Blogging is Back!

Many apologies to everyone for the total lack of blog posts in... well, forever. Now that I no longer work somewhere that takes up my every waking moment, and have developed interests beyond the education of those with disabilities, I have information that a very, very few of you might find interesting (whereas for a while there, no one would have been able to get through it--you should thank me for not writing, really). So, to start things off, you can find pictures from my recent vacation in Europe here . More to follow.

New Federal Law: Sun-Worshipping A-OK

I have long been a noisy opponent of this whole time-changing business, enjoying my long summer evenings and not understanding why we had to go and make winter any more dreary. Today, I learned that we just went OFF Daylight Saving Time, and next year, we are slated to extend DST by approximately 30%. Daylight Saving Time, rather than an annoying and tedious holdover from a bygone era, is actually a collective decision (on the part of our lawmakers) to get up an hour early all spring and summer to take advantage of the sunny mornings. The original rationale of saving electricity even still applies: Daylight Saving Time trims the entire country's electricity usage by about one percent each day. People who rise before the sun use more electricity for lighting and small appliances in their homes during DST, but their costs are more than offset by the energy saved by those who are home in the evenings. And that's not all.

It also saves oil. In 1973, Congress extended Daylight Saving Time to 8 months (about the same duration as it will be next year), rather than the normal six months. During that time, the U.S. Department of Transportation found that observing Daylight Saving Time in March and April saved the equivalent in energy of 10,000 barrels of oil each day. Adding the entire month of April to Daylight Saving Time is estimated to save the U.S. about 300,000 barrels of oil each year.

And, it turns out there are other benefits beyond energy savings. Traffic accidents are reduced by one percent, and violent crime goes down 10-13 percent.

So why, you may ask, don't we continue Daylight Saving Time all year? Two reasons: 1) people are attached to the idea of the sun rising to its pinnacle at 12:00, and 2) you need enough light in the morning for business to proceed. So please accept my apologies, gentle DST, for all the years of complaining about the nuisance of changing clocks. Now I know you were only doing your best to help me save up sunlight for the long dark winter.

Find out more at http://webexhibits.org/daylightsaving/g.html.

Happy Birthday, Kristen!

There once was a girl from P. Hill
Who had a pretty good deal
She lived with the lad
In their posh Castro pad
And hardly ever had reason to steal.

Happy Birthday, neighbor! Thanks for refusing to move out of the neighborhood.

More Fun in the Park!

Opera in Dolores Park
San Francisco Opera will present a free afternoon performance on Saturday, July 1 at 2 pm in Dolores Park featuring stars of the Company's summer opera season. Pack a picnic, bring the entire family, and join Music Director Donald Runnicles, the San Francisco Opera Orchestra, and acclaimed singers from the summer season for an afternoon of opera in concert in sunny, centrally located Dolores Park in San Francisco.

More Movies!

How long has it been since you watched "Airplane" with a hot tamale in hand?

movies in dolores park

Summer Nights

This year, I suggest that we take advantage of the city's best nostalgia-in-the-making:

2006 Film Night in the Park Schedule

Saturday, 5/20, BEST IN SHOW @ Dolores Park, 8:00 PM
Saturday, 6/3, MRS. DOUBTFIRE @ Washington Sq. Park, 8:00 PM, Presented with Telegraph Hill Dwellers
Saturday, 7/8, CITIZEN KANE @ Union Square, 8:00 PM
Saturday, 7/29, RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK @ Dolores Park, 8:00 PM
Saturday, 8/19, BREAKFAST AT TIFFANY'S @ Union Square, 8:00 PM
Saturday, 9/9, THE BIRDS @ Union Square, 8:00 PM
Saturday, 9/23, THE BICYCLE THIEF @ Washington Sq. Park, 8:00 PM, Presented with Telegraph Hill Dwellers
Saturday, 10/7, YOUNG FRANKENSTEIN @ Dolores Park, 8:00 PM

I'm not sure I can really sit through "Mrs. Doubtfire," but "Breakfast at Tiffany's" (mere feet from Tiffany's!) is not to be missed. Kristen, you better get back here quick.

