Saddam's execution is complete (though rushed), and although Bush "slept through it," he nevertheless put out a self-satisfied statement about the death of his arch-enemy. How cold! At the same time, we are warned to be on "heightened alert" for terror attacks.
Meanwhile, an ice shelf the size of 11,000 football fields is found to have broken off, but gets barely if any coverage in the mainstream media. Polar bears are drowning, and the river in my Hawaiian front yard is already six inches higher than it has ever been this time of year. In this time of "peace and renewal," I find myself glued to the death and destruction splayed across the internet, so angry and frustrated I can barely communicate with relatives and friends who see none of it on TV. What, as a teacher, should I tell my students I did during winter break? I'm supposed to be teaching world culture. Is there any such thing left? I'm supposed to be teaching science, but our "leaders" deny the overwhelming scientific evidence that our planet is becoming uninhabitable. Instead, they feed us bread and circuses - celebrity gossip and public hangings.
As a teacher, I try to stay up on the news of the day, and have learned that the internet - and especially Daily Kos - is a place where I'm likely to get a more up-to date, and more unvarnished, version of current events than anything in the papers or on television. As an elementary (sixth grade) teacher, I have found myself torn between presenting the "accepted standards" for sixth grade education (especially since No Child Left Behind has started leaving our public schools behind), and laying out for my students the extent to which they are being deprived of a real education - and how the democracy they are supposed to be so proud of is being stolen right out from under their noses.
When I was in elementary school, I was forced by to sit in a front-row seat, on the couch, with the family, through the nightly TV news. I was therefore a witness to some of the most dramatic and timely events of that era ... from JFK's assassination, through Lee Harvey Oswald's killing by Jack Ruby, through Kennedy's State funeral, and on to the civil rights demonstrations and brutal police tactics employed against the demonstrators (with my bigoted Southern father providing running commentary laced with racial invectives). I saw Martin Luther King's followers pointing up to the balcony from which the bullet had come that slew MLK. I watched on live television (after staying up to watch the Tonight Show with my mom) as the TV cameras rushed to the kitchen and displayed Bobby Kennedy's fallen body, with people sobbing and shouting over any possible commentary - if any such were to be imagined. I was a bit too young to be a hippie, but rooted (silently, and covertly, beneath my dad's rantings) for Abby Hoffman and the Chicago Seven.
Even my father was shocked by the Kent State slayings, and declared that even though the slain students were "dirty hippies," it was wrong for the National Guard to shoot Americans! My family followed the Watergate hearings faithfully. I was just out of high school, and fully aware politically, when Nixon resigned from office. Everyone I knew was overjoyed, and felt that our democracy had once again proven itself.
Now I teach elementary school. Only one or two of my students raise their hands when I ask whether they watch or read the news. And just a couple more respond when I ask whether their parents do. Most people here in Hawaii are too busy working two, three, or maybe four jobs to make ends meet ... they don't have time for the news. Few adults I know have a clue as to what's happening in the world, and those that do watch the "news" generally tune in to our local "Fox" affiliate. They all "support the troops," especially because about a third of the working folks I know (and many students in my class) have a friend or relative fighting in Iraq. But most don't have a clue about what it's like over there, or why we are fighting there. None seem to have heard of Haditha, or know who Robert Gates is, or have even heard that their phones and emails are probably tapped. Many still think Saddam was behind 9/11.
Over this holiday break I have found myself glued to my computer screen, and have been neglecting a lot of the Christmas traditions. I sit here, more and more enraged, over the continued manipulation of our news, and violations of our human rights and habitat, by George Bush, Dick Cheney, and their cronies. We are fed "bread and circuses" in the form of gossip about Britney's missing panties, the drunken partying of Miss USA (and her redemption by Donald Trump of all people!) and the predawn hanging of Saddam(of course, our corporate media won't mention that he was hung before dawn Saturday to avoid hanging a Muslim on the eve of a major Islamic religious holiday).
Meanwhile, I've been watching "An Inconvenient Truth," which I bought to show to my class ... and getting more and more angry. I see so many articles now (online of course) about the rapid escalation of the effects of global warming. Like the huge iceshelf that was just reported to have broken off (16 months ago!) north of Canada:
Warwick Vincent of Laval University, who studies Arctic conditions, traveled to the newly formed ice island and could not believe what he saw.
