get at library, for Literature & Pedagogy paper

Get at Library: Richard Beach’s High School Students’ Competing Social Worlds [on teaching multicultural lit] LC1099.3 .B42 2008
Giroux, Theory and Resistance. LB885.G472 T48 1983
Hardin’s Opening Spaces: Critical Pedagogy and Resistance Theory… not available

Happy Birthday, Aleecia!

Happy Birthday to my niece Aleecia!
She’s thirteen today. I’m a bad aunt and haven’t sent her anything (she lives in southern california). And she won’t read this post, since she doesn’t even know about this blog. Is being a thesis-writing course-taking course-teaching grad student count as an excuse?
Anyway,HAPPY BIRTHDAY, ALEECIA!! I miss you.

all I said or quoted or listed here in 2008

Got the idea from Anne-Marie to tagcloud all my 2008 blogposts, and here ’tis. Hers came out with “thinking” the most common word, mine with “writing.” Not suprising. Oh, I couldn’t take out the non-post words like “Comments” or “Edit” so all those are in there, too. And, of course, this includes all the words [...]

Happy Birthday, John Denver!

Happy Birthday, John Denver! He would’ve been 65 today, though I’m sure he never would have retired in any traditional sense.
And speaking of John Denver, I’ve been emailing the past couple days with a friend from high school — a friend I actually don’t yet remember (very sadly for me) but who has given me [...]

“I’m the fool whose life’s been spent between what’s said and what is meant.”

Is that a great line or what? It’s from a song by Carrie Newcomer whose music I discovered last night when our pastor played two of her songs during worship. I’ll probably have to buy her latest CD, “Geography of Light.”
“There is a Tree” chorus:
There is a tree beyond the world,
In its ancient roots a [...]

and now for something completely different

And now for something COMPLETELY different.
My mom just sent me this photo of a John Deere wagon a neighbor gave my parents. I have no idea how old it is, but it’s obviously supposed to be drawn by horses, not a tractor.
Anyway, my dad recently finished restoring it. And I am just really impressed by [...]

American Express super-hero credit card commercial

Okay, I just saw this commercial on Headline News (I think it was). This is not the full-length version, unfortunately. But it’s the only version I could find online. Anyway, this commercial completely backfired on me. I saw this business lunch going on, then one guy offering to pay for everyone’s meal with his credit [...]

Keith Olbermann: “Gay marriage is a question of love”

His comments on the way in which our history shows the obvious NEED to re-define marriage remind me of the 16th century Protestant reformers motto: ecclesia reformata, semper reformanda (the church [...]

Joshua generation

Wow. I am more deeply thrilled that Obama was elected president than I thought I would be. Wow, what a wonderful and powerful moment.
Faith is the substance of things hoped for.
I love the phrase “Joshua generation,” too.

Sylvester is safe!

Sylvester is safe!! Thanks to everyone who worried with me and sent good wishes for Sylvester’s return.
I made the almost-six-hour drive home Friday night to help look for him. Fortunately, though, about an hour before I got there, Deb called and said she’d got him. Whew, what a relief. What a relief. I had begun [...]