Remarkably Brave Teacher

I'm all riled up.

The Perry Township Board of Education has suspended a high school English teacher Connie Hearman for a year and a half for using The Freedom Writers Diary in her class. The book is a compilation of journal entries written by inner-city students. And they swear a lot.

The Perry Township Board suspended her after she refused to demand the book back from her students.

1. Ms. Hearman waited for 3 months for administrators to make a decision about use of the book. They would not.
2. Ms. Hearman sent home 150 permission slips to parents. 149 parents approved the use of the book with their child.
3. Oh, and guess what? The book was and still is available in the school library
   

The politicians on the Perry Township School Board are worried about a vocal few making it harder to get re-elected next time around. And for that they are willing to prevent students from getting adult guidance and educational framing for a book that is available without either in their library. You see, this would be utterly blatant censorship if they tried to remove the book from the library. That is hard to do. And that would take courage.

Watch the CNN story and feel free to let the fine educators on the Perry Township Board of Education know what you think of the fine work they are doing.

In fairness, I read that Barbara Thompson, School Board President, has "...sought adult education through Ivy Technical College and other Insurance related courses..." , so it's hard to argue with her appreciation of the theory and practice of education. Yeeesh.

Another Manufactured Musical Group

As I have said, robots are cool.




Behind the Music:

Parental Guidance

So, latest Indiana Jones movie. PG-13. "Admission will be granted to persons of all ages but that parental guidance is suggested in the case of children under the age of 13"

This does not mean you should bring your 5 year-old daughter to my screening, sit directly behind me in a nearly empty theater and then provide your parental plot guidance throughout the entire film in a tone that would be too loud for your living room.

1. Please don't bring your child if the plot is going to be utterly beyond them.
2. Please teach your child how to whisper, regardless of the film.

All I ask. Thanks.

By the way, I enjoyed the film in spite of the blameless little girl and her incredibly rude slouch of a mother. Went in looking for a fun ride and that's what it was. Three thumbs up.

Ugh

Busy lately. Deadlines. Trade show in Vegas. Between flights on my return trip I stopped for dinner at an airport food court in Minneapolis. I finished my pizza and grabbed my drink for another big sip. What? Why is my diet Coke all watery?

Yeah, I accidentally drank from a cup abandoned in an airport food court. Still gives me the heebie-jeebies. Hoping it does not also give me the Avian Flu.

DANGER! "Orphan Works" Copyright Bill

This sounds quite scary. I have not read everything available, but this does sound like an important issue for independent creatives of all varieties.

I've edited this post to add some info and cut back on the alarmist quotes of others. My point is just make people aware that these bills exist and to have us keep an eye on them and/or make your position known to your respective lawmakers.

I'm still trying to wade through the bills, but I have an inherent distrust of ...well everyting, but in this case specifically of people monkeying with copyright law. The little guy never seems to benefit from changes.

Some Info:

A more level-headed analysis by my friend Todd VerBeek in his blog. Todd thinks this legislations may be a good thing on the whole. ( Thanks for the comments and the info Todd - Info incorporated in this post. I think I got swept up in some of the alarm-ism. I try to avoid "ism"s as a rule. )

The American Society of Media Photographers' site and the Illustrators Partnership group's sites seem to think this is extremely dangerous, saying things like:

"Under current copyright law, in effect for the last 30 years, your visual art is copy protected whether or not it is registered or carries the copyright symbol.

This week, the U.S. House of Representatives is expected to introduce the Orphan Works Act of 2008. If you care about protecting your work, you're against it. It will have the effect of wiping out any copyright on visual art now in existence, throwing your work into the public
domain. If you wish to protect your work (each and every separate piece) you will have to digitize it and register it with private sector registries as yet uncreated, for a fee as yet unestablished. I say registries because this bill places no limit on how many separate registries there could be.

And so on in scary fashion. Check it out, form an opinion, sign a petition, contact your congresspeople and senators. Go to http://www.usa.gov/Contact/Elected.shtml to quickly find the phone number, address and e-mail of every U.S. senator, U.S. representative, and state legislator.

And, pass this info on!