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Archive for October 6, 2008

A drink of tea

One day my mother went out and left my dad in charge of me. I was maybe 2 1/2 years old and had just recovered from an accident. Someone had given me a little tea set as a get-well gift and it was one of my favourite toys.Daddy was in the living room engrossed in the evening news when I brought Daddy a little cup of ‘tea’, which was just water. After several cups of tea and lots of praise for such yummy tea, my Mum came home.My Dad made her wait in the living room to watch me bring him a cup of tea, because ‘it was just the cutest thing!’ My Mum waited and sure enough, I came down the hall with a cup of tea for Daddy. She watched him drink it up.Then she said, as only a mother could:
‘Did it ever occur to you that the only place she can reach to get water is the toilet?’

October 6, 2008 | Categories: Uncategorized | Tags: | Leave a comment

Middle School Teacher Suspended for Obama Youth Video

Missouri – A middle school teacher in Missouri was suspended Monday for putting a video on YouTube of his students chanting lines from Barack Obama speeches and wearing military fatigues. The video, called “Obama Youth — Junior Fraternity Regiment,” was posted by a YouTube user named “keepitwildtv” on Oct. 2. The school learned the video was on the Internet and took action against the teacher Monday morning. Joyce McGautha, superintendent of the Urban Community Leadership Academy, a charter school for students in fifth through ninth grades in Kansas City, Mo., said that the video was probably taken last May during the Junior Fraternity’s morning meeting at the school.

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October 6, 2008 | Categories: Uncategorized | Tags: | Leave a comment

Did you know who’s birthday is today, Oct 6?

On This Day in time this happened

2003
Petroleum giant ConocoPhillips announces the sale of its Circle K convenience stores to Canada‘s Alimentation Couche-Tard, Inc for $821 million.
2002
Prince Claus of the Netherlands, husband of Queen Beatrix, dies at age 76 in Amsterdam.
1999
Houston is awarded a franchise by the NFL, while Los Angeles is left out.
1997
American biology professor Stanley B. Prusiner wins the Nobel Prize for medicine for his discovery of the infectious, virus-like proteins known as “prions.”
1995
Boeing workers begin a 69-day strike to protest the company’s union contract offer.
1991
Elizabeth Taylor marries husband #8, construction worker Larry Fortensky, at Michael Jackson‘s California home.
1990
Country singer-guitarist Garth Brooks joins the Grand Ole Opry.
1989
Actress Bette Davis dies in France at age 81.
1981
Egyptian President Anwar Sadat is assassinated while reviewing troops on parade.
1979
Pope John Paul II becomes the first pope to visit the White House. (photo credit: NARA)
1951
Soviet leader Josef Stalin announces that Russia has its own atomic bomb. (photo credit: NARA)
1927
Al Jolson stars in the premiere of the first talking motion picture, The Jazz Singer.
1892
Poet Lord Tennyson Alfred dies in Surrey, England at age 91.
1884
The Naval War College is established in Newport, RI.
1536
English priest William Tyndale is burned at stake for translating portions of the Bible from Latin into English.

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Who is William Ayers?

William Charles “Bill” Ayers (born 26 December 1944). Ayers grew up in Glen Ellyn, a suburb of Chicago, Illinois. He attended public schools there until his second year in high school, when he transferred to Lake Forest Academy, a small prep school.[2] Ayers earned an A.B. from the University of Michigan in American Studies in 1968. (His father, mother and older brother had preceded him there.)[2] He is the son of Thomas G. Ayers, former Chairman and CEO of Commonwealth Edison (1973 to 1980), Chicago philanthropist and the namesake of the Thomas G. Ayers College of Commerce and Industry. Ayers is known for the radical nature of his activism in the 1960s and 1970s as well as his current work in education reform, curriculum, and instruction. In 1969 he cofounded the violent radical left organization Weather Underground which was active during the 1960s and 1970s.

