The G Bitch Spot

HT: Suspect Device, item #2.

If HB 199 passes, one-on-one conferences will mean a whole new thing:

Legalizing permitted handguns on college campuses took its first major step toward approval Thursday after three hours of debate in a legislative committee.

…

House Bill 199 by Rep. Ernest Wooten, R-Belle Chasse, was approved in an 11-3 vote in the House Criminal Justice Committee. HB199 next moves to debate in the full House.

Wooten said allowing more responsible people to legally carry guns would serve as a deterrent to killers and not create the “wild, wild west.”

Rep. Barbara Norton, D-Shreveport countered, “It’s supposed to be higher education and higher learning, but it seems to me we’re preparing for war.”

Although most of the students who testified opposed the legislation, Southeastern Louisiana University College Republican Geoffrey Green said he only wants to be able to defend his friends if necessary.

“I feel defenseless,” said Green, who legally must keep a gun in his vehicle on campus. “It’s not fair that we’re not able to defend ourselves.”

Will the next bill arm faculty? What about staff? Administrators? Custodial staff? I find this absolutely chilling. If it passes, which I hope it doesn’t but knowing the state of LA as I do [as opposed to the city of New Orleans], I wouldn’t be surprised if it became law. And then I’d like to know what I do as I sit in my one-way-out, no-windows office with a student pissed that, even though he never bought the books and skipped 90% of the classes, he is not only going to fail my class but lose his basketball/academic/church scholarship because of failing my class and is armed, legally? What then do I do? Pull out my not-legal-on-campus gun? And hope my trigger finger is faster than his? And that killing me is all that he actually wants?

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LA House of Rep. home page

How to find your state rep.

State Rep. email addresses

pic from mrbill

…the first Mother’s Day was dreamed up by a woman named Anna Jarvis, in 1907, the idea didn’t really catch fire until 1914, when President Woodrow Wilson infuriated women’s rights activists by proclaiming the second Sunday in May an official holiday. “Many of the era’s suffragists . . . were already resentful of Wilson, and they objected to this sentimental response to women’s economic and legal problems,” reports Doris Weatherford in American Women’s History,…

No doubt Wilson was sick and tired of suffragists by the time he signed off on Mother’s Day. They had just about ruined his 1913 inauguration, mounting such a militant demonstration and storming 5000 strong down Pennsylvania Avenue, that it completely diverted attention from his own ceremony. He just didn’t get it: in 1916, when he finally addressed the National American Woman Suffrage Association, he told the assembled, “you can afford a little while to wait.”

But women were in no mood to be patient. Those involved in the struggle had tasted liberty, a strange sensation for people who had spent the previous 100 years tight-laced into corsets, covered by bonnets and parasols, barely daring to speak above a whisper. Looking back on the heady days of the movement, English feminist Ida Alexa Ross Wylie reminisced: “To my astonishment, I found that women, in spite of knock-knees and the fact that for centuries a respectable woman’s leg had not even been mentionable, could at a pinch outrun the average London bobby. . . . For two years of wild and sometimes dangerous adventure, I worked and fought alongside vigorous, happy, well-adjusted women who laughed instead of tittering, who walked freely instead of teetering . . . we shared a joy of life that we had never known. Most of my fellow-fighters were wives and mothers. And strange things happened to their domestic life. Husbands came home at night with a new eagerness. . . . As for children, their attitude changed rapidly from one of affectionate toleration for poor, darling mother to one of wide-eyed wonder. Released from the smother of mother love . . . they discovered that they liked her. . . . She had guts. . . . “

Happy Mother’s Day.

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Yaeger, Lynn. “Mommie Dearest: The Hidden History of Mother’s Day.” Village Voice, May 4, 1999. http://www.villagevoice.com/nyclife/9917,215765,5328,15.html

pic by my_new_wintercoat

Yep, even I can comment. Major changes ahead, though, as the final Viagra bugs are worked out and my theme library rebuilt. It’s like having a blog again!

Before I get started, let me say that some of my closest friends are white people.

