Is it the Fourth?

On July 4, 2015July 4, 2015 By Luther M. SilerIn Uncategorized5 Comments

ivstxn9zimyx4kkubqud The headline of this piece is Thomas Jefferson’s last words, in case you didn’t know. He died on July 4, 1826, on the fiftieth anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, which he had mostly written. John Adams, who provided Jefferson with copious notes on the text and could probably fairly be regarded as a co-author, died the same day, a few hours after Jefferson; his last words were “Thomas Jefferson still survives.”

Jefferson had died five hours ago, but Jefferson was in Virginia and Adams was in Massachusetts. It being 1826 and all, the word hadn’t made it up there yet.

I love that story.

It is five o’clock in the morning and I have been up for an hour.

Happy Independence Day, chirren. Tomorrow is my birthday; I missed being born on America’s bicentennial by about fourteen hours, and my mother went into labor during the fireworks. I am therefore more patriotic than you. Read something, in between bouts of blowing stuff up.

In which I am upset about a good thing

On June 2, 2015 By Luther M. SilerIn Parenting1 Comment

So the boy got into Hogwarts. Which is what I’ll be calling it from now on.

He actually had to do the preschooler equivalent of an interview today, which was basically just my wife dropping him off for a couple of hours and them making sure he didn’t try to stab anyone. I suspect the actual interview part of the interview was with us, not with him. But at any rate: he’s in. Next year my son will be attending a private school, nay, a private academy, that will cost me $car his first year and $muchnicercar every year after that. And my salary is about to drop. Rather substantially.

I’m conflicted.

On the one hand: like every parent, I want my son to get the best education I can provide him, and I’m willing to work harder to provide him with a better education. On the other hand, I’ve spent almost my entire career in public schools– hell, I’ve spent almost my entire life in public schools– and working in them while refusing to send my son to one seems just a wee bit hypocritical.

The more advantages I can provide him with now, the more likely he is to land on his feet as an adult. On the other hand, the first time he starts acting like he’s more special than the people who don’t get to go to schools like his I’mma slap him.

I’m not looking forward to the day where he finds out he’s one of the poor kids, and I’m even less looking forward to the day where I have to convince him he has no goddamn idea what poverty is.

There are not nearly enough children of color in his classes, and I don’t know that there’s more than one or two people of color on the staff.

They don’t do any standardized testing. Well, okay, there’s one test in middle school. But they pick it themselves and use the data for their own purposes, and it’s not the ISTEP. No IREAD. No second and third grade nearly entirely wasted on testing.

I’m not conflicted enough to even consider not sending him to this place, mind you. We can definitely afford it next year. The year after that… we’ll see. It’ll depend on an awful lot of things.

Until then? I think I probably need to spend more time writing books. And maybe jobhunting. We’ll see.

Ugh.

Quick politics/policy question

On May 31, 2015May 31, 2015 By Luther M. SilerIn Uncategorized6 Comments

secret-service-obama — Clones! The secret service is using clones!

This feels a bit more like a Twitter thing than a blog post, but it’s a bit too complicated for Twitter to handle, so you get it instead.

John Kerry broke his leg while cycling in France today, and it got me wondering: What level of bodyguarding/security do we provide people like upper-level Cabinet members and members of Congress when they go overseas? The article mentions Kerry’s motorcade but doesn’t give any indication of who was in it. Does the Secret Service handle stuff like that, or do they just work with the President and VP?

Yes I know I could Google this. I’d rather ask y’all; somebody out there knows.

Later today: Saleswanking!

America!

On May 5, 2015May 5, 2015 By Luther M. SilerIn Uncategorized5 Comments

freedom I’m not sure that I really “made freedom count,” but the grandiosity of the phrase appeals to me somehow. There was a primary election today, entirely for local offices and more or less serving as a surrogate for the actual election this fall. For the most part the Republicans refuse to run remotely credible candidates and whoever gets out of the primary is virtually certain to win election in the fall provided that they are still alive at the time– and whether that is actually necessary has yet to be tested empirically.

I happen to know the Republican candidate for mayor. Her daughter is a former student, in fact. She is madhouse, bugfuck, shitheap crazy, and is less qualified to be Mayor than I am to give birth. Luckily, she’s also less likely to be Mayor than I am to give birth; she’s managed to raise $225 for her campaign so far and the Republican establishment is running from her as fast as they can. When I say the Republicans refuse to run credible candidates, this is what I mean, as she’s running unopposed. The last time they ran a credible candidate for Mayor was eight years ago, I think; the last time round they ran an assortment of local malcontents and an actual, no-bullshit hobo. The guy eight years ago came reasonably close to winning, especially considering that he made a critical mistake in his campaign and ran against the city instead of running against the mayor. This has always seemed to me to be a common problem with Republicans; “this thing sucks and is terrible and unnecessary so put me in charge of it” is not a winning proposition.

But anyway. Mayor Bootyjudge will coast past his primary opponent, and so I’m mostly looking at the City Clerk’s race and the City Council. I’ve met five of the candidates, which seems weird. It’ll be interesting to see how quickly the races are called tonight. Polls close at seven; I’m betting it’s all over by eight.

It’s time for a plague.

On February 7, 2015February 7, 2015 By Luther M. SilerIn idiocy8 Comments

So, Knighthawk Armory, an organization I’d never heard of prior to today, just posted some fucking amazing pictures to their Facebook page. I’ll show you two of them; click through for the others. They made a Hulk out of scrap metal:

(CORRECTION: They didn’t do it, they just reposted the pictures. Actual artists are Old Steel Art out of Thailand, whose page is mostly not in English but whose pictures are amazing anyway.)