In 1970 Ayers was called “a national leader”[27] of the Weatherman organization and “one of the chief theoreticians of the Weathermen”.[28] The Weathermen were initially part of the Revolutionary Youth Movement (RYM) within the SDS, splitting from the RYM’s Maoists by claiming there was no time to build a vanguard party and that revolutionary war against the United States government and the capitalist system should begin immediately. Ayers participated in the bombings of New York City Police Headquarters in 1970, the United States Capitol building in 1971, and The Pentagon in 1972, as he noted in his 2001 book, Fugitive Days. Because of a water leak caused by the Pentagon bombing, aerial bombardments during the Vietnam War had to be halted for several days. Ayers writes: Although the bomb that rocked the Pentagon was itsy-bitsy – weighing close to two pounds – it caused ‘tens of thousands of dollars’ of damage. The operation cost under $500, and no one was killed or even hurt. [13] While underground, he and fellow member Bernardine Dohrn married, and the two remained fugitives together, changing identities, jobs and locations. By 1976 or 1977, with federal charges against both fugitives dropped due to prosecutorial misconduct (see COINTELPRO), Ayers was ready to turn himself in to authorities, but Dohrn remained reluctant until after she gave birth to two sons, one born in 1977, the other in 1980. “He was sweet and patient, as he always is, to let me come to my senses on my own”, she later said.[2] The couple turned themselves in in 1980. Ayers and Dohrn later became legal guardians to the son of former Weathermen David Gilbert and Kathy Boudin after the boy’s parents were convicted and sent to prison for their part in the Brinks Robbery of 1981.[14]

And here is how Ayers characterized himself and the longtime radical comrades to whom he was speaking:”Even though we think of ourselves as political, we weren’t politicians. We were people who had a moral vision of what was possible. And when we talk, for example, about health care, about peace, we’re talking a language of ethics, not a language of instrumentalism or opportunism, or what we might get. So we have to speak in a language that’s large and generous and encompassing. And then we have to act.”

Ayers worked with Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley in shaping the city’s school reform program,[40] and was one of three co-authors of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge grant proposal that in 1995 won $49.2 million over five years for public school reform.[41] Since 1999 he has served on the board of directors of the Woods Fund of Chicago, an anti-poverty, philanthropic foundation established as the Woods Charitable Fund in 1941.[42]

Ayers is currently a Distinguished Professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago, College of Education. His interests include teaching for social justice, urban educational reform, narrative and interpretive research, children in trouble with the law, and related issues.href=”http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Ayers#cite_note-UIC-38″>%5B39%5D He began his career in primary education while an undergraduate, teaching at the Children’s Community School (CCS), a project founded by a group of students and based on the Summerhill method of education. After leaving the underground, he earned an M.Ed from Bank Street College in Early Childhood Education (1984), an M.Ed from Teachers College, Columbia University in Early Childhood Education (1987) and an Ed.D from Columbia University in Curriculum and Instruction (1987). He has edited and written many books and articles on education theory, policy and practice, and has appeared on many panels and symposia.

October 6, 2008 | Categories: Uncategorized | Tags: | Leave a comment

Did you know who’s birthday is today, Oct 5?

Did you know what happened on this day in time?
2004
Comedian Rodney Dangerfield dies at age 82 in Los Angeles.
1999
Long distance company Sprint is purchased by MCI WorldCom for $115 billion.
2000
Thirty-one people die when a pair of commuter trains collide in London.
1989
Televangelist Jim Bakker is found guilty on fraud charges by a Charlotte, North Carolina, jury.
1968
The Beatles record vocals, bass, and drums to Savoy Truffle, a song that will ultimately appear on the White Album, at Trident Studios in London. (photo credit: Capitol Records)
1953
Earl Warren succeeds Fred Vinson as the 14th chief justice of the US Supreme Court.
1952
Inner Sanctum, a popular radio mystery show that lasted 11 seasons, airs its final episode on ABC.
1947
In the first TV address by a US president from the White House, Harry Truman asks the public to reduce their intake of meats to help the starving masses in Europe. (photo credit: SoundWorks)

1942
Broadway show songsmith, George M. Cohan, dies at age 64.
1941
Louis D. Brandeis, the first Jewish member of the US Supreme Court, dies at age 84.
1897
English artist Sir John Gilbert dies.
1877
Nez Perce Indian Chief Joseph surrenders to US troops at Chinook, MT.
1813
Shawnee Indian chief Tecumseh is killed while battling the British during the War of 1812.

October 6, 2008 | Categories: Uncategorized | Tags: | Leave a comment