I called Indiana for HRC based on what I called and call The Cracker Vote, that percentage of white people who consciously or unconsciously, strongly or mildly, overtly or covertly cannot vote for A Black Man–because it is about the lumpen, not individuals but vague or sharp mental, emotional and psychological images. And an image is not a person is not an individual. Rev. Wright on YouTube = The Angry Black Man = F. E. A. R. (Not the video game.)

The only way to combat The Cracker Vote, liberal and conservative alike, is to expose it. To call a cracker a cracker. Or, more politely, a cracker impulse a cracker impulse–hate the sin, not the sinner, compassion and lovingkindness, all that. To ask HRC, Do you think a percentage of your support comes not because of your positions or ideas or experience but because you are the white person running against the black person? And when she answers no, challenge how any educated, politically aware American adult in 2008 can think that racism, covert and overt, stereotypes ground deep into the cells, disappears when faced with a vote or a candidate? Why then does she rely so on “the white working class vote”? What does she mean by that? Americans in medium-sized, largely white towns who think of black folks as the criminals they see on TV news and in the movies? And if she doesn’t mean that, what does she mean?

Those people have to be called out. The calling out won’t change the hardass core of The Cracker Vote but it will jar the fence-sitters, the ones who are on the Democratic fence not because HRC is the best candidate or a likely winner against McCain but because they feel “comfortable” with her “leadership” and when they get into the booth and the curtain closes behind them or they look at that paper ballot, simply cannot vote for the black man. At the last minute. They cannot or will not say why, and understandably don’t want to talk about it. Calling out the so-called bottom of the ladder will force some of the fence-sitters to confront their shit or switch sides to save face, to avoid saying to their friends, spouses, children, co-workers that they cannot, just really cannot for unknown or myriad reasons, vote for A Black Man.

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I’m experimenting with comments. Wait for approval.

And if you’re hella pissed, email a comment and I’ll get it up here one way or another. Go ahead. Try.

pic: .Larry Page

pic: aaron.michels

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I’m the only one who can’t leave a comment on my own blog. WTF? So here’s my comment (go read the official comments then scroll back here):

saxa, your assumption is that black folks vote for Obama in opposition to white people. Blacks have voted for and helped put in office many white folks in the past and will do so again in the future. Do not mistake Louis Farrakhan and what the MSM implies Rev. Wright is with mainstream black thought or group behavior. As voters, blacks are rarely radical or threatening. And I have heard some of the same blacks-vote-for-him opinion from HRC supporters–see Am Funk’s encounter with an HRC supporter who said A.F. should really vote for HRC because “The Blacks” are voting for Obama. (Many times, “The” in front of a racial, ethnic, or even religious category–think “The Jews” and “The Catholics”–indicates hostility and often smacks of conspiracy theorizing.) Even if it were true that all black folks voted for Obama in any state, it wouldn’t give him the numbers to win anything. Black people are a numerical minority.

Yes, I am making some generalizations in order to make my point. But do not assume, unless it fits, that I am talking about you, saxa. Or that objecting to racism, overt, covert, suspected or proven, means I hate white people.

John, are you really telling me that there are no racial tensions, problems, prejudice in Indiana? I find that hard to believe, and have lived in the Midwest and met my fair share of Midwesterners, some from Indiana, some not. And many of those Midwesterners, white by the way, filled in my Indiana gaps for me. Not talking about “race” doesn’t mean that there are no problems or that everyone gets along. It just means it’s not talked about. That’s one of my objections in the post, the silence. Silence perpetuates the problem. And what does your last statement mean? That because Indianians don’t talk about race, they have fewer problems with their Negroes? Or that we in LA have crime because we have so many black folk down here or won’t close our eyes to the lives we have lived and continue to live and will always live unless we talk, confront and do something about it? Racism is not a black people problem. Oppression harms the oppressed and the oppressor, the maligned and the maligners.

GB

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And Cliff can’t get through either:

Hi G,
Here is my biggest fear leading into the general election. Obama’s campaign has been so willing to denounce any black person who is not mainstream when they endorse him. I am afraid that we will be in a position where he won’t be able to embrace any endorsements from African Americans publicly. I’ve been saying since the start that the key to him winning is that he had to be white people friendly. That wasn’t an insult to him. That was just recognizing what country I live in. I just wish black people would stop making it ok for Obama to ignore our issues. We shouldn’t have to act like we don’t have a few things that affect us more than others. Doing so only feeds into the principle you just wrote about.