"This is a dramatic and disturbing event. It shows that we are losing remarkable features of the Canadian North that have been in place for many thousands of years. We are crossing climate thresholds, and these may signal the onset of accelerated change ahead," Vincent said Thursday.
In 10 years of working in the region he has never seen such a dramatic loss of sea ice, he said.
The collapse was so powerful that earthquake monitors 250 kilometers (155 miles) away picked up tremors from it.
The Ayles Ice Shelf, roughly 66 square kilometers (41 square miles) in area, was one of six major ice shelves remaining in Canada's Arctic.
Scientists say it is the largest event of its kind in Canada in 30 years and point their fingers at climate change as a major contributing factor.
This, and other dramatic evidence of accelerating global warming, should be front-page news, and "An Inconvenient Truth" should be required watching for all students and their parents. Yet the NTSA rejected an offer of 50,000 free copies of the movie, meant to be shown to students. Why? Possibly because Exxon Mobile provides a major portion of their funding?
The National Science Teachers Association (NSTA) has spurned 50,000 free DVDs of Al Gore's "An Inconvenient Truth" and is squandering a golden opportunity to educate tens of millions of youth in the United States! Why? This 55,000-member organization of teachers and scientists could use Al Gore's film to orchestrate the single most influential educational goal in human history: the awareness and subsequent solving of climate change. There is no denying the escalating list of climate change evidence: from the potential extinction of polar bears and retreating glacial environments to the increase of global temperatures in unison with increased carbon dioxide levels.
Laurie David, a producer of the film "An Inconvenient Truth," helped to broker a "sweet deal" for the NSTA. Sitting in an LA warehouse are 50,000 free DVDs just waiting to be given out to every member of the NSTA. No strings, no catches, just a clear and simple agenda: provide teachers with a spectacular and scientifically acclaimed production to engage millions of students nationwide. And the NSTA says, "No?"
Is the NSTA placing economic expediency over "true science education"; does it fear the alienation of funders such as Exxon and the fossil powerhouse the American Petroleum Institute? Laurie David, who is also the founder of StopGlobalWarming.org, received an email refusal of the free teaching materials from the NSTA that is ominous and foreboding.
And I know that when I return to class in January, I will have to prepare my students to jump through the hoops of "standardized" testing, rather than teach them anything about the state of the world today ... thus guaranteeing that they wll be "zombified" like the rest of our country. Our sixth grade social studies curriculum is supposed to be "world history," so I cheat a little, discard the textbook for the most part, and try to cover the three men (Siddhartha-Buddha, Jesus, and Mohammed) behind the world's most popular religions. I try to emphasize the similarities in what these wise men taught. Ironically, our computer internet connections are set to filter out what they consider "inappropriate" information, and so I have to download and print out informational material at home to bring in to class. No doubt I'll soon be investigated for terrorist activity, for seeking out information on Islam.
Normally I am so busy with school that I don't have time to get too involved politically, but I am addicted to reading the news on the internet, and have learned a lot from Daily Kos. I recently found the petition against No Child Left Behind in the "Teacher's Lounge" (thanks, rserven!), and sent it around to everyone on my email list. Lo and behold, I was asked to do an interview in our local newspaper about it, and although I was nervous about sticking my neck out in public, I have since gotten many positive comments. Many people I run into are also angry about what is happening to our schools, and are more than happy to sign the petition! I find that as these people learn more about how the Bush administration's No Child Left Behind Act is really aimed at dismantling public education (read the footnotes on the petition), they are just as angry as I am over the pablum we are forced to feed students, over the impending and built-in "failure" that all public schools will experience under NCLB (if they haven't "failed" already), and over the resulting lack of real education in our schools. Now, as more people learn about our rapidly disintegrating environment, the more brave they are beginning to be about making themselves heard. I just hope we can all shout loud enough (especially to our legislators) before it's too late.
So, here it is ... now I've completed my first-ever diary on DailyKos ... or at least I have run out of steam, at one in the morning. Good thing I don't have school tomorrow. Yet I find that I am getting hotter under the collar as the days go on (just figuratively so far), and am speaking out more and more ... and that the more I do speak and write, the more I find people who agree with me. Being busy is no longer a good enough excuse not to speak out. While Bush and his media shills have been playing their shell games with us, we are losing our liberties, our chances for education, and ultimately, our lives.