Monday Miscellany:

Is there any better time for teaching high school government than right now? I didn't think so.

On the first day back from the break I surveyed my honors and college prep government classes. Of the thirty students, five were planning on voting for Ron Paul. No other candidate received more than one commitment. Paul has had a surprising resonance with the young. Part of it has been powerful grass roots involvement of his supporters on the internet. I will not dare to speculate on other reasons for his followers among the young.

I have been busy working on a blog that I created for my honors government class. You can go and check it out here if you wish. It is the first time I have attempted a class blog; my previous school blocked any and all blogs and well as most of the rest of the internet. Now that I have access and a subject that lends itself to the immediacy of the internet, I couldn't help but give it a try. My students are required to read it weekly and to post a comment to any post that begins with "For Discussion." So far it has been a useful tool.

While working on my government blog, I looked up the term "blowback" to determine its exact etymology and connotation. I came across this definition at Dictionary.com (emphasis mine):
Webster's New Millennium™ Dictionary of English
Main Entry: blowback
Part of Speech: n
Definition: an unintended adverse reaction or effect from an action or cause, especially political
Example: The blowback of Bush's ill-made decisions will last for many years.
Etymology: 1968
Usage: also written blow-back
Webster's New Millennium™ Dictionary of English, Preview Edition (v 0.9.7)Copyright © 2003-2008 Lexico Publishing Group, LLC

The example given by the editors at Webster's New Millennium Dictionary of English provided my class with a nice example of the prevalence of bias. Whether accurate or not, the example is a politically charged one and has no place in dictionary.


During a lecture today on the Spanish-American War, I exclaimed, "Butcher Weyler didn't get sent to Cuba to sell rump-roasts to the locals; he came with a mandate to put the Cubans in line." I don't know why I said it, but I did. My students gave me hard time about it and were convinced that I spent some time thinking about and planning the line. I didn't, but I made a note of it for next year.


My eldest son turned seven this past weekend. Happy Birthday son. Here he is firing off the new Nerf-type Bazooka he got for Christmas.



Peace
..._

Blogombos: What's in a Name?

"What's in a name? That which we call a rose
By any other word would smell as sweet"

Romeo and Juliet
(II.ii.43-44)
William Shakespeare

What does one name a blog? Perhaps the better question is, 'How does one name a blog?' The naming of a book, a story, or article should be reflective of the content of the written material. A blog, however, is not yet written. Despite the intent of the author, a blog may transform, grow, stagnate, or die. The naming of a blog seems to have more in common with the naming of a child. With great hope and expectation, a parent names a child with no real understanding of what that name will one day mean to the parent or the child.

So how should I name my blog? Should I give it a name of what I hope it will become or should it be flexible enough to grow into anything? Should I try to find some clever use of the word "blog" in my name? This was my first hope and surely, I thought, I can find some clever blog combo name (here-on-out known as a blogombo--you heard it here first...wait let me check...google says yes, you heard it here first). Alas, all the truly clever names have been used. Try it. Add blog to any word, google it, and presto...someone laid claim to it years ago. I discovered this when National Review held an online contest to name their media blog. They haven't announced their winner yet but my guess is it won't be a blogombo. Some random examples from my research: Blog+godzilla=blogzilla; blog+fantastic=blogtastic; blog+terrific=blogarrific; blogjam; all taken, though blognailinthefoot appears to be unclaimed as of yet and I found no reference to agogblog...take them if you will (but give me link).

Okay. A blogombo is out. What then? My second thought was to create a descriptive name. But what am I describing? It doesn't exist yet. Then I remembered the classic line from Romeo and Juliet. The Bard, speaking through Juliet, tells us that the name doesn't matter! If something is sweet, the name can't change the sweetness! I would so much hve liked to believe that this is true as it would make the task of christening my blog much easier, but I have to take exception to this argument. I think that a name can make or break any endeavor. If a rose was called a stinkweed, a satanblossom, or a hateflower, I don't think millions of dozens would be sold every February.

A poor name can sour a sweet thing. My mother is an excellent cook. Unfortunately, during the seventies and eighties she cooked, it seemed to me, nothing but casseroles filled with water chestnuts. There were two things amiss here. One, the name "casserole" filled me with dread. It is a terrible word filled with Kerry-esque nuances and should never be used in conjunction with food (my tastebuds commit mass seppuku in mere contemplation of the word). Secondly, water chestnuts. Why do they exist? My mother would try to calm my pre-meal query concerning the use of water chestnuts in the day's meal preparation with "You can't really taste them." I heard that line a lot (I always countered with, "Then why did you put them (or it) in?"). With water chestnuts it is true. You can't taste them. But you can feel them. Always added to a soft casserole to give a crunch, they would turn up like old turds on the lawn or roaches in the salad. Their crunch made me ill. Despite this, my mother did create some casseroles I could tolerate and even enjoy. One was "tater-tot casserole". The name is so promising at first, "tater-tot"! What fun! Then, the downer, "casserole". Eventually I was able to convince the management that the name "Tater-tot Extravaganza" would be much more palatable. The name stuck and I still make "Tater-tot Extravaganza" for my family today (sans water chestnuts).

While a poor name can sour a sweet thing, the reverse is not true. A good name cannot sweeten a sour thing. I have tried this in my classes. In AP US History we do an exercise called a DBQ (document based question). They hate it. It is challenging, timed essay that few do really well on. They got to the point where they dreaded the "DBQ" like some dread the "IRS" or others the "GOP". Anyway, I changed the name to "History Extravaganza". They were so excited to do the first one. The looks on their faces were priceless...until I handed out the assignment, and they looked like they had just bitten down on a big, crunchy water chestnut in their own wedding cake. So even if I come up with a great name, there is no guarantee that the blog will rise to the greatness of its name.

So why did I choose the name "The Ohoopee Letter News"? I will leave the story of my blog's name for another day.

Peace