Cliff

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Another comment, from Kim, 5/8:

I am a white woman who grew up poor and spent half my adult life in North Florida among a lot of crackers: racist/xenophobic/intolerant white people. But I don’t think I need that experience to see that HRC is targeting the cracker vote and sustaining herself on the cracker vote. And I agree that there’s no way to combat that cracker vote except by calling it what it is. The third of democratic HRC voters who claimed to prefer McCain to Obama doesn’t make sense in any other perspective. I noticed last night that MSM’s terminology for the demographic HRC appeals to was no longer “white working class” but rather “white working people.” (???)

saxa–I think that if Obama’s campaign strategy had been to appeal to misogyny by any means necessary, to suggest he would be disadvantaged by HRC’s “inevitable” white vote, and to declare that any of HRC’s associates, past or present, are “radical feminists” and therefore she would govern as a “radical feminist,” then the numbers you’re seeing would be a lot different. The numbers were a lot different at the beginning of the primary season before HRC’s divisive campaign tactics were clear.

And to clarify–I am not screening these emailed comments anymore than I screened the moderated comments. Until my comment/blog spam problem is fixed once and for all, this is all the process we’ve got, people.

graciously cross-posted at Humid City, my evacuation chalet

My daughter goes to a charter school. I got an email the other day about tomorrow’s rally in Baton Rouge in celebration of Charter Schools Week (I’ve never heard of this one and wonder why it is the same damn week as Teacher Appreciation Week):

Louisiana Celebrates National Charter Schools Week
Wednesday, May 7, 11:30 a.m.
Steps of State Capitol, Baton Rouge

With:
State Senator Cheryl Gray
House Speaker Pro Tem Karen Carter
Algiers Charter School Association
Citizens for 1 Greater New Orleans
Eastbank Collaborative of Charter Schools
Louisiana Association of Public Charter Schools
Louisiana Charter School Association
New Schools New Orleans
and others!

Open to the public

And then at the end, the email says:

We intend to:

• Increase awareness that charter schools are public schools;
• Advocate for more favorable policy environment for charter schools in Louisiana; and
• Show how the quality and accountability of charter schools is transforming public education in Louisiana.

Even if I could be there, I wouldn’t. Why? Because charter schools here are NOT public schools. More than a handful of charters, regardless of the supervising agency, have selective admissions and even those that don’t get to cap their enrollment where they choose. They are not obligated to provide for special needs students (at either end of the spectrum) and a fractured “system” makes providing that extra care harder or impractical–how can one single school afford a full-time special education teacher paid out of its current budget for 3 or even 10 students? How can that expense be justified to the 99+% of parents whose children do not need these services? Also, where’s the accountability if no research has been done and is only going to be started at some point in the future AND when schools can provide whatever data they want however they want? There is no standard system for comparing current charter schools or comparing schools now to schools before (and I get this from the Cowen Institute report, not my ass)? A public school takes every child who walks in and educates every child that stays, regardless of need. That’s what public schools are supposed to be about and for. And do we need a “more favorable policy environment” for charters in LA? There are bills in the state legislature now which aim to make our charter school “system” permanent regardless of results, flaws or failures. And no transformation of public education has occurred yet. From my vantage point, we have a few innovators but mostly we have new themes for schools–social justice, college prep (whatever that means), math and science, math and business, art and technology. A theme is not a reform.

There is a place for charters in a public school system. But that doesn’t mean that charters should become a school system. How can we be sure all our children are educated if they are divided into fiefdoms or placed on their own islands? And it will take years, at least one generation, for charter schools to change NO public schools from being schools of last resort (a Cowen Institute phrase) to just plain schools.

