Blog spotlight: Rebecca on education and more

Rebecca's with us for this edition in spirit only. So to those who miss her (we do), we'll note this post she did. It was a toss up between this and another as to which was the best but in the end we went with this one because we do need new dreams tonight. Rebecca, get home safe.

more dreamers not just fact checkers

1st things 1st. i won't be blogging tomorrow night. now for the good news.

filling in for me friday will be blog betty! that's right betty's doing me a solid and then some and what's she's doing for readers is more than a solid. i really think you will enjoy whatever she writes. she's excited but nervous.

i told her, 'don't do any pre-planning, we're casual here. just have fun with it.'

she has to work so damn hard at her site and every 1 who visits thomas friedman is a great man knows that. i'd been talking to her about filling in here if i took a vacation because i think she'd be great at it and i think she'd enjoy it. i also think it would be way easier than what she does at her site.

so i hope tomorrow she just has fun. i think she will and i think you will as well.

i think this is a chance for her to blow off some steam and not think about characters and text and subtext and where is she in her outline and ...

so it will be a treat for readers and, i hope, 1 for her too.

i told her my approach is you're on a team but you've just done research on the company, then at the presentation to the client, every 1 on the team is sick so you have to make the pitch. what do you do?you wing it based on what you researched. you do your best and if any 1 gives you any crap you point out that your entire team flaked out and you were left holding the bag.

i got an e-mail from sherry asking 'what's the problem with yippies?' she explained why she was asking. like i've said before, as men get older and the waistlines expand, their beliefs, like their principles shrink.

what's the problem with yippies? nothing at all.

they provided street theater that helped get a message out. now some people aren't going to get any message no matter how it is presented. but they did get a message out.

and when we were working on '"How do you think a story can change a life?" (Laura Flanders to Robert Redford)' there were a lot of discussions about the way messages can get out and c.i. said the 'on the nose' approach is used too often. which led to c.i., jess and kat discussing how the abstract songs of the 60s led some people to think a bit more deeply and how, if you turned on the radio today - corporate radio, not only did you just hear songs about getting laid and wanting to get laid, you heard them in the most basic form, without subtext, without depth. and that's not doing justice to their discussion, which was a joy to listen to but far out of my depths.

but the point is that there's nothing wrong with yippies. now some sell outs might want to curse them and claim that there was all this energy expanded into fixing the damage done by yippies but they're usually the dlc types, the uptight types, the people who are anal and can only think in 1 way. but sherry, here's a question for you: what do yippies have to do with education? i thought that was the focus of the site you forwarded, didn't you?

you know what, sherry? abbie hoffman had a purpose, he had a goal and he achieved. i don't think we can say the same about the person slamming yippies today.

which, if you think about it, is why he only tears apart.

i mean, think about, really think about it. c.i. steers you to things worth reading, watching, listening to. some 1 just tears apart. he probably broke his toys as a child and then whined until mommy bought him news 1s. maybe mommy didn't buy them quick enough and that's why he appears to have such issues with women? i don't know.

but i know i told more truth about what was done to al gore in 2000 in 1 entry last night than he has in how many years? but maybe if you're pissing all over yippies, you can't take joe lieberman to task?

the 60s had street theater. we could use some more of that today. we could use some more art and some more thought that breaks out of the box. and that's where elaine came in on the third estate sunday review discussion. she and c.i. were talking about how we need new ways of seeing things. as u2 once sang, in better days, 'we need new dreams tonight.' or as carly simon aptly put it, 'let all the dreamers wake the nation.'

i hope educators get that. i hope they get that far behind how well some 1 can spit out a fact they've had drilled into them, it matters that children can think and can think beyond the obvious. that's really the future of any nation and how progress can comes about. you have to go beyond the obvious and beyond the same though pattern.

most of the people i know who are creative or think outside the box are music listeners or actually have musical training. i wonder how worried we are that the cuts to music in school continue and that 'leave every child behind' is set on turning every 1 into robots because the testing and the teaching for the test leaves no time for creativity and really doesn't leave time for thought.

was there a meeting high up that decided the country has no future and we just need drones who'll do their mechanical jobs in a mechanical manner as they go through day after day by rote?

i think it's really frightening and i think we don't need anymore tests. i think we need teaching and inspiration for all ages.

so that's how i go out tonight and you should check back tomorrow for betty. i'll be back on monday and i hope every 1 has a great weekend.