Technology can solve problems. Technology can also create problems or reveal existing situations that have nothing to do with the tool used to reveal structural faults. The way we perceived our lives and what we believe to be important is changing; Can you feel the tremors of change? A technological change can be positive and possibly negative. For my jumping off point I started with Lisa Nielsen's blog The Innovative Educator. Lisa's blog is filled with great educational ideas, technology, concepts and resources, some of them free. It occurs...
Monday, August 31, 2009
Saturday, August 29, 2009
Dan Roam and Tony Jones, M.D. have put together a slide presentation on their perspectives of the health care debate. I may quibble about some of the items but it does point to one thing I keep saying and it gets dismissed.Healthcare Napkins AllView more documents from Dan Roam.I want health care access and reform but we are actually talking about health care insurance reform. I'm not giving up on either but crazy is as crazy do...
Wednesday, August 26, 2009
This was a public health movie about encoraging soldiers to get treatment for venereal diseases. This was something you did not say out loud in the 1940s. The movie tries to talk about the topic without talking about the topic.This means no discussion of sex, how you contracted the disease or how to prevent it. Yep, a sex education movie without sex being mentioned once. Now besides the fact that it has Robert Mitchum and Noah Berry at the beginning of the movie, there are other reasons why I am positing this PSA.I had heard of the Jean Hersholt...
Tuesday, August 25, 2009
It was a dark and stormy night at the Castaway Bar and Grill. Mookie the bartender was polishing the beer into the counter top as he bounced to a remix of Baby Got Back and Feelings. You could hear the barflies drink gulps of regret as they caught threads of Twitter static. It gave me the creeps; watching them hope for redemption in the tweets of possibilities. And then she walked through the door. I chunk my Psycho Berry smoothie as my client swung her swag. You could tell she had been around; the woman had logos on everything. Even her sunglasses...
Friday, August 21, 2009
I am jazz ignorant. I know it. I use to try and listen to my local jazz and blues radio station but it is a little out of my broadcast area. The only other source of jazz is midnight on Sundays and I'm lucky if I can make it to 11 p.m. I know what I like but could not identify the style of jazz if you paid me.Smooth Jazz don't cut it because it more mush of many musical forms. I don't hate it but I don't seek it out either. So it was cool to find this clip and hey, I even recognized the name of the performer.From the 1963 movie All Night Long this...
Tuesday, August 18, 2009
Ok, I know that the newspapers and the media told you that this has become a non-issue that there will be no public or single pay option. That is a lie. It is still a big deal.But we have to participate. You and I as citizens have some responsibilities. One of them is to be informed an the other is to speak. What I am asking is not easy. Read the actual bill. You can do so at Open Congress.orgI’m not asking you to support or condemn the bill. I’m...
Saturday, August 15, 2009
I have been less personal here on the Stoop for a while. I had life happen. It is still happening. I can tell those of you that have more of it to live than I've got left is that you do the best you can and keep moving forward. Or rest when necessary. But the forward thing, yeah direction wise that is the way to go. Forward isn't always easy.I don't know if you did this but when I was a kid I wanted to know how the world got so messed up. As a teen that shifted into being able to see some of the messed-uppers in action and figured they would...
Friday, August 14, 2009
Creation begets more creation. It can't be stopped or legislated. The participants in the video are generations apart but the constant is the beat, the beat, some drums and more beat.The singer is the great Marlena Shaw who album I still have in vinyl form. She sustained me during the dark days of tribulations and clogs on escalators.The performers in the early part of the video is the Berry Brothers, who I don't have a clue who they were but somebody was inspired by these gents. I've seen latter day interpretations of this kind of dancing. I...
Thursday, August 13, 2009
There are certain songs that I must dance when they are played. The music forces me out of my chair and commands me to move my body in defiance of a culture that tells me I’m too old to shake that thing. Mainly I dance with myself and every once in a while with Billy Idol. For Merce Cunningham I imagined that every day of his life he was commanded to move his body in dance. Like many people, I had heard of Mr. Cunningham's name. Because the lack of representation of artistic dance on television and movies I would not have been able to tell you...
Saturday, August 8, 2009
I've started collecting DVD movies of animated superheroes and graphic novels. I haven't stepped into Anime yet but it is only a matter of time. Anyway music + animation = the yeah, yeah, yeahs from me.I've kept this one in my play list for a while. It is an short clip of latter day Josie and the Pussycats directed by Quentin Tarentino. The song is called Chick Habit and the singer is April March.Now there is almost nothing new but inspiration. The original song was in French recorded by France Gall in 1964. Here is her version:So the lesson for...
Thursday, August 6, 2009
It has been a summer of adults getting themselves into trouble verbally or socially. And no, I’m not necessarily talking about Crowley, Gates or Obama. Here is the deal. I became angry with myself. In one social situation where you would think I’d blow a gasket I was calm and rational. In another situation two days later I acted in anger at the mention of two words. Two freaking words that I have heard for years. Never had an effect on me before that moment. No, that is not true. The words irritated me but I rationalized it away. Then kaboom! ...
Tuesday, August 4, 2009
'Cue? as in BBQ? A festival about the smell, the smoke and dare I say it, the joy of eating hot juicy seasoned meat? Er...to my veggie and vegan friends, skip this post.I'm an Omnivore and I do slip over to the dark side every now and again. I did buy snow peas and carrots yesterday. It is a process, okay? I might not even make it over there, I'd have to take four buses or a train or two on a Saturday. It is supposed to have some serious K-BBQ masters though. I do like pickle Kimchi.Where was I? Oh yeah on Saturday, August 8th from 12:00 PM - 8:00...
Saturday, August 1, 2009
I sat at the Birds of a Feather Education table for lunch. I met folks. I hoped that I listened more than I talked or ate. I didn't get the chance to meet everyone. Soon lunch was over and I noticed that there were condoms on the table from Planned Parenthood. I was afraid one of the Waitstaff might throw them in the trash. I started to gather them up when an older gentleman asked me what they were. I smiled and said "Condoms." He asked if he could have them, he wanted to give them to some of his young "knuckleheads" in his neighborhood.I said...
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