The Height Requirement

It may not be fair, and has certainly been the subject of much ridicule, but the fact of the matter remains: I have a height requirement. The average American Caucasian 27-year-old male stands 5’10”. However, the average American woman’s height requirement, according to services such as Match.com is 5’11”. Now, it seems unfair to me that American women, with an average height of 5’3.7” can insist on a man being two inches taller than the American average of 5’9.1” and seven inches taller than themselves. Nonetheless, I consider myself an exception.

I stand a solid 5’7”, somewhere between the 80th and 85th percentiles for American Caucasian 27-year-old women. This is to say, I am tall. I am also in the 26th percentile for weight of Caucasian women my height and age, which is to say, I am thin. A Caucasian American 27-year-old man in the 80th percentile for height would stand 6’0.5”. Therefore, a height requirement of 5’11” for me seems quite generous. It is, after all, an entire inch and a half shorter than the man who is as proportionally tall as I am. The original height requirement of 6’3”, ridiculous though it may sound, was only one inch more demanding than the average American woman’s HR, relatively speaking, though admittedly it had the unfortunate drawback of eliminating all but one percent of the population. An HR of 5’11” on the other hand includes at least 35 times as many men. And I have said nothing about their physical well-being having to match my 26th percentile for weight. Therefore, 5’11” is a totally reasonable expectation for me to have.

Were I to be meeting people on Match.com, where inflation of one’s statistics runs rampant, I would have to stipulate a height requirement of at least 6’1” to find someone who is actually 5’11”. In order not to embarrass this person for having lied about his height, I would be expected to describe myself as “athletic” and “toned.” However, Match.com doesn’t have anyone listing themselves as 6’1” and a speaker of Attic Greek, so it would be silly of me to go looking there, and even sillier to try giving the poor guys who list their height as 5’9” a shot, since invariably, they will show up and be vertically comparable to my students.

Professional Failings: a Grammatology

Here is the first paragraph of an email that I just received from the Association of Educational Therapists, a group of people who work with kids with learning disabilities outside of schools:

AB 2514, which has been introduced by Ms. Daucher, is the result of heavy lobbying by school districts to prohibit parents from getting attorneys fees in special education matters unless and until they proceed through a hearing -- and what will happen is the Districts will offer all of the substantive things the family wants and there won't be any basis for a hearing -- so the attorney fees will be the responsibility of the family, and a family has to be quite wealthy to be able to pay for the time now involved in handling these cases. We need to stop AB 2514 as soon as possible. Please, do everything you can and make sure that organizations of parents of children with disabilities with whom you might be associated makes it clear that they oppose this bill.

As you no doubt noticed, this was extremely poorly written for professional communication. I may make my share of errors, but not so many as this.

1. First of all, the clause “which has been introduced by Ms. Daucher” is a) unnecessary (who is she anyway?) b) in the passive voice and c) is in the past perfect tense when the simple past would do, creating wordiness.
2. The first portion of the first sentence is also in passive voice.
3. “Getting” should be “being awarded.”
4. “Attorneys” should have an apostrophe at the end, since the fees belong to the attorneys.
5. There is no need for “unless and until” since the word “through” implies finishing.
6. The entire phrase contained between the emdashes should be a separate sentence, as should the following two clauses beginning with ‘so’ and ‘and.’ That is to say that the first sentence is a run-on composed of four separate sentences connected by unnecessary punctuation and three coordinating conjunctions.
7. The word choice in that phrase begins with the colloquial “what will happen is” and ends with the informal “won’t.”
8. The word “Districts” should not be capitalized.
9. The word “things” should be avoided in formal communication.
10. The final sentence again uses ‘and,’ this time when it should use ‘to’ (Please do everything you can to make sure…).
11. There is an unnecessary qualifier in the last line, “might,” since one is either associated with an organization or not.
12. The repetitive use of 'of' is awkward (organizations of parents of children...)
13. “Whom” should be “which” since the organization, while containing people, is not itself a person. And lastly…
14. The subject of the last dependent clause beginning with “that” is “organizations” and therefore, it should take the verb form “make.”

