No Turkey Here!

 The Kindergarten classes disguised turkeys at home with parents.  The children do not want their Turkey to be Thanksgiving dinner. 

 

In Case You Were Wondering: The Financial Penalties For Being Unmarried

Stigma or Pride?  Shall the Congress or the Courts Decide?

Despite the fact that I would include myself in the category of people who are utterly unmoved by the romance of gay marriage (except when I am softened by pictures of people who are moved by it), I occasionally feel pissed off about structural discrimination that awards bonuses to people who can and do marry.

Today I opened a letter from TIAA-CREF that contains an "update" to my "original contract...which states that same-sex marriages aren't recognized under current federal tax law" because of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA).  Passed in 1996, DOMA defines marriage as a legal contract that can only be entered into by one man and one woman, and was declared unconstitutional by a federal district court last July.  It was signed into law by William Jefferson Clinton, for which (along with welfare reform and NAFTA) he will roast in the hell that hypocrites go to forever, regardless of how many other good works they perform.

The point of this form is that, should I predecease her, my partner will inherit my retirement account as if she were a stranger or a casual friend:  this goes for other federal inheritance laws designed to protect the common property of married folk.  Were I to perish tomorrow, we would have lived together in a committed fashion for over a quarter century, a state in which even the most troubled and fractious heterosexual couple might claim to be wed under common law.  What are the other financial penalties for being partnered but unmarried in the eyes of the federal government?

• If you are gay-married under state law, you get to file two separate tax returns, which costs more.
• If you have the good luck to have domestic partner benefits, or live in a state where you can gay-marry, you have to pay federal taxes on the amount of money kicked in by the university on behalf of your spouse as if it were income.
• Even if you are gay-married, you cannot create a MERA (an instrument that permits an individual to reserve pre-tax dollars for the many medical expenses not covered by insurance) for both you and your partner, only yourself.
• If your gay spouse does not have an income, you cannot count hir as a dependent and get a tax deduction.
• Your gay spouse does not have access to any federal pension to which s/he might otherwise be entitled were s/he an opposite-sex spouse.

So all you straight married people out there who do get these things?  You are getting a big, fat, frakking bonus, and I would be interested in knowing what it is you do for our Republic to deserve it.  Or let me know what anyone in a state-sanctioned marriage would do to deserve all of these tax breaks:  if DOMA were rescinded tomorrow, and Partner and I continued living as we do but with a marriage license from the state of Connecticut, why would that federal magic trick entitle us to the extra $$?

Although I am quite sure that everyone who has a TIAA-CREF account received this letter, the vast majority of my heterosexual colleagues will throw it in the round file without a thought. To them, these financial privileges are invisible -- many, in fact, believe that they deserve them, even though they can't precisely say why when asked. For me, however, this letter is a particularly keen reminder of our  current state of sexual apartheid, and I think I will post it on my office door.

Dress Down Days at Macdonough

Did you ever wonder why every few weeks the teachers at Macdonough School are dressed a bit more casually than normal? The reason is a staff initiative to raise money for local causes.

Staff members donate money for each of the "dress down days" and the donations are allocated throughout the year to help Middletown area organizations.

Organizations supported by the Macdonough teachers include Oddfellows Playhouse, the North End Action Team, Amazing Grace Food Pantry, Relay for Life, and the Ruth Lawrence Fund

Second Grade visits NUMBER KIDS Buddies

The second grade classes visited their NUMBER KIDS Buddies in Essex Elementary School.

In addition to enjoying snack time with their new friends, they worked together on solving Tangram puzzles and Hundreds Board games.

Pilgrims

The kindergarten classes learned about pilgrims. They made a chart of items the pilgrims had and what they have now. Each child wore a pilgrim hat home.

Disciplining Your Class: How Not To Go About It

Mark P. Talbert, a senior lecturer at Cornell's School of Hotel Administration, is having a bad week.  Not only did he go berserk in front of his class, the episode was recorded by a university video system, which means the quality is better than what is produced by your average cell phone held in the air by a student.  Oh yeah, and it also means the tape is in possession of university officials, who are investigating, according to Inside Higher Ed.  Talbert's little breakdown was triggered by a very loud, and I suppose facetious, yawn.  Roll the videotape!



If it isn't bad enough that Talbert exposed his students to this ill-humored rant (my favorite part is where he tells the class that they are just going to stay there until the culprit confesses), he has now exposed himself to the slings and arrows of everyone on the Internet too, and many of them are ROTFLTAO.  A discussion of the merits of losing your $hit in front of an entire class appended to the YouTube posting include one gem that will keep me laughing all day tomorrow:  "OMG i wonder what he would do if someone farted...I think he would kill all of them. lol."

Macdonough Unified Sports!

Congratulations to the Macdonough School Unified Sports Team for their participation at Saturday's Unified Sports Day at Jack Jackter School in Colchester.

Special thanks to Coach Jakiela and Coach Currier for their efforts to make the day a special one!