Category: Personal

I had one hell of a day yesterday but thanlks to a few friends I survived,

They say you should eat. that you shouldn’t drink so much, They also say that you should hydrate when working in 95 degree temperatures and ninety percent humidity. They say you should take your meds yet make them unaffordable, I hate being told what to do and I hate fucking rules.

This is not a rant because I haven’t got enough energy for that.  I’m working from a state of exhaustion, which is the genesis of the title.

Over Thanksgiving Debbie and I drove over 1000 miles to North Carolina and back to visit my daughter and her husband and their two children (Rachel (to the left), who is 2 and mighty large for her age, and Zack (to the right, with his father), who just turned two months old).  I’ll sprinkle some photos taken during the visit in during my screed…which was generated by commentary left in a recent diary posted at Voices on the Square and Tuesday evening’s diary at Daily Kos.

Upon arriving back home, I was faced with the last week of classes before Finals Week.  So on Wednesday I gave exams in all of my classes, which I spent all day Wednesday and Thursday grading so that I could return them today.  It turned out that I was able to avoid the all-nighter that was a distinct possibility, but the stress generated still made for less than restful sleep.

That’s a major reason why I do not have something different prepared for this evening.

Zack, with his paternal grandfather

I originally was going to write about the new Dark Shadows motion picture, but circumstances have intervened.  It turns out that my dear friend’s mum’s twin brother died either late Wednesday night or early Thursday morning, alone except for his little dog.  My friend called me around 9:30 Thursday morning to go next door and try to comfort her mum, and I was honored to do so.

Her mum was a basket case.  She and her brother were Christmas Day babies, 65 years ago Christmas past.  I have a brother, but not a twin, and my brother and I are separated by 14 years.  She and her brother were separated by fewer than 14 minutes, so they grew up together.

I did comfort her, and she cried in my arms.  I could not do much except to try to let her know that I really care, and she appreciated that.  Now for the culture part.

I apologize for not keeping up with my normal posts, but I have developed a rather serious neurological disorder, the common name being wrist drop.  It has to do with damage to the nerve that serves to flex, in my case, the right wrist and fingers.

It also has a minor sensory component in that the dorsal surface of my thumb and surrounding part of my hand feels pressure poorly but is fully responsive to heat and cold.  It happened literally overnight, as when I awoke Monday morning my hand was fully involved.

I am much improved now, and thought that I should share some of my findings with you.  I also plan to resume My Little Town and Popular Culture next week.

Normally on Friday evenings I write about popular culture, but no tonight.  I am very wistful for several reasons, on of which is that if she had lived, my mum would have turned 90 years old today.

Born to a dirt poor couple when her mum was only 18 years old (my grandmum and granddad married when my grandmum was only 16 years old), Geraldine Sandlin entered this vale of tears on 19211202.  It was cold, and in accordance with the custom of the time, she was born at home with relatives taking the place of physicians.

copyright © 2011 Betsy L. Angert.  Empathy And Education; BeThink or  BeThink.org

It happened last night.  As I reflect, I realize it has happened all along.  Each day, in most every moment I have an opportunity to look at life and learn.  Yet I become consumed with more immediate concerns.  He said. She said.  The system, situation, or some other entity supplants a deeper assessment.  Years ago, I came to understand that I create my own chaos, calm, or shades of what will be.  As an Educator, I speak of this often.  My students often quote me on the subject of choices. Yet, until yesterday, I never fully grasped how true my words might be.  I am unsure why the events of the evening took me where they did. I share the story.  

Those of you that read this irregular series know that I am from Hackett, Arkansas, just a mile of so from the Oklahoma border, and just about 10 miles south of the Arkansas River.  It was a redneck sort of place, and just zoom onto my previous posts to understand a bit about it.

I never write about living people except with their express permission, so this installment is about a long dead denizen of Hackett.  This time it is about a teacher of mine, Elwood Brockman.

Mr. Brockman taught high school maths, and was also the grade school principal.  Since the entire school system from grades 1 to 12 (no K at the time), double duty was the norm.

In follow-up to a post I made regarding an entry by Rusty1776 at FDL, I want to let people know that the site moderators have falsely removed the entry in question as spam and banned Rusty from posting.

Rusty’s entry, which in no way violated site rules, argued that it is immoral for Democrats not to issue a primary challenge to Barry Obama in next year’s election for the office of the presidency.  He was subsequently flamed by Bill Egnor, Rayne, RBG, Kelly Canfield, and a suck-up named newtonusr, who apparently took it upon himself to stalk Rusty across at least two threads with the intention of goading him to angry outburst.  The plan worked, and the moderators got the pretense they required to ban Rusty from FDL.

That this happened should not be surprising.  FDL is, like Daily Kos, Open Left, and other so-called leftist blogs, in reality a right-wing gatekeeper blog designed to neuter any real organization by the Left that is independent of the right-wing Democrat Party.  Its moderators have proven over and over again that their sole purpose is to maintain an online environment wherein people may complain about how bad the Democrats have become, but are not allowed to do anything beyond that.  People like Jeff Roby are similarly intimidated with the same tactics used to rationalize the banishment of Rusty1776, with the same message sent loudly and clearly: “You are here as window dressing for the veal pen.  Dare try to be or do more than that, and you are gone.”

This is why it is so important for genuinely independent blogs and activism sites to be independent of the Democrats, or for that matter, any political party.  As long as the Left remains tied to political parties, it remains subservient to the ambitions and interests thereof.

If there is anything positive about this latest abuse of power by a self-proclaimed liberal blog’s moderators, it’s that its agenda is now official, and now publicly exposed.

UPDATE BELOW THE FOLD