Rewritten professionally, the paragraph should read:

School districts have recently been lobbying for AB 2514, a bill that would prohibit judges? arbitrators? lawyers? districts? from awarding parents attorneys’ fees in special education disputes except as the result of a hearing. If AB 2514 is passed, schools are likely to settle cases by meeting parents’ demands when they realize there is a chance they will lose the hearing. Since most disputes are quite protracted and only rarely proceed to a hearing, parents will be forced to shoulder the financial burden of pursuing a case—a cost most can hardly afford. Please insure that any parent organizations you know vocally oppose AB 2514.

Usually this sort of thing doesn’t bother me. I certainly don’t go around correcting dangling prepositions in my friends’ emails, but this is communication from someone qualified to teach grammar and usage. What’s more, as professional communication, it should be representative of the best that teachers have to offer. This makes us sound like ranting imbeciles. I’m ashamed, and whoever wrote it should be too.

Katabasis Day at Zembla!

See my most recent post here. It makes more sense if you have read Pale Fire, the source of the title "Zembla," and picked up on Charles Kinbote's love for/stalking of poet John Shade. But if not, whatever.

Katabasis' Index

Most recent Miss America Pageant winners picked by the killer app: 2, winner and second runner up
Number of dollars it cost to get the crunching-turning noise fixed on the car: 563
Number of dollars I paid to get it fixed: 0
Number of rides taken with the Car Guy: 1
Number of drinks required to achieve maximum drunkenness, as measured Fourth of July, 1997: 4 in 3 hours.
Number of drinks required to achieve maximum drunkenness, as estimated last night: 4 in 5 hours (or more precisely: 1)
Difference between actual weight in 1997 and current weight: 0 pounds
Difference in “lightweightedness”: +66%
Return on investment garnered by Prometheus, the Killer Stock App in the last two weeks of January: 52%
Percent increase in the NYSE during the last two weeks of January: 1.4%
Return on investment garnered by Prometheus, the Killer Stock App in the first two weeks of February: 0%
Percent increase in the S&P 500 during the first two weeks of February: -1.2%
Number of board games won: unknown, but I’m a contendah
Number of movies in the Greatest Movies Ever Made list featuring the quote “I coulda’ been a contendah”: 1
Friends sent to the war in Iraq: 1
Friends to return from Iraq unmarred: 1
Languages spoken: 4
Men dated in the last four years who can read ancient Greek: 0
Emails saved from last foray into internet dating: 16
Number posted: 0
Number of one-dollar bills successfully laundered since receiving chain letter: 0
Number of identical chain letters received since: 1
Years since No Child Left Behind with “Reading First” was signed into law: 4
Average gain in reading scores for fourth graders since 2002: 0
Average gain in reading scores for eighth graders since 2002: -2
Leonard Peltier’s sentence for the murder of two FBI agents: 2 consecutive life sentences
Number of years Peltier has served: 29
Peltier’s current appeal: the rejection of his 2005 Motion to Correct an Illegal Sentence
Number of books in various states of being read that surround the bed: 12
Approximate cost of custom bookshelves installed in new house: $1800
Number by which books in the house exceed the number of available slots on the shelves: 46
Months to completion of the Three Gorges Dam: 1
Months lived with The Sean Keane: 6
Increase in amount of time spent watching sporting events on television: 600%
Guest blogs to write: 1

