Daily Blues & Views

 The school board in Mc Minn, Tennessee had it again.  It has proven a simple principle when you try to ban a book with little reason or rhyme.  Oh they have their reasons, of course.  They find it too objectionable because it contains a few 4 letter words like damn and one of the characters (all are depicted as mice or cats) appears to be nude.   The principle they so ignorantly underscored is that when you try to ban a book,especially from young people, you ensure that it will be a best-seller.  That's why Maus , Art Spigelman's brilliant graphic novel about his parents Holocaust experience in Auchwitz has hit the number one slot on Amazon sales currently.  The book is used in curriculum from grade 8 through 12.  It pulls no punches; it is accurate history and it's relevance couldn't be more well-timed these days. Of course, this noble school board probably does not see the irony in banning a book about the Holocaust.  In their drive ...

  When you don't look back for 50 years,      there is a way to find the land of childhood, It floats among the islands of first impression,     bordered by fear and fairness. The street names have not changed,      some still bring a smile or a laugh. Some project faces and obsolete words.      the air is there with some of the same trees very few businesses and the landscape      altered by multitudes. My father's Maple tree is long gone,      the lawn he patrolled has turned to concrete Nobody plays baseball on the field that was     the street.   No cherry tree to snag a pop fly before I did. All those Saturday mornings      made little difference, except the one where I found toilet paper in the trees and bushes and the morning my transistor radio warned about      the Gulf  of Tonkin.

 Many former teachers like me think about how they would have done if the pandemic had come earlier than it did.  Would we have adjusted to virtual learning even though it is the antithesis of what we believe is necessary to educate a person.  Many of us made the lively face-to-face discussion a regular part of our classrooms.  To continue in a virtual world, with 1/3 of our students missing every day would surely have been difficult.  If nothing else, the pandemic has shown us that students need daily interaction with people in person to thrive. In thinking back over my career, I marvel at the technological changes that have occurred within the last 50  years.  Most notably the impact of computers and the availability of audiovisual materials.  I vividly recall how difficult it sometimes was to show a film or play a piece of music for students.  Not so much physically doing it, but rather getting it.  Today, a teacher can go to Youtube ...

 Woody Guthrie has a Facebook page.  Figures, he's not the only cultural icon who has not been with us for over 50 years that makes a presence on Facebook.   The posts on that page are made by the official Woody Guthrie Publishing Company.  As is often the case, today's post is right on the money. It's no surprise that this song written so many years ago, fits in perfectly with the theme of fragile democracy that is so poignant of this January 6th date commemorating the first anniversary of Trump's attempted coup. The visual images of this day in 2022 are just as striking as last year at this time.  The Speaker of the House makes a speech and only 2 Republicans are present.  A house divided in the flesh.  The fact that both Liz Cheney and her father, Dick Cheney, the former Vice President are sitting amidst empty chairs states the case. The Republican Party is out to lunch in every sense of the phrase.   If Woody Guthrie is a national tr...