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TODAY’S QUOTE
“When spring came, even the false spring, there were no problems except where to be happiest.” — Ernest Hemingway. Today’s temperatures should reach the 60s in South Central Indiana.
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BOOKS MAKE A HOME
I’ll scream if I hear anyone saying teachers get paid too much. Or that they don’t deserve collective bargaining rights.
Granted, there are lousy teachers. Hell, I was saddled with, oh, seven of them through my eight years of elementary school. The one outstanding teacher I had, Miss Tristano in fifth grade, was a full-fledged hero. She’d been teaching at Our Lady of the Angels in December, 1958, when fire tore through the school and killed 92 kids and three nuns.
Iconic Image Of The Our Lady Of The Angels Fire
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Anyway, a teacher doesn’t necessarily have to brave an inferno to do heroic things. Take Kathy Loser, the librarian over at Bloomington High School North.
She visits the Book Corner regularly. She dropped in Wednesday, all aflutter. She was consumed by a brilliant new idea that she hopes the school and the bookshop will buy into.
Kathy Loser
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Here it is:
BHSN is one of the few schools in the nation to sponsor a Habitat for Humanity chapter. The kids have been helping build a home for a family with a couple of young children. The house will be ready to move into next month.
Kathy was watching — what else? — “It’s A Wonderful Life” over the holidays. When she got to the point where the Italian family moves into their new home and the neighbors all welcomed them with gifts of wine and groceries, housewarming seed gifts as it were, Kathy got a brainstorm.
Why not present the new family with seed gifts for a new home library?
Her plan is simple. Some of the kids can make a wooden bookscase for the place. Kids in the social studies classes can draw up a list of kids’ books and some standard reference works that every home should have.
Then, with the help of the attractive and charming Book Corner staff, a kind of new home library registry can be created.
BHSN parents and other citizens can come to the shop whenever they need to purchase gifts for their kids or other family and friends. Only the recipients won’t keep the gifts. The customers will select a book from the registry, buy it in the recipient’s name, and the book will be packaged with all the other such gifts and presented to the new home family along along with the bookcase on the day the move in.
What a great idea!
Kathy Loser is so gung-ho for it that she actually bought the first book. It’s “The Giving Tree” by Shel Silverstein. “Every home should have this, don’t you think?” Kathy asked as she plunked the book down on the counter.
I think indeed.
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Give Kathy a call at the school, 812.330.7724, ext. 50197, to let her know you like the idea or to make suggestions for the registry or even to donate time or money to the cause.
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THE DEFINITIVE REPUBLICAN
What is a Republican?
Someone who espouses financial prudence?
A backer of strong defense?
An opponent of strong federal regulations?
A pro-lifer?
Look no further than State Senator Vaneta Becker, who represents the Evansville area in the statehouse. Oh, she’s a Republican.
Becker: “Do It My Way Or Else. That’s Freedom!”
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The Republican, in fact, at this weird, weird moment in American history.
Becker has introduced SB 122 this week. It calls for strict standards to be set for the performance of the national anthem at school events. Performers who violate those standards would be fined.
She says the proposed standards would reflect “how we feel about freedom.”
Not habeas corpus. Not the Bill of Rights (except for the sacred Second). Not torture. Not wiretapping. Not personal information harvesting. Not any of the things that Republicans and their all-too-willing Democratic apologists have created or destroyed in response the the specter of scary brown people.
Nope. The national anthem. That, Becker says, is our freedom.
Becker is the modern Republican.
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AMERICA, THE BEAUTIFUL
This is a better song than the “Star Spangled Banner” anyway. And no one could sing it like Ray Charles.
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