Breck Takes Third

Our girls hockey team defeated the Evelth Golden Bears,6-4, to earn third place in the Minnesota One-A hockey tournament.

Libya...

It is scary to sit here and watch tweets from Libya of mercenary Italian pilots bombing Libyan protesters.  God help those people.

May someone in the military please set up and end the madness...

Snow, Snow, Snow - Go Away....

Here is a beam from our arbor, with three of the thirteen inches of snow that we received yesterday.  At this point, I think we are all ready for the end of snow season.










Here is a shot of the end of the same beam, somewhat later.  I love the patterns snow creates as it falls.  Beautiful.  If it would just go away a little sooner...

Too White To Win? Very Random Thoughts about Race and Hockey

On Thursday night, our girls hockey team defeated our arch rivals, The Blake School, 5-1.  This victory came as a complete surprise as the Blake hockey team was filled with older, talented players.  But, this is why they play the game - it turned out our goalie was stopping everything and in the second period we scored three goals to take a commanding lead.  Our girls weathered the third period blitzkrieg from Blake and we even added another goal, just for good measure.

In the five or six years that I have been following girls hockey - this kind of win has never happened against Blake.  They are scrappy and they never give up.  Their coach gives me a rash (He has yelled out to his girls, "Get her she is slow".  I dislike yelling at high school kids.)

I am very happy with our girls, but I am also a bit taken aback my the depth of my own hostility toward our fellow independent school.

I am taking a class on the "Teaching of Writing" from Professor Tim Lensmire, who is one of the best educators I have ever seen.  In this class we spend a fair amount of time discussing race.  Currently we are reading a book by the author Thandeka called, Learning to be White.  One of the central tenets of this book is that as white people we have spent a lot of time keeping keep poorer white people in check.  There is the hierarchy of whiteness and that developed in the early 1800's and even more once large numbers of Europeans emigrated here.  Europeans who wanted to be considered successful where encouraged to lose their ethnicity.  

These days I see a Blake school bus with, "The Blake School" written on the side of it, I think of Thandeka.  The use of the article "The" before the school gives me the impression that Blake prides itself on being an "old money" school - the kind of place that might easily make me feel that I don't measure up.  I am not quite white enough for Blake.

Food for thought.

And, oh by the way, God Bless you girls.

Malice: You Can't Escape (But You May Wish To) by Chris Wooding

Dear Chris,

When you write a book, you need to have an ending.  Stopping the story after 370 pages with the idea that if I want to find out what happens to our cast of characters, buy the next book.  Here is some news for you Chris, if you can't come up with a decent ending to the first book, I am not buying the second.  Really, how did you get this published?

I find this tale lacking in character development, motive, and engaging action.  There is a kernel of an interesting idea here - a comic book series that pulls kids into another world to steal their life force.  But you need to develop that idea with a little more detail to get me to buy into a second book.

On the Tex-the-Cat scale - this book gets one paw up.  The cover, which is slightly three dimensional is of interest.  I also enjoyed the artwork on the cover, but less so the illustrations on the inside.

Egypt Rolls and Somewhere Ghandi is Smiling...

So midday today the news arrives that Hosni Mubarak has stepped down in Egypt.  So eighteen days after the first protests, a government of thirty years is gone, gone, gone.

One of the most rigid authoritarian governments in the Middle East was brought down by Facebook, Twitter, and the internet, and thousands of Egyptians who had the courage everyday to keep hitting the streets and demanding their freedom.  The part that is startling is that thousands of people demonstrated every day, and only 300 people died.  If you are one of the three-hundred then it was obviously a big deal, but I don't think many people would have bet that Egypt would change hands with so little bloodshed.

I love this picture and summary.

My favorite quote from the last two weeks was from Robert Gibbs, the president's press secretary. He commented that the people of Egypt "want to see concrete action by their government." He then added, "Now means now".

We are all wondering what will come next.  How much freedom with the military really tolerate?  We don't yet know, but we are all watching.

Apparently this is the anniversary of the Iranian revolution of 1979.  Kind of ironic.  I wonder how this news is playing in Iran.  Is the power structure sleeping well at night?  I somehow doubt that.

Weathering The Storm

This morning it is minus six, and by "punch out" time, it was up to 31°.  Looks to me like we have made through the the worst of the numb-the-brain cold...

So the last two weeks or so have been full of all sorts of ups and downs...

• I learned that Erik dropped out of school mid-term.  That means he loses the financial aid from that quarter, and he still owes LC $2,800.  I don't know when Erik quit, but he is still looking for work.  I don't know what the heck he was doing during the Holiday season when he should have been working...
• Not only has Erik dropped out, but didn't tell anyone.  I am pretty sure that isn't encyclopedia of "Great Parenting".
• While reading a book for my class at the U, I discovered that I have a bump on the back of my head. Fortunately, all the early reports are that it is nothing about which to worry.  Thank you God.
• The day after the bump was discovered, Maura called to say that we owed BU six thousand and that if we didn't pay up in a week, she would be invited to leave the dorms.  We have subsequently taken care of this fright....
• On my first visit to the doctor I stepped on the scales 214.7.  That would be a new personal worst by eight pounds.  Sigh.  It is time that I develop an exercise routine.  I can't simply rely on riding my bicycle a few months of the year.