More Entries

Blogging is Back! - August 19, 2008
New Federal Law: Sun-Worshipping A-OK - October 30, 2006
Happy Birthday, Kristen! - October 17, 2006
More Fun in the Park! - June 01, 2006
More Movies! - May 23, 2006
Summer Nights - May 12, 2006
The Height Requirement - April 28, 2006
Professional Failings: a Grammatology - April 17, 2006
Katabasis Day at Zembla! - April 03, 2006
Katabasis' Index - April 01, 2006
The Car Guy - February 08, 2006
Open Invitation to Culture - January 26, 2006
The po-osts they ca-ame, they came on by twosies twosies... - January 23, 2006
The Private Life - January 23, 2006
Progress - January 23, 2006
Absurd Habits of Not-So-Famous Rich People - January 19, 2006
Picking Beauty Queens: The Killer App - January 16, 2006
Education--That's the Ticket! - November 01, 2005
I bought a house--for reals this time! - July 25, 2005
In Which I Don't Actually Buy a House... - June 19, 2005
I bought a house! - May 27, 2005
Scorsese Joins Elite Ranks of Other Great Film-Makers - February 27, 2005
Newsflash: I am snuggly. - December 12, 2004
Envy - November 08, 2004
Katabasis Goes Down South, Pt. 2 - August 01, 2004
Katabasis Goes Down South: Pt. 3 - August 01, 2004
Iraq becomes personal - July 21, 2004
Katabasis Goes Down South: Pt. 1 - July 11, 2004
Updates - June 30, 2004
Makeover - June 22, 2004
The Greatest Movies Ever Made - May 08, 2004
Retiring at 25 - April 30, 2004
Major Breakthrough - April 30, 2004
Wednesday - April 22, 2004
4-20 - April 20, 2004
A Day in the Life of a Basic Aid District Teacher - April 19, 2004
Pirate Ethics - February 09, 2004
Crisco: Not just for baking anymore! - February 05, 2004
Current Lunacy - January 03, 2004
Armageddon - January 02, 2004
My Perfect Life - December 26, 2003
Culinary Expedition, Part 4 - December 08, 2003
Culinary Expedition, Part 3 - December 07, 2003
Culinary Expedition, Part 2 - December 06, 2003
Culinary Expedition - December 05, 2003
Games, Part 2 - December 03, 2003
Games, Part 1 - December 03, 2003
What Can You Really Test? - November 18, 2003
Testing: Standardized or Criterion-Referenced? - November 18, 2003
Standards - November 18, 2003
Preliminary Results - November 18, 2003
An Update from the World of Education: - November 07, 2003
Or Else... - October 28, 2003
NCLB: The Framework - October 24, 2003
Perspectives on No Child Left Behind - October 24, 2003
Why does it matter? - October 24, 2003
Peltier Revisited - October 24, 2003
Education for Free! - October 24, 2003
Catharsis - October 21, 2003
Why All the Fuss? - October 18, 2003
Did He Really Do It? - October 17, 2003
Free Leonard Peltier! - October 16, 2003
INTERNET - October 08, 2003
Stratagem for Hostile Takeover of Duboce Triangle Apartment - September 03, 2003
KEYS! - August 29, 2003
Moving: Part 4 - August 27, 2003
Moving: Part 3 - August 25, 2003
Moving: Part 2 - August 24, 2003
Moving, Part 1 - August 22, 2003
Attack of the Computer Gnomes - August 08, 2003
Pirating Zembla - August 07, 2003
CLAD Certificates for Everyone - August 06, 2003
Homer's Odyssey: Part 2 - July 27, 2003
Homer's Odyssey: Part 1 - July 27, 2003
The Three Gorges Dam: Part V, The People vs. The Government - July 26, 2003
The Three Gorges Dam: Part IV, Will It Work? - July 26, 2003
The Three Gorges Dam: Part III, The Human Cost - July 26, 2003
The Three Gorges Dam: Part II, Why China Needs the World's Largest Dam - July 26, 2003
The Three Gorges Dam: Part I, China's Monumental Solution - July 26, 2003