power of fear and fear-mongering. Be Very Afraid was Bush/Cheney's Plans A thru Z. The only card in the Rove-dealt deck. And it worked. America, its vision distorted by the mushroom clouds conjured by Bush and Cheney, made a collective sprint to the bomb shelters in our minds, our lizard brains responding to fear rather than hope.

And the Clintons -- their Hillary-as-incumbent-strategy sputtering -- followed the Bush blueprint in Iowa and played the fear card again and again and again.

Be afraid of Obama, they warned us. Be afraid of something new, something different. He might meet with our enemies. His middle name is Hussein. He went to a madrassa school. A vote for him would be like rolling the dice, the former president said on Charlie Rose.

And the people of Iowa heard him, and chose to roll the dice.

Obama's win might not have legs. Hope could give way to fear once again. But, for tonight at least, it holds a mirror up to the face of America, and we can look at ourselves with pride. This is the kind of country America was meant to be, even if you are for Clinton or Edwards -- or even Huckabee or Giuliani.

It's the kind of country we've always imagined ourselves being -- even if in the last seven years we fell horribly short: a young country, an optimistic country, a forward-looking country, a country not afraid to take risks or to dream big.

Bill Clinton has privately told friends that if Hillary didn't win, it would be because of the two weeks that followed her shaky performance in the Philadelphia debate.

But it wasn't those two weeks. Indeed, if we were to pinpoint one decisive moment, it would be Bill Clinton on Charlie Rose, arrogant and entitled, dismissive and fear-mongering. And then Bill Clinton giving us a refresher course in '90s-style truth-twisting and obfuscation -- making stuff about always having been against the war, and about Hillary having always been for every good decision during his presidency and against every bad one, from Ireland to Sarajevo to Rwanda.

So voters in Iowa remembered the past and decided that they didn't want to go back. They wanted to move ahead. Even if that meant rolling the dice.

Again, this moment may not last. But, for tonight, I am going to savor it -- and cross my fingers that it may stand as the day that fear as a winning political tactic died. Killed by an "unlikely" candidate who seized the moment, and reminded America of its youth and the optimism it longs to recapture.

I’m an Iowan, and I approve this message

Get out!

Get the Hell out!

And take the Republicans with you!

I mean, I know our first in the nation caucus is a pretty big deal and all, but this has been a bit much. You wouldn’t think so many people would even want to be president after the mess George Bush has made of things. Then again, he has set the bar staggeringly low.

Yet here they are, despite frigid cold and piles of snow, traipsing hither and yon trying to convince everyone that only he or she has the experience necessary to be the agent for change the nation needs. “Stand for me tomorrow and I’ll stand up for you every day as your President,” they all seem to say. Does that mean if I don’t stand for you, you don’t have my back?

I vowed to stand for John Edwards weeks ago and I’ve seen nothing since to change my mind. But I reserve the right to vote for the eventual Democratic nominee, whoever it is.

Despite his good looks and skilled speech delivery, I’ve got 15 million reasons not to support Obama and his insufficient health care plan. Hillary may sleep with Bill, but she’s in bed with the very lobbyists who represent the source of most all that’s wrong in Washington. Yet I’ll proudly support either of them, if they’re the eventual nominee.

Some people, including too many of my fellow Iowans, have forgotten that it’s a process. In the grand scheme of things, the outcome of tomorrow’s caucuses really doesn’t mean much more than 150,000 Iowans got together to state their presidential preference. And if the polls are to be believed, no one’s taking a toboggan run to the nomination.

That we go first is certainly significant and brings a lot of attention to Iowa, but it is merely the start. I think I can safely speak for most of the state when I say, off you go.

We’ve put up with your endless commercials, your insufferable recorded phone calls and your late arrivals at every scheduled event.

Now go!

It’s a big country out there. The world is your oyster. Achieve your destiny.

You might drop us a line and let us know how it goes. But please don’t call.

hypemobile

Chicken Little went to work today, or perhaps he didn't. So the falling of the sky shall be postponed until tomorrow, or perhaps even Monday. At least that's what they're hoping. But it has to fall. It MUST fall. If it doesn't, what will they talk about? Is anything else going on in the world?

Here in my universe, a five mile stretch of a major East-West highway has been shut down for a year. A pain in the ass to be sure, though less of a personal aggravation that's next year's project, which will close a different five-mile stretch that I use quite a bit more often. In the meantime, though, the local media have been working up to a frenzy and and hinting of Armageddon. When they're not playing local PR machine and claiming that all will be fine. As long as one sells one's house or telecommutes or takes the fairly crappy public transit (don't eat or spit, they helpfully instructed us) or plots a daily commute by computerized trip planner that--this is my favorite--may, so sorry, still send one down the not-currently extant Highway 40. HA.

Today was Day One, and apparently there was no traffic to speak of. I'm sure the reporters nearly shed a tear, especially those sent out to ride empty West County buses at the crack of dawn. But, you know, vacation day. Eventually there will be traffic! Dammit! And we will hear all about it! Over and over and over. Or at least those who watch the news will. I've even given up on the traffic-and-weather-together reports during my own commute; in my car, it's all loud music, all the time. If I'm stuck in a jam, I don't need a guy in a helicopter to taunt me.

Besides, next week those unnecessary and obvious reports would just interrupt my flashbacks to Pope Day, back in '99, maybe, when the predictions of masses of pilgrims--as if this were South America and not Middle--and the accompanying traffic so backfired that no one came to see John Paul II, almost literally. I know this tv and newspaper freakout won't get me the surprise day off with pay that that one did, but a girl can dream.

Day One and Counting

If the first day sets the tone for the year that follows, I suppose I could have done worse.

I slept late and then I slept some more, and wouldn't that be swell.

Financially, it was kind of a wash, and that would be a miracle.

I thought about my looming work but did not do any, and that is totally typical.

When I do get around to gearing up, it will be for second semester, the easy part of the year. Oh, I still don't know what I'll do with that new Chinese girl, the new class I've created, the inevitable crises and stress, but thanks to those dead presidents and the calendar committee, we're constantly off on on a Monday, and a four day work week is no sweat. Then it will be Spring Break, Bruce in M'waukee, please, Baby Jesus, a conference in New York City, then all that testing, and poof, we'll be done. Then it'll be summer, which goes even more quickly. Life in fast forward: too bad it all counts.

I read somewhere that one should do a little work on New Year's Day to have success in the coming year. This, however, is not going to happen; good thing I'm not superstitious. It will take enough effort, perhaps a minor miracle, for me to use some of this first week of January to finish the first semester. It all seems so far away now. Over and done. Why even bother. It can't possibly matter. It was, after all, last year.

Credit Where Credit's Due

Overheard from the family room:

Daughter's friend: unintelligible query regarding the origin of the Wii

Daughter: "I don't know; Mom and Dad got it."

Damn straight!