Reading Rainbow in its last season...A TRAGEDY

After 26 years on the air Reading Rainbow is coming to an end and I literally gasped when I found out. Reading Rainbow was not an ordinary show, it introduced me to the love of stories and their ability to transport me to wherever I'd like to go. As I read over at Jezebel and I have to agree, the show didn't teach how to read but why you should read.

In this age of NCLB we will not see what damage the focus on reading skills and not reading for pleasure will do until it is far too late. Qualities such as creativity and imagination are not easily measured, but they are just as important, if not more important, than calculus and physics when you're designing a new building. Not to mention the fact that when you suck the joy from learning the motivation for learning is sapped as well.

The show's run is ending, Grant explains, because no one — not the station, not PBS, not the Corporation for Public Broadcasting — will put up the several hundred thousand dollars needed to renew the show's broadcast rights.

Grant says the funding crunch is partially to blame, but the decision to end Reading Rainbow can also be traced to a shift in the philosophy of educational television programming. The change started with the Department of Education under the Bush administration, he explains, which wanted to see a much heavier focus on the basic tools of reading — like phonics and spelling.

Grant says that PBS, CPB and the Department of Education put significant funding toward programming that would teach kids how to read — but that's not what Reading Rainbow was trying to do.

"Reading Rainbow taught kids why to read," Grant says. "You know, the love of reading — [the show] encouraged kids to pick up a book and to read." Source

Research has directed programming toward phonics and reading fundamentals as the front line of the literacy fight. Reading Rainbow occupied a more luxurious space — the show operated on the assumption that kids already had basic reading skills and instead focused on fostering a love of books.

I anticipate an increase in drop out rates along with an increase in test scores. Just because someone knows how to do something doesn't not necessarily mean that they will continue to do it.

I really am concerned for kids who don't have engaged and thoughtful parents with the time to focus on their literacy, and that includes a great number of children.

WTF- Principle nixes every book in the library for e-readers

Cushing Academy has all the hallmarks of a New England prep school, with one exception.

This year, after having amassed a collection of more than 20,000 books, officials at the pristine campus about 90 minutes west of Boston have decided the 144-year-old school no longer needs a traditional library. The academy’s administrators have decided to discard all their books and have given away half of what stocked their sprawling stacks - the classics, novels, poetry, biographies, tomes on every subject from the humanities to the sciences. The future, they believe, is digital.

“When I look at books, I see an outdated technology, like scrolls before books,’’ said James Tracy, headmaster of Cushing and chief promoter of the bookless campus. “This isn’t ‘Fahrenheit 451’ [the 1953 Ray Bradbury novel in which books are banned]. We’re not discouraging students from reading. We see this as a natural way to shape emerging trends and optimize technology.’’

As the folks on engadget say "unless there are only 18 students at Cushing Academy, we're pretty sure the e-reader supply is going to come up short." The book is at the height of information technology, not the bottom, and I will tell you why. The book never needs an upgrade,it is extremely inexpensive making it available to the poorest of the poor and the rich alike, the only energy source required to read it is sunlight, and the only knowledge one needs to attain to decode it's contents is reading.

Now, I'm all for technology, especially when you're referring to information that is updated on a daily basis like reference information found in encyclopedias, but that kind of information is not free and requires a subscription. It's also easily controlled or changed depending on who is reviewing and posting the information, the interest groups the information supports or denounces. Once a book is published it can only disappear if it's burned, all the e-readers need to do is catch a virus or miss an upgrade and it's useless. The entire move seems ridiculous.

Instead of a library, the academy is spending nearly $500,000 to create a “learning center,’’ though that is only one of the names in contention for the new space. In place of the stacks, they are spending $42,000 on three large flat-screen TVs that will project data from the Internet and $20,000 on special laptop-friendly study carrels. Where the reference desk was, they are building a $50,000 coffee shop that will include a $12,000 cappuccino machine.

This is a prep school so I guess the charge of elitism is a cheap shot, but in this case they deserve it, and I use that term with a focus on being out of touch with reality. I honestly doubt kids are going to curl up with Twilight or even Anna Karenina at a coffee shop with their e-reader.

NY Times- Black Hair- Still Tangled in Politics

SILKY straight hair has long been considered by many black women to be their crowning glory. So what if getting that look meant enduring the itchy burning that’s a hallmark of many chemical straighteners. Or a pricey dependence on “creamy crack,” as relaxers are sometimes jokingly called.

Getting “good hair” often means transforming one’s tightly coiled roots; but it is also more freighted, for many African-American women and some men, than simply a choice about grooming. Straightening hair has been perceived as a way to be more acceptable to certain relatives, as well as to the white establishment. Source

Ok, article, but the comments are really telling and very diverse. Love it.

