Mom Qua Media Watchdog

Last night, my son got it in his head that he wanted to watch Batman. He was completely dismayed that other kids in his class had seen Ironman and I wouldn't let him and he thought seeing some Batman would do the trick. Once, about a year ago, we mistakenly let him watch the Dark Knight trailer, so I thought this was what he wanted to see and I said no. Turns out, he didn't want to see that at all. No, he wanted to see this. It's inappropriate for an almost six-year-old for a whole host of reasons, and yet, really, there's nothing like a little Lego Batman to start your day off right.

How I (Still) Feel About Harem Pants

Right here.

Moving Forward with Obama

If you talk politics at all it's impossible to avoid the "Are you disappointed in Obama" question, which, for the record, I do not like. Of course I'd like for him to have moved ahead on Climate Change legislation. Of course I wish bankers had been called out on their colossal failure and real regulation had been put in place. Of course I'm overly forgiving of the political calculations that must drive some of the President's decision making on these fronts because I still believe he's not only the best we've got, he'd be pretty darn good in a field crowded with good picks. Given all that, I was glad to read this about Obama's presidency over on the Daily Dish. Here's a quote from the quote of the post by Andrew Sprung (so pomo, I know):

"He has laid foundations for universal healthcare and healthcare cost control (i.e., meaningful entitlement reform); educational improvement; and a reversal or at least slowing of the 30-year rise in income inequality (via healthcare reform, student loan reform, middle class tax cuts and tax hikes for the wealthy, the latter a work in progress). The stimulus also seeded a host of investments in infrastructure and alternative energy (as well as education) that will also take a long time to assess. With a little bit of economic luck, he will be the transformative president that he aims to be."

A Visit from the Goon Squad

I love this book. I just loved it. I've read other books composed of short stories that wind together. (I'm thinking particularly of Joan Silber's powerful Ideas of Heaven: A Ring of Stories.) I tend to like how they mess around with structure and I'm a sucker for the serendipities they rely on. But I loved A Visit from the Goon Squad in a way that goes beyond appreciating it's structure, which is terrific, and the writing, which is brilliant. I loved it in the way you love a book you can't wait to read and so to finish and then you actually finish it and get that feeling of "Nooooooo! Please don't end!" Plus, the book had me speaking a line to my husband I never thought possible: "Just read the chapter in power point because I cried on the subway when I read it." Really.

Education, Crisis and a Voice of Reason

With the release of the documentary Waiting for Superman and the administration's "Race to the Top," we've lately been treated to a whole host of articles about education, what works, what doesn't, and who makes that work happen. It's all become too predictable, too familiar. In the new New Yorker, Nicholas Lemann has a Comment that takes it apart. Here's a quote:

It should raise questions when an enormous, complicated realm of life takes on the characteristics of a stock drama. In the current school-reform story, there is a reliable villain, in the form of the teachers’ unions, and a familiar set of heroes, including Geoffrey Canada, of Harlem Children’s Zone; Wendy Kopp, of Teach for America, the Knowledge Is Power Program; and Michele Rhee, the superintendent of schools in Washington, D.C. And there is a clear answer to the problem—charter schools. The details of this story are accurate, but they are fitted together too neatly and are made to imply too much. For example, although most of the specific charter schools one encounters in this narrative are very good, the data do not show that charter schools in general are better than district schools. There are also many school-reform efforts besides charter schools: the one with the best sustained record of producing better-educated children in difficult circumstances, in hundreds of schools over many years, is a rigorously field-tested curriculum called Success for All, but because it’s not part of the story line it goes almost completely unmentioned.

I could quote more, but, really it's worth reading the whole thing. Here's that link again.

Cake!

Chocolate chip pecan loaf cake, to be exact. Check it out, you'll be glad you did. (I know because I've made it, twice.)

An Israel Problem

No, this one isn't about the West Bank or Gaza, it's about the perception of Israel and it's really depressing.