Bacon Donut Served by Pigs

I have lived 45 years without knowing that such an amazing culinary combination was possible. Some local police opened Blue Dot Donuts right around the corner from our house. They have many regular donuts, but one certainly stands out. Ladies and Gentlemen, I give to you, Blue Dot Donut's Bacon and Maple Donut:

Trained and Experienced Teachers with No Value

I just finished a week-long seminar during which I focused on how to improve by Religions of the Ancient Near East class by promoting an open space learning environment. This informative workshop about student self-authorship was put on by Xavier's Center for the Advancement of Teaching. While reflecting it struck me that so much of my work the past ten years has focused on the scholarship of teaching and learning, and I’ve had to learn a new “eduspeak” vocabulary and methodology. My graduate program, like the vast majority, trained me how to be an expert in my academic field, but offered little guidance in how to effectively create a learning environment. It’s been very difficult for me these past ten years to give up complete control of my classroom and get away from the centralized lecture format. But I'm trying.

Clearly the university I am at values education and the scholarship of teaching and learning, but it seems to me not too many other places do these days. I see this as especially true in New Orleans, where the charter movement is heralded on a daily basis for being the education messiah. Nearly all of our education leaders come from legal and corporate backgrounds, and they have no education about education, nor do they have classroom experience. Everyone says we need to run “public” schools like a business. In New Orleans, principals are now called CEO's and they make twice as much money as did pre-flood principals. Schools have no unions, and they much prefer 22-year-olds with no experience over the more costly senior teachers. Many of these new teachers majored in other disciplines, can't find jobs, and so come to teaching with no classes on how to be a teacher. So it would seem the field of education doesn’t value education. And it’s not just Louisiana, I read today that in Texas there are lucrative for-profit companies that offer teacher certification. The thing is though, that teachers are able to get certified without one minute of experience in front of a room full of students.

This all makes me furious. While I admit there are cases where charter schools are doing well, I wish there was more news about the drawbacks. Thing is though, charters are favored by powerful businesses, so voices favoring great schools for all students with shared power in which teachers made decisions at neighborhood schools, well, we don't get a very big audience. If I were a journalist, I would do two things in regards to charter schools: I would follow the money to learn about lucrative food contracts with Sodexo and I would look into how much money each school is spending on busing. People like to talk about how corrupt things were when the school management was centralized. I would argue there is just as much corruption now, it is just more difficult to find.

Cecilia Fitzpatrick

Therese is on her way to Omaha. Her grandmother, Cecilia Fitzpatrick, passed away. Therese was very close to GeeGee, as Therese called her, or Ceil, as others did. In fact, Kalypso's middle name is Cecilia, named in honor of Cecilia Fitzpatrick. Cecilia was born on October 31st in 1913. As a Halloween baby, she had a large collections of witch dolls. I will always remember her sense of humor, self-deprecating demeanor, and kind heart. Here is a picture from about 10 years ago showing GeeGee and Kalypso. We'll miss you GeeGee, and thanks for all that you did for Therese and the rest of those who knew you.

St. Louis Cemetery No. 2 video

Students in my and Dr. EY Hammer's Freshmen Seminar classes, for their Service Learning project, researched some of the famous people buried at St. Louis Cemetery No. 2. This was in an effort to promote our community partner, Save Our Cemeteries. Here is their video:

Worst Muses Shoe Ever

I have a God given gift for getting the prize shoe throws at Muses parades. I've gotten at least one every year. I'm like eye candy for the Muses, and I tell the lovely ladies who are riding that I will do anything, and I mean ANYTHING, for a shoe. But this past year I received the worst Muses shoe ever. It's a crappy thrift store tennis shoe that was partially covered by ineffective glue and sprinkled with bargain store glitter. No laces even:


Compare this to some of the awesome shoes I usually receive from the lovely Muses:




I've concluded there are only two options. One, somehow Muses was infiltrated by one of those biddies from Iris. Two, the shoe was actually meant for Adrastos who was standing next to me.

No Heroes Home Movie

Back in Omaha from about 1983-1987, I documented some of the punk scene by shooting my band No Heroes and many other things. Members of the first incarnation included Greg Spence on vocals, Dave Loomis on guitar, Mark Blackman on drums, and me on bass. Later we added my brother Jim Homan on guitar, and I took over on vocals. The sounds on the video comes from Mr. Fink, who recorded a No Heroes show in Kansas City at the Foolkiller in 1984. Also check out R.A.F., several parties, Sol Liebowitz getting pelted with rocks and garbage, and a frozen squirrel named Rocky. My friends Matt and Marc have big roles, especially Marc's evolving hair. Sorry for the poor quality. The film is old and we were all on drugs.

Hortons (Sequel)

Continuing with the Super 8 movie theme, this was a sequel we made to the original movie my mom called The Hortons. I shot this with a super 8 camera back in the early early 90's, and it stars Therese, Chris, Jim, my mom the Spider Woman, our first 1966 Catalina, Omar and Tigger.

Canoe Trip on Niobrara River ca. 1992

Some good friends, four canoes, a river, and all kinds of beer back in 1992. A super 8 movie I recently had digitized. Warning: more super 8s to come when time permits. Movie shows me and Therese, Patrick Chase, Matt McAllister, Marc LeClerc, Jackie Sterba, and Vicki and Scott Castleman.

Blue on a Green Day

Lately I've been overwhelmed by tragedy. Nothing too personal, as my grief stems from the events unfolding in Japan, the Middle East (especially Libya, Bahrain, Yemen and Palestine), Haiti, and any number of places in Asia and Africa. But mostly I'm saddened by events in Japan. I lie in my bed and think about people I'd seen in many videos that day running or driving as the tsunami hit. I wonder if they survived, or if their death was violent rather than peaceful. I wonder what thoughts were going through their minds as they drowned. I think about all the children watching from nearby hillsides as their towns and families are swept away. I think about all of the bodies washing up on the shores, and how I can't comprehend the long term effects of the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station.

I know that much of this tragedy in Japan reminds me of Katrina, with a natural disaster made much worse by old and poorly designed infrastructure. And yet I'm upset when people compare disasters, often arguing which one is worse. Not knowing what exactly to do to help the people of Japan, who were so incredibly generous with time and money after Katrina, I've decided for now to donate $100 to the NOLA Japan Quake Fund. Also I plan on drinking more than a few black and tans at Finn McCools. Erin Go Bragh, My Goodness, My Guinness, and Sinn Fein.

Conservatives Attacking Teachers

I was very impressed with this segment from Jon Stewart, and as always, thanks to all the hard working teachers out there. I, unlike these talking heads, appreciate your efforts.

LINK: CRISIS IN DAIRLY LAND