Things that Make Me White

Things that Make Me White:
• I’m a vegetarian
• I shop at my local Farmer’s Market
• I buy expensive sandwiches with feta cheese and sundried tomatoes
• I, too, listen to NPR
• I’m in Graduate School
• I’m married
• I’m happily married, without children
• I own my home (financed without a subprime loan)
• I recycle
• I’ve been rock climbing
• I identify as a feminist
• I support Gay Marriage
• I’ve voted Republican in my lifetime
• My father was an integral part of my life, and still is
• I attend church every Sunday……and my Pastor is White
• I don’t know what the appeal is with “Meet the Browns”
• Black people make assumptions about me


Things that make me Black:

• I wake up with Brown skin everyday
• White people make assumptions about me



Inspired by a post on Racialicious, based on an excerpt of Covering:The hidden assault on our civil rights by Kenji Yoshino

Stereotypes are a funny, funny thing and racism is based on the "othering" of the other person. Black people do it and White people do it too, but I think for different reasons. I think Black folk like to put other Black people into a box in order to identify the "trustables". Are you like us? Will you turn on me? I think the question is the same for White people. Are you like us? But, the context is, will you hurt me? I think both are centered around fear, but it's horribly constricting and ultimately, silly.

A person is not a color or race based on how they vote, what they listen to, what they eat or what job they have. In the immortal words of Susan Powder..."Stop the Insanity!"

To Spank or Not to Spank

Proverbs 13:24
He who spares the rod hates his son, but he who loves him is careful to discipline him.
Proverbs 13:23-25 (in Context) Proverbs 13 (Whole Chapter)

It's a common myth that all Black parents spank. The myth persists among Black folks and those who think they know Black folks. My Mother was a spanker. She was spanked and she spanked me. My sister got a spanking almost everyday and not the occasional pop on the hand. We were spanked with belts. It was a punishment and it was used to instill fear and awe. I'm not going to sugar coat what it was meant to do. It was a tool of discipline and she spanked when she was angry, because when your kids misbehave it often makes you angry. I had welts and I cried and I ran and to some people who are reading this right now they would categorize this as abuse, but....it worked.

I was a very respectful and thoughtful child who obeyed my parents and still hold them in very high esteem. My mother balanced punishment with praise, equally. For as many spankings she doled out she doled out even more hugs and kisses and long soliloquies about how much she loved us and how proud she was of us. She was a queen to me, albeit flawed, but still a queen.

My father, on the other hand, did not spank. No one on his side of the family spanks and I tell you the anecdotal evidence doesn't look good for the "non-spankers". He was not a disciplinarian, but he wasn't the most affectionate either. It seems that the surge of emotionally investment it takes to spank or to hug uncontrollably was never there. I felt like in those days he was playing "father" like someone would play a parent on television: Strict, supposedly self assured, a little distant. I'm not sure if all non-spankers do that. It definitely seems to be so when I see them in grocery stores or outlet malls as they try to calmly tell Billy to stop kicking Mommy in the shins and asking for candy. I tell you that this never happened on any outings with Momma Librarian. I've never called my mother out of her name and I've never had a problem with authority.

There were no time outs in my house. There were restrictions as we got older, but that was only because the groundwork (that fear and awe) had already been laid. I wonder how different I would have turned out if I'd had time outs or restrictions as young as 2 or 3?

As I remember, and you can dispute me, the restrictions never worked very well on younger kids (and my sister was evidence) because if the infraction was serious enough and called for 3,4 or even 5 weeks of the dreaded notvnoradionointernet(I'm throwing in that net piece) then that means the kids is bothering you to find entertainment and with a rambunctious kid, a parent can only take a few days of that before the whole deal is sunk. How much easier and to the heart of the matter is a 5 minute spanking? It definitely drives home the idea of consequences for your actions. Still, I'm torn. I'm not sure I want to do it with my kids.

While I do think that for some things there really is only one alternative. If a kid lights a trash can on fire in his grandmother's garage, I'm sorry, that's an ass whoopin'. Or if a child runs out into the street. The quickest and most effective way to relay the message "Don't do that" is a spanking. But if the same kid gets gum in the seat of your new BMW, I'm not sure if it's appropriate. Really, what are the options? Parenting is such a personal thing, but it become so political and so judgmental.

Spanking's main goal is to suppress rebellion, and it does that, but I wonder if it suppresses creativity and free thought, as well. I'm not sure if I want my children to have that little voice in their heads that says "What are you doing?", "You might get in trouble", "How does this reflect on your parents?" That's such a burden and there may be a time when they need to speak up for themselves or others who they feel are being wronged. Spanking may rob them of that. I know I struggle with it.

