Godwin Teachers: We have your back!!!

MoonHowler

The above song Every Breath You Take, performed by the Police, is dedicated to the teachers of Godwin Middle School.

I certainly don’t mean to be glib. I know that those teachers are going to work every day looking over their shoulder after the threats that were made to them, simply because they voiced their opinion and concern.

Godwin teachers, you probably have the safest job in Prince William County, right at this moment. The eyes of the county, and probably the state, are on you. The people of Prince William County have all your backs!!!

We are angry that our teachers have been threatened. All of us! Republicans, Democrats, Independents and those of us who could care less about politics.

As a former teacher, I promise you that if I get wind of one iota of retribution to any of you, I own a blog and I will light up someone’s name in lights right here. Yesterday I got nearly 2000 hits. That’s a lot for this blog. I can and will do that again. My paycheck no longer comes from Prince William County and I owe no one anything. In fact, I even know where a few skeletons are buried.

I don’t make threats. I make promises. Don’t threaten our teachers!

[email protected]

You all have a restful weekend, go back in on Monday and teach those kids. May the force be with you!

If you want to speak on my blog, I guarantee your anonymity. Use a fake name. I have your back. Make up a fake email. I have your back. The first comment needs to be approved by me. (settings, you know) After that, you are home free.

Keep doing what you are doing.

Love, Moon

School board member threatens Godwin teachers: I’ll be looking at you

MoonHowler

https://www.facebook.com/TracyAConroy/videos/10154143168594901/

 

I would be remiss as a former Prince William County educator if I did not address the behavior of Neabsco School Board member Ms Diane Ralston who told the Godwin Middle School teachers that she would be watching them. She also suggested that those teachers who had spoken against the name change did not belong at that school.

You have to hear it for yourselves.

I have to say Ms. Raulston’s remarks were threatening and totally unacceptable. I heard some teachers had considered resigning.

Teachers: Don’t be fools. Do not resign. Hold your heads up high and continue to teach and inspire the boys and girls of Godwin Middle School. There are legal resources to handle these kinds of threats from your employer. I was approached tonight by someone who will represent you. Please contact me and I will pass along the information to you. [email protected]

Ms. Raulston should consider resigning immediately. Her behavior makes her unsuited for any role of leadership in Prince William County Schools. We absolutely cannot have our teachers threatened in this way.

It’s one thing to threaten a colleague as she did Willie Deutsch, ordering him to stay out of her district. It’s quite another thing to threaten employees.

It is my greatest hope that Ms. Raulston will think about the liabilities associated with her actions and at least attempt to walk back her remarks. We cannot have teachers threatened and admonished for their thoughts and opinions.  The first amendment is still functioning in Prince William County.  Those Godwin teachers are the closest ones to the community and the children. We want happy teachers, not beaten down, scared, watched teachers.

We cannot have members of our school board bullying their colleagues or their employees.

Let’s set the record straight about Massive Resistance

MoonHowler

I listened to the school board meeting tonight.  I hope I never have to endure doing that again.  I hate watching school board meetings.

Last night, supporters of George Hampton were out in force.   I don’t know Mr. Hampton.  I have nothing against him. I had never heard of him before.  He certainly has a lot of friends, even some who didn’t even know his name, but that’s ok.

I understand their dedication to someone they feel has made positive contributions to the community.  However, some of the speakers continued to throw out ‘facts’ that simply were not true.

Several speakers talked about the state of Virginia closing the schools for 5 years.  That did not happen.  The schools in Prince Edward County (near  Farmville) were closed for 5 years, but not by the state.  Prince Edward County closed their own schools.

The locations that were closed by the state were Front Royal,  Charlottesville, and Norfolk.  Those schools reopened the same school year.  Prince Edward County had a different situation.  According to the Virginia Historical Society:

“After Virginia’s school-closing law was ruled unconstitutional in January 1959, the General Assembly repealed the compulsory school attendance law and made the operation of public schools a local option for the state’s counties and cities. Schools that had been closed in Front Royal, Norfolk, and Charlottesville reopened because citizens there preferred integrated schools to none at all. It was not so Prince Edward County. Ordered on May 1, 1959, to integrate its schools, the county instead closed its entire public school system.

The Prince Edward Foundation created a series of private schools to educate the county’s white children. These schools were supported by tuition grants from the state and tax credits from the county. Prince Edward Academy became the prototype for all-white private schools formed to protest school integration.

No provision was made for educating the county’s black children. Some got schooling with relatives in nearby communities or at makeshift schools in church basements. Others were educated out of state by groups such as the Society of Friends. In 1963–64, the Prince Edward Free School picked up some of the slack. But some pupils missed part or all of their education for five years.”

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What’s in a Swiss handshake?

MoonHowler

2000px-Flag_of_Switzerland_(Pantone)

Washingtonpost.com:

It’s widespread practice for schoolchildren in Switzerland to shake the hands of their teacher at the beginning and end of each day. Now, one school’s decision to exempt two children from this tradition – because the children are Muslim and their teacher is a woman – has caused a storm of controversy across the European state.

The two pupils at the school in the town of Therwil, near Basel, had requested an exemption from shaking a female teacher’s hand, citing their belief that it would go against Islamic teachings. The local school district later