It's Mother's Day, a day to pamper the lady who gave you life. It's quite a commercial enterprise, being one of the most popular days of the year to dine out at a restaurant in the United States and an occasion which generates a significant portion of the U.S. jewelry industry's annual revenue. Americans spend approximately $68 million on greeting cards, $1.53 billion of pampering gifts—like spa treatments—and $2.6 billion on floral arrangements. (National Restaurant Association and Society of American Florists figures) Carnations, the traditional flower of Mother's Day A bouquet of carnations is the traditional flower of Mother's Day. According to legend, this association goes back to the passion of the Christ. Upon seeing her son's suffering, his mother Mary shed tears, which fell to the ground. From these tears sprang the fragrant and beautiful carnations. According to Anna Jarvis, one of the pioneers of the Mother's Day celebrations in the United States, white carnations symbolized the virtues of motherhood: purity, faithfulness, love, charity, and beauty. Hmmm, so then what would be an appropriate gift for the mothers we will now examine? Drum roll and a dead, rotting fish, please, for Ten of the Worst Mothers in Literary History (an entirely subjective list): "The Other Mother" (Coraline: Neil Gaiman) Coraline’s mother and father are so busy with household chores and work they don’t pay as much attention to Coraline as she would like. (Typical child!) When Coraline discovers a door that leads to a parallel version of her home and family, she meets her "Other Mother," who makes fabulous ‘Breakfast for Dinner’ meals and gives amazing gifts and showers affection on her. But when Coraline gets tired and wants to go back to her real home…things start to get creepy. “But this IS your real home,” says the Other Mother. Because everything IS better on the other side, provided Coraline is agreeable to having buttons sewn in place of her eyes… "Zinnia Wormword" (Matilda: Roald Dahl) Zinnia Wormwood is an oblivious, unpleasant, completely self-centered women who can’t recognize the special talents of her daughter, young Matilda, who teaches herself how to read at age three. She's much too wrapped up in watching television, playing Bingo and doing her nails. (Played to perfection in the film adaptation by Rhea Perlman) "Mary Jones" (Push: Sapphire) In the Harlem of 1987, Mary Jones is a callous and indifferent mother, consumed by watching daytime TV and psychologically dependent upon welfare. (And that's when she's being nice.) Ugh, the abuse dished out by this woman to her daughter Precious: physical, emotional, verbal, sexual, you name it. Gut-wrenching is too mild a description. "Eleanor Iselin" (The Manchurian Candidate: Richard Condon) Domineering Eleanor is not just a rotten mother, she's a traitor to her country as well. She's a ruthless power broker working with the Commies to execute a "palace coup d’état" to quietly overthrow the government, and install her hubbie, McCarthy-esque Senator Johnny Iselin, as a puppet dictator. The pawn? Her son, Raymond Shaw, who has been brainwashed into a "sleeper agent" political assassin. He's activated when he sees a Queen of Diamonds playing card. (Angela Lansbury aced her in the film adaptation.) "Addie Bundren" (As I Lay Dying: William Faulkner Here's a real sweetheart. Addie's a teacher who enjoys whipping her students. She resents having children, after all her "aloneness had been violated." She has an affair to rebel against her maternal duties. Turns out she only loves the son that results from this affair because he is hers alone, without any of her husband's taint. Even after she dies, she's still a stinker! "Beth Jarrett" (Ordinary People: Judith Guest) Here is one of the coldest of maternal fish. Beth is totally dedicated to maintaining the façade of her family's perfect life. So when her world starts to crumble around her-- her older son dies in a boating accident, then her younger son attempts suicide--she reacts by pretending none of it has happened. Well, honey, good luck with that! (Mary Tyler Moore nailed her in the film version.) "Margaret White" (Carrie: Stephen King) Poor Carrie probably has no chance of being normal for the getgo. Her mother Margaret is a religious whack-job who locks her in a "prayer closet" for hours at a time, makes her dress like a Puritan and never bothered to tell her about the facts of life. Once Carrie discovers and harnesses her telekinetic powers, she gets retribution on all the kids who bullied her by wreaking havoc at the senior prom. So what does Mama do? Stabs her with a butcher knife (apparently trying to cut the devil out of her). Then Carrie makes Mama's heart stop using only her mind. But in the end, as Carrie bleeds to death, who does she cry out for? Her mama. Which is proof that the mother-child bond is one thing that never dies. "Charlotte Haze" (Lolita: Vladimir Nabokov) Humbert Humbert's a monster. But what about Lolita's mother? She's an enabler first-class. When H.H. shows up looking for a room in her boarding house, the widow Charlotte Haze is so foolishly smitten with his Euro-trash airs that she is totally blind to his prurient interest in