If time out is on one end of the spectrum and spanking on the other. What is in the middle?

Real Hair Day....Isn't that Everyday?

“Tyra said, “This season on The Tyra Show we’re taking it to the next level and getting more real than ever before by encouraging women everywhere to own and rock what they’ve got and be proud! For the Season 5 premiere, I will be doing just that - no fake hair, I’m rocking my REAL hair. This will all be going down on September 8, 2009, which we’re declaring National Real Hair Day! We welcome everyone to go natural with me!”
-Just Jared

So Tyra is declaring September 8th "Natural Hair Day." Hmmmmmm? Now, at first glance this is a good thing. I challenge you to find one picture of an African American "A" list actress, celebrity, or even political figure in a natural hairstyle and that would mean without the aid of chemicals, weaves, extensions or artificial means whatsoever.

Having the opportunity to live in Atlanta I see everyday black women sporting a number of hairstyles, from the red and blue streaked extensions of the girls at the checkout window at Church's chicken to the close cropped naturals of corporate attorneys. But I live in the Southern, Black Mecca. In a lot of ways, women here create trends, they don't follow them. I saw a girl rocking the half-shaved head two years ago, ages before Cassie and LaLa got on the bandwagon. But, again, I'm in a unique situation where minority status isn't so obvious, because of that freedom of expression is not so risky. I would go so far as to say Black Atlantans really don't know their place.

I cannot say the same for those in other cities.

In my hometown, for instance, it would still seem "odd" for a woman to cut her hair short, if it were long, let alone let it revert to it's natural state. I think it has to do with keeping up "appearances". The "I'm just like you" approach. Natural hair is a dead giveaway that you're an "other" and no one would want to seem something other than "normal" and that would be mean "white". And contrary to what some would say I think for most black women (not all) that it is most definitely internalized racism. They want to be pretty like any other woman, but that means not being "black" or "nappy".

Women who most would consider "low maintenance", who don't spend a dime on pedicures, who rarely put on lip gloss, let alone lipstick, and can be found most days in jeans and a t-shirt, will spend hundreds of dollars and hours of their precious time getting their hair chemically straightened or weaved. It can't be vanity, unless that vanity is laser-focused, which I doubt. So, like I said, I'm interested to see what Miss Tyra does with it. Most black women don't even know what their natural hair looks like so it's going to be a hard sell and I hope she doesn't think she can get away with some cornrows with a little synthetic extensions, because I'm gonna call her out.

The Face of Discrimination

I love these ads I saw over at Kiss My Black Ads. Especially the one featuring the woman in hijab. So Simple.

Birthday Love

I just had a birthday. Yeah! I love my birthdays. I love getting older. I feel more secure, more in control and confident. I've always avoided definitive statements about myself and what I believed and I did that because I believed in the intrinsic value of the thoughts of others instead of placing the highest value on my own. Even in those few cases that I did place my opinions above those of others I wouldn't dare let them know it lest I seem pompous, rude, stuck-up, bitchy, or some other less than seemly term for women with thoughts these days. So in honor of my birthday I'm going to make some definitive statements.

I believe in miracles

God exists

I believe the Southern Strategy is a racist plot to keep black, brown and poor people enshrined in an oppressive patriarchal system built on greed

I think most Republicans believe in an inescapable scarcity of resources and thrive on belief that God is punishing certain people and wealth is proof that he loves them more than others

Marriage can make you a better person

Sex positive is a feminist construct built on a desire to adopt male misbehavior

I am a feminist

I think some people have children because they think of anything better to do

I believe if you haven't known the feeling or look of your natural hair in your adult life then relaxing your hair is NOT just a style for you

Breaking a sweat clears your mind

Eating flesh will cloud your blood

A child's giggle is as contagious as yawning

Subsidized housing keeps people boxed in, closed off, and segregated and lets them believe that they like it there

And, also...birthdays are awesome

This is not YOUR Romantic Comedy

I've been put out lately by the inspirationless drivel that Hollywood calls a rom-com these days. "The Ugly Truth"?! Give me a break. I am a Meryl Streep stan and this preview has me salivating. I'm not so high brow that I can't love a commercial love story, but give me something new. Give me a 60 year old woman finding love and being desirable and living a life not ruled by her grandchildren on screen. Can't wait.

Do You

I love it! Sometimes we, as women, really have to tell the world what "fierce" really is, because they really don't know, as evidenced by the totally fug trend of gladiator sandals. Those things look horrible on everyone.

If Solange was a book I'd check her out!