You will not see this black mother at that rally.

pic cropped from SanFranAnnie

graciously cross-posted at Humid City when the Spot was spotty

The Lump (our 11-1/2-year-old spawn) reads during Jazz Fest. I have found this humiliating and/or embarrassing over the years, and make pains to point out her bobbing or tapping foot. This year, though, people were quite charmed. One man talked to me at length about her liking to read, about that keeping her “mind off all that mess” and away from too much TV. He was also charmed at how I “took care of her”–adjusting the umbrella and her circle of shade, spraying cold water on her legs to cool her off, checking in with her every song or break or so. She’s my child. That’s what I’m supposed to do. It’s just not that common to see. One day, she will be grown and gone. And I want her to miss the loving care she got from us.

Every child, especially the toddlers, reminded me of my Lump back in the day, the days of “Jazz Fest braids,” red shorts, no shirt, one quick diaper change, lots of mango freeze, jama jama, snowballs, lemonade and herbal tea and a 3-wheeled stroller that parted the crowds.

But I have gotten old. It took 3 days to get my Jazz Fest legs. And now, I am done for a week even though Monday is tomorrow and the race begins.

Happy Fucking Jazz Fest, y’all. See you next year.

graciously cross-posted at Humid City when the Spot was spotty

First off, no, I do not understand the finer points of funding and producing Jazz Fest. But I do know that $50 tickets price out a fair amount of locals and takes an iconic season away from many of us who grew up on that change in the air. And the extra work/cash on hand.

Part of the justification for the doubling of ticket prices in the past 5 years seems to be the addition of big, headlining, head-turning acts–Bruce Springsteen, Widespread Panic (I had no idea who they were until Friday), etc. (I rarely see them)–acts that are great but have little to do with jazz or heritage. And that seem to justify pricing out locals. Solution–Local Thursday. I don’t care which Thursday, 1st, 2nd, just a damn Thursday. All local acts, all tents and stages, one Thursday, reduced prices. Don’t even open the Acura stage that day. Open the grandstand so you can get your grandmama out of the sun for a little while. Focus on the tents, crafts, food and smaller stages and paying musicians. I don’t need Elvis Costello. And I can go on a $50 day to see Al Green if I really want to.

I’m happy musicians are getting paid more, happy with the increase in quality of the French Quarter, Freret and Satchmo Fests and the work of the Foundation year-round but does all that have to come at the price of Jazz Fest to locals?

all pics by dsbnola

I think of this as a guest post at Humid City though the Spot was down….

I got a long Jazz Fest tradition, one of those who went as a child and carts her spawn there each year. Every year of my daughter’s life, we’ve gone to Jazz Fest. She never complains or begs off–going to Jazz Fest is what we do. Some people have dinner together at 6 every night, we go to Jazz Fest every year.

We used to spend most of our time in Economy Hall but the brass band groove has moved to the Jazz & Heritage Stage and we even see some of our Economy Hall family, people who watched our daughter grow up on the dance floor, over there now, people I know by hats, shoes, bandannas, umbrellas, and usual outfits. Names, no.

I love Jazz Fest Thursdays. It’s mellower and less crowded in general, though I can’t say for the big stages because we rarely go to the headlining, packed-in-with-the-masses acts. Or maybe we just think it is because we have no kid, also known as The Lump, in tow. I especially love seeing school kids there, packs of 5, 10, 20 in their matching shirts–my favorite today was Langston Hughes’ “Dream it. Be it. Do it.”–and uniform pants and shorts, eating snowballs and getting close to the Indians on the Jazz and Heritage Stage, being watched and directed by their teachers in matching t-shirts. They were all just so damn cute.

The best band today was the New Orleans Nightcrawlers–tight, full brass sound and traditional boogie. Panorama Jazz Band earlier was good, too, but for this granddaughter of a sax player in a traditional NO brass band, the Panorama is light on brass and kind of quiet.

I was glad to see some variety in the free-Harrah’s-drink and Hustler-Club airplane banners: Rouse’s–Buy Local.

My site is down again. Look for me here until further hysteria.

G Bitch

NOLA

I got there 30 minutes late so I cannot tell you anything about Scott Cowen’s opening remarks or Paul Pastorek’s keynote address. I can tell you that nothing is clearer about the future of schools to me. Like many meetings, many hopes were voiced, many opinions told and held, and questions not answered and I can’t say that I have any new understanding of what’s happening. Here are some of my scattered notes, direct words in quotation marks, others paraphrased, my comments in italics:

• The earlier you hold a school meeting, the whiter the audience seems to be. This audience was about 80+% white. Not a complaint but an observation, an interesting one for a school system that is overwhelmingly black. And, Karen pointed out, the meeting was on a college campus with limited parking and no way of knowing where exactly to go unless you are familiar with the Tulane, or any, college campus.

• Barbara MacPhee, former principal of NO Science and Math HS: in the past, kids were not first, teachers were not developed, we now have “gap kids” (those who are 1+ years below grade level), we had an “adults problem” not a student/child problem. She got lots of applause for that one.

• about accountability–Matt Candler, CEO of New Schools for New Orleans: “open a great school where a failed school has been.” So what’s the difference between a struggling school and a developing school? Who decides? How?
  

• Tony Recasner, principal of Green Charter School: if schools are better but still economically and racially segregated, we’ve still failed. Amen.

• Charlotte Matthew, principal of Ben Franklin Elementary: find what’s working in schools and communicate that to other schools, teachers, etc.; do a better job of dividing the education funding that there is and coordinate resources. Great idea. But we have to realize that not all good ideas work with all kids and that we have some populations, not just at the bottom but in the middle and the top, who need attention, best practices, and facilities.

• Flozell Daniels, chair, Urban League of NO: we as a community need to understand what “quality education” means and have community-wide expectations, need to define “success” and “achievement,” and have the discussion on “how much does it take to educate a child in NO?” and need fiscal reform to sustain the potential changes. We also need to define “accountability.” Who’s accountable for what and when and what are the consequences? And does that “accountablitly” come with support, financial, professional and otherwise?

• The panel consensus seemed to be that the biggest worry or fear is returning all the schools to the Orleans Parish School Board. That got lots of applause. Remember the demographics of the crowd. And as Karen pointed out, there is a blanket condemnation of everything and everyone associated with Orleans schools. That fosters a lot of tension and hostility. And more racial misunderstanding. And dismisses and washes away the good that was being done, the ones who were working hard. I’ve complained before and will again about the distinctly racial tenor of condemnations of Orleans parish schools, children and, especially, teachers. And not from people whose kids went to any public school.

• When Charlotte Matthew said that NOPS got its first clean audit this year, as a sign that NOPS/OPSB is making changes, there was a lot of grumbling and some polite applause.

• Matt Candler: the shift or change to charter schools is about governance, not student achievement; if you have enough good schools, the city will change; historically, people have bought their way out of the public schools in NO and if middle class people “don’t make bets with their children” by enrolling them in the public schools, the reforms will fail and “for far too long we have been okay” with crappy public schools being about “other people’s kids.” That was the most pointed statement on the socioeconomic and racial problems that made the old system what it was, exacerbated the weaknesses and that make the majority of public schools now still in need of a lot of help.

• Did you know the state department of education never had a research division or researchers? You do now. And now there are 2–either 2 research groups or 2 researchers, I didn’t hear the whole answer. Now that the experiment has gone on for 2 years, there will be research.

• What’s the solution for segregation here in our schools? Tony Recasner said high-quality schools. And hoped that would be enough.

I’ve read the report. I am not encouraged. More on that soon. There has been progress but it is hard to measure and, for the RSD, the bar was abysmally low to begin with.

I think my comments might work, except for me. Fling an email my way if not. And as always, send me a comment and I’ll post it.

Can I finish both by Monday’s “State of Public Education in New Orleans” forum? (I’m still amazed that a private college that has had no education department or degree in several years is the “leader” on local public education.)

• School Choice: Evidence and Recommendations (PDF)–good and bad news on school choice, including the tidbit that a school choice program/reform is only as good as it is set up to be, that it is not “choice” alone that reforms a system. I wish I had Adobe Acrobat Professional; I need highlighting and sticky notes for this one.

• The State of Public Education in New Orleans, 2008 report (PDF)–and this one, too, I hope.

Anybody going Monday? Fling an email my way.