her way-underage daughter. Thinking her little romance with H.H. might be blossoming, she is only too anxious to get Dolores (aka Lolita) out of the house. Summer camp, boarding school, whatever! As long as it anywhere that's out of her mother's hair. True, this is H.H. telling the story, so we definitely have an unreliable narrator situation. But come on. I'm not seeing the love. Then, in a classic case of Karma, Ma gets creamed by a car (no pun intended). "Corinne (mother) and Olivia (grandma)" (Flowers in the Attic: V.C. Andrews) There are not one but two nasty mothers inflicting damage on innocent children this famous potboiler from the 1980's. After marrying her father’s half-brother against her family's wishes, Corinne Dollanganger is widowed, and forced to return to her estranged family home with her four children. Her mother Olivia agrees to let her move back in on the condition that Corinne hides the kids from Malcolm, her husband and Corinne’s father, until he dies. (He really had a problem with that marriage and any spawn that came out of it. The old incest thing again.) Instead of working it out on her own, she stuffs the spawn into an attic for years where they are generally ignored. Over time, they become malnourished, delusional, incestuous (apple and the tree?) and develop every social abnormality in the DSM. Oh yeah, she and grandma try to kill them off, too. "Ingrid Magnussen"(White Oleander: Janet Fitch) How does Ingrid fail her daughter Astrid? Let me count the ways, starting with cruelty, neglect, and abandonment. Of course, self-centered Ingrid wouldn't think of it as abandonment. After she murders her lover (for cheating), she's tried, convicted and hauled off to prison. But she didn't abandon her child on purpose! And then the poor child is foisted off on a series of foster homes, with each new mother worse than the last, in her own unique way. No carnations for this coven of "rhymes with witches." Whew, what a pile of stink! Their stench is worse than alewives washed up on the shores of Lake Michigan in the summer. However, no Mother's Day would be complete without a special Hall of Shame Mother's tribute to the classics: Murder, mayhem, mischief, and the original motherlover... crimes that only a *bad mother* could love!
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May 12 is the 200th anniversary of British author Edward Lear's birth (1812 - 1888). Lear, whose talents including writing poetry ("The Owl and the Pussycat") and drawing illustrations for the Royal Zoological Society (he's been compared to John James Audubon), really made a name for himself writing and popularizing the limerick, those witty little poems written in a five line, usually anapestic, meter with an AABBA rhyme scheme. The young Lear (courtesy poets.org) What's unique about limericks is that they are the only English stanza form used exclusively for light verse. Limericks are always comic, often nonsensical, and frequently naughty. Theories abound as to their origin, ranging from the belief that limericks were an old French verse form brought to the Irish town of Limerick in the early 1700's by veterans returning from The Nine Years' War in France to the notion that they grew out of the nursery rhymes published as Mother Goose Melodies for Children in 1709. The old Lear (courtesy poets.org) No one is sure about the etymology of the name "limerick" and Lear never used that term to describe his verse, but he was truly the first master of the form. His Book of Nonsense was published in 1846. At that time, books for children were traditionally published anonymously, so his name was not attached to it. It finally appeared in the third edition printed in 1861. It included a variety of gems: Original illustration (courtesy nonsenselit.org) "There was a Young Lady whose eyes, Were unique as to colour and size; When she opened them wide, People all turned aside, And started away in surprise." Original illustration (courtesy nonsenselit.org) "There was an Old Man of Calcutta, Who perpetually ate bread and butter, Till a great bit of muffin, On which he was stuffing, Choked that horrid Old Man of Calcutta." In honor of Lear, the Oxford English Dictionary "Word of the Day" is... "runcible." Portmanteau: spoon + fork = spork And the nonsense continues today! What Edward Lear called a "runcible spoon," we now call a "spork." You can find out more information about Edward Lear at A Blog of Bosh and Poets.org. There are plenty of websites out there with limericks galore, some of which are family friendly and others not-so-much. This little ditty below is entirely G-rated as it explains how to write a limerick. And I will leave you with this gem:
"A bather whose clothing was strewed By winds that left her quite nude Saw a man come along And unless we are wrong You expected this line to be lewd." Facebook and Google offer numerous privacy controls, but their policies are written with such obfuscation that they are tougher to decipher than the fine print on a credit card agreement, according to a study by research and marketing consultants Siegel+Gale. So what's a person to do to protect your privacy on the social-networking circuit? Well, use some common sense:
Think before you type. Even after you delete an account, some information can remain in Facebook's servers for up to 90 days. Protect your basic information. Set a specific audience for your profile item, such as where you live and where you work (or don't include that information at all). Sharing that information with "friends of friends" could mean an audience of thousands of people. Turn off Tag Suggest. Why should Facebook automatically recognize your face? Block snoopy apps and sites. Friend might be unknowingly sharing information about you with the apps they use. Use controls to limit what the apps can see. Set your wall to an unpublic status and consider "unsharing." You don't really need to share everything with everyone. Really! You can always deactivate. Big Brother (in the form of Facebook) is truly watching you now. Did you know: Facebook collects more data than you might realize. You probably didn't know that it receives a report every time you visit a site with a Facebook "like" button, even if you do not click the button, even if you are not logged in, EVEN if you are NOT a Facebook user. It's collecting all sorts of info, including your IP address, which, in the words of Lori Andrews, a law professor at the Illinois Institute of Technology, can act like "DNA at a crime scene. There often will be enough data points connected with your IP address to clearly identify you." Okay, so he was a bit of a pessimist. Your personal data is shared more widely than you may imagine. Even if you have restrictions on your information to include "friends only," a friend who is using a Facebook app could allow your information to be sent to a third party...without your knowledge. Yeah, and he's not very attractive, either. Some people are just compulsive over-sharers. Millions of users post status updates on Facebook that say where they plan to spend a day or night --- potentially tipping off burglars that homes are ripe for the pickings. Millions of other users "liked" a page about health conditions or treatments (which details an insurer might use to deny coverage). "Move fast and break things." Zuckerberg explains Facebook's core values Current laws about online privacy are pretty weak in the US. You don't have a lot of rights in federal court in this matter. They know what you look like. The "Tag Suggest" feature, which was enabled for some users, without notification, scans the photographs that you upload using facial recognition technology. It will then try to tie the face to a specific user. Oh, great, you say, that'll save me some time. Oh yeah, do you really want to be part of a gigantic biometric database? So besides the geeks at Facebook, who's watching? Insurance companies, employers, and college admissions officers, that's who. Government investigators such as IRS agents can scan public postings to research tax cases (although they are currently prohibited from trying to "friend" a taxpayer in order to gain access to potentially incriminating data. However, investigators for the Department of Immigration and Naturalization Services are encouraged to try all means, including cyber-friending, to try to observe the day-to-day activities of suspected illegal aliens. So what can you do if you actually value that quaint old concept known as "privacy?" Stay tuned tomorrow for tips on protecting your personal information. (Information courtesy of Consumer Reports, June 2012 issue) ...or better yet, romp in exuberant joy now that you are in that special place where the wild things are...
I am sure we can all count the ways we have appreciated the esteemed teachers who have touched our lives over the years... but do we really have to be so sappy? Can we talk? (Read: Can I rant?) We've all known teachers who haven't been the brightest bulbs in the socket and some who, in fact, give fellow teachers a bad rap. For instance, the latest egregious act of behavior by a fellow teacher that came across my transom this week: a former teaching colleague who admitted (proudly) on Facebook that she hadn't in her entire life (the woman is in her early 30s) read an entire novel cover-to-cover until she downloaded "mommy porn" 50 Shades of Grey on her new Kindle. (In her weak defense, she also purchased The Help and The Hunger Games.) Wow. This person is now an administrator (assistant principal for a middle school). Descriptive words fail me. Of course, I don't know what offends me the most, the fact that she was bragging (in a backhanded way) about never finishing a book or the fact that none of the enterprising librarians who must have passed through her life ever found a book for this reader. Didn't they have a copy of The Story of O or the any of the novels penned by the Marquis de Sade gathering dust on their shelves? She could have had her nose in a book a long time ago! Cops have a saying when a fellow officer commits a crime: "You dirtied my badge." I guess teachers need to come up with one, too. "You spoiled my apple." "You smudged my blackboard." "You made the rest of us look like we actually did graduate in the bottom third of our class and just barely passed our certification tests." If you're an idiot, have the decency to keep it to yourself.
Here endeth the rant. ...an electrical energy saver and carbon reducer as efficient as a tree. On my morning run, my eye caught sight of a green tag hanging on a tree planted in a neighborhood parkway. I was so intrigued that I actually stopped to take a closer look. According to the tag, the tree I was admiring (a fine maple) was worth $220 a year in environmental benefits. Of course, my inquiring librarian mind wanted to know more about this so I dashed home to my computer to do some research. As I soon learned through a few appropriate keyword searches and visits to the websites of the organizations prominantly featured on the tag, in my community (and several surrounding towns), the tags were created for Arbor Day by the Morton Arboretum and hung by volunteers from a variety of corporate and nonprofit organizations. Trees in an urban environment are worth even more! The tags call attention to how it really does pay to plant trees by highlighting and placing a monetary value on energy savings, carbon reduction and increases in property values. Science can actually calculate these benefits. Trees shade homes, reducing the amount of cooling energy a homeowner uses and the accompanying electrical bill. Trees remove carbon dioxide, the infamous greenhouse gas, from the atmosphere, by absorbing it and using it in the process of photosynthesis. Tree roots catch rain, thus decreasing the amount of water that runs off into storm water systems. Photosynthesis (courtesy of Britannica Online) If you'd like to find out how much your trees are worth, you can use the National Tree Benefit Calculator which was created by Casey Trees of Washington D.C. and the Davey Tree Expert Company. Just type in your zip code, then choose the tree species and enter its diameter. Clicking on the different tabs will provide more information about specific benefits. If you are not sure about what kinds of trees you have, check out the Arbor Day Foundation or the Dichotomous Tree Key (from the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources) or visit your library, where a friendly, environmentally aware librarian will help you find a book so you can... read more about it! Here endeth the science lesson... After all the preparation, the dashing to and fro for the perfect dress, the cute shoes, the stylish bling, the trip to the hair salon and the florist...prom night has arrived! We snapped some photos of the lovely couple in front of the house, then they headed off to join their posse for a group photo op at Cantigny, a beautiful local park/museum with lush gardens which used to be the home of Colonel Robert R. McCormick (former editor and publisher of the Chicago Tribune). These rituals are taking place all across America tonight, as young people of all races, ethnicities, and creeds participate in that fascinating high school rite of passage: Prom Night! Just where did prom come from? Mental Floss has a succinct overview of the origins of prom. They started out as rather humble events designed to instill social skills and etiquette in uncouth youth. So it's not surprising that you find similar events in many other cultures across the world. And even, apparently, the underworld. Just when you expected another prom puff piece, we turn on a dime and present a serious look at a force for good in our world: TED. No, it’s not another of my charming library crushes. It’s a nonprofit organization devoted to encouraging the widespread distribution of great ideas. TED, short for Technology, Entertainment and Design, is owned by The Sapling Foundation, a nonprofit created in 1996 by Chris Anderson, media entrepreneur whose Future Publishing and Imagine Media publishes magazines and produces the popular games website, IGN. TED has its origins in a conference organized by Richard Saul Wurman, Wurman architect, graphic designer and coiner of the phrase “information architecture.” Held in 1984 in Monterey, California, the conference brought together such notable thinkers as Nicholas Negroponte (co-founder of the MIT Media Lab and of the One Laptop One Child foundation), mathematician Benoit Mandelbrot (of fractal fame) and Stewart Brand (writer and editor of the Whole Earth Catalog). It featured a demonstration of the new Sony Compact Disc and 3D graphics from Lucasfilm. And lots of heady discussions about big ideas. Bono at TED conference Over the years, the TED conferences have brought together scientists, musicians, public intellectuals, philosophers, philanthropists and religious leaders. The ranks of speakers include such diverse movers and shakers as Al Gore, Annie Lennox, Bono, Frank Gehry and Bill Gates. In 2001, The Sapling Foundation acquired the TED conference and in the past decade has expanded its reach considerably. Robinson at TED TED now sponsors a second conference, TEDGlobal, which is held in a different country every other year. It also awards the TED Prize, which grants its winners one wish to change the world, and it has curated a podcast series, TEDTalks, in which the best TED content is available free online. You can find speakers such as Ken Robinson expounding on how schools kill creativity, Sherry Turkle making a persuasive argument of how connected we are, and yet how alone, and Bobby McFerrin making his unique music. TED has recently expanded its mission to “spread ideas” with the addition of TED-ed (“lessons worth sharing”), its new initiative which will serve as a clearinghouse of educational videos. Many of the current videos are collaborations between teachers and animators nominated through the TED-Ed platform. This platform also allows users to take any useful educational video, not just TED's, and create a customized lesson around the video, an important feature for use in a “flipped” classroom, in which students view video lessons outside of class and then spend their classroom time with the teacher on discussion, critical thinking opportunities and more personalized instruction. These videos are organized by subject or series. And some of the series include such fascinating topics as “Inventions That Shape History,” “Math in Real Life” (for those students who always ask “when am I ever going to use this?”), “How Things Work,” “Awesome Nature,” “Playing with Language” (one of my favorites), and “Questions No One (Yet) Knows the Answer To.” Check it out: TED Who can forget their prom theme music? (Actually, most of us...) So for a quick refresher, here's a traipse through decades of cheesy prom ballads, courtesy of Stumps, "America's Prom and Party Favorite since 1926!"
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