Merry Christmas From Tenured Radical

Like Eartha, we were so bad this year, but we got presents anyway! Here's hoping you did too.

This Time Last Year We Were In South Africa On The Western Cape

We had just finished one of the most exhausting, exhilarating things we had ever done:  working at a  camp outside Johannesburg for teenagers whose lives have been affected by HIV.  There is not a day we do not talk about what we did or saw there, and probably not a week that goes by without one of us saying: "When we go back..."  I learned so much on our trip, and at camp, that sometimes it felt like my brain was moving faster than I could process the information.

I loved it. 

By the time we landed in Wilderness, we were ready to put our feet up, lay in a store of food at the Pick n' Pay, buy some new books (I had given away most of mine, including ones I had not yet read, to some of the campers) and rest for a good long time.  I had lost about ten pounds at camp from working hard, and getting dramatically fewer calories, since there was no alcohol and no snacks other than what my friend Manu brought back from Jo'burg and shared with us.  Our hosts left for their own Christmas vacation -- they went camping somewhere, leaving us the keys to their house in case we needed anything.  The one thing she told us was:  "Do not go to the beach on Christmas!"  She warned us in great detail that terrible things occurred there on holiday that we would find strange and threatening.

So of course we did go to the beach on Christmas.  Nothing terrible was happening, and it reminded us once again that the scars of apartheid were still very deep, for we suspected our hosts had actually never been to the beach on Christmas.  Instead of the bacchanal we had been told to expect, we found extended families, grilling on hibachis, many wearing red and white fluffy Santa hats. 

If you think this kind of racial disconnect is peculiarly South African, go watch D.W. Griffith's Birth of a Nation (1915) why don't you?  Anyway, we had a lovely time socializing on the beach.  We then went home and had spaghetti and salad for Christmas dinner, having agreed in advance that our gift to each other was this trip.

On the Beach at Wilderness, Western Cape, ZA

Anyway, Merry Christmas to my friends in Jo'burg, Soweto and Durbs: this post is really a Christmas card for you and a way of saying thank you, a year later.  For those of you who are just home from Sizanani, I hope you are recovering from being wowed by the kids.  Mbali, I'm sorry I missed you when you were here this summer, and please come back.  William, be careful on Christmas brother, because we love you!   Kabelo, big, big hugs for you, your mother and the children.  Siza, don't you give Mbali a harder time than she needs to keep her in line, ok Vocelli?  Yolanda, I hope you are being good (not!) and that you moved forward on your business plans.  Enos, when are you bringing your plays to the US? Eliot, stay sweet, ok? Kedi, I need a band-aid!  Mphu, I will learn Zulu:  at least some.  I promise.

And dear Manu, our conversations and your music is always with me.

Merry Christmas everyone!

Happy Holidays!

As part of a special Macdonough School tradition, teachers presented families with holiday wreaths at dismissal today. 

The wreaths were donated to our families from Middletown High School's Vo Ag program!

Ms. Carrier's Last Day

Today was Ms. Carrier's last day. She spent the semster student teaching in Mrs. Lenihan's class. As a treat she read the book How the Grinch Stole Christmas and made Grinch heads out of fruit to eat. We will miss Ms. Carrier.

3 Kings Day

Today the kindergarten children learned about 3 Kings Day. We read a story, had a snack, and even made a poinsettia. The children also left their shoes in the hallway and waited for the 3 Kings to fill them.

Dear Santa..........

Today kindergarten wrote letters to Santa. Each student was able to personally mail their letter. The mail box is right outside the office if you'd like to mail one too! Ho, Ho, Ho!

"Their Royal Highnesses Are Unharmed" -- But British Politics Are Getting More Interesting

If Only The King Knew:  British Protesters Egg Charles and Camilla's Limo

I continue to be impressed with the capacity of what George W. Bush used to refer to as "Old Europe" to fight for a vision of the world where all of us are not being used to generate profit for someone.  Like Hannah Arendt, I continue to be suspicious of violence as a political tactic:  all movements that choose violence, she argued at the height of United States antiwar protest, are fascist, whether they originate on the right or the left.  I did not appreciate that at the time I first considered this idea in the 1970s, and I do now.

And yet, I wonder:  what is wrong with us in the United States that we just sit around and wait for the newest attack on our rights as citizens?  Why do we continue to insist on improvements in education, while politicians cut the $hit our of education budgets in the name of "middle class tax cuts" (by which, what they really mean is fighting wars on behalf of the oil and gas industry?)  Why do we continue to believe, as a society, that at some point the medical, pharmaceutical and insurance industries are going to realize that they have enough money and suddenly they will treat us right?  And why do we continue to entrust everything that matters -- education, health care, politics itself -- to the rich?

Most particularly, what is wrong with students that they are so suckered by the debt industrial complex that they will continue to take out massive loans for education that we, as a society, ought to be giving them for free?  Only in California have there been system-wide protests of privatization, while public school parents and their children -- who are most dramatically affected by privatization -- go from charter school to charter school to see which corporate executive can best prepare their kid for a standardized test?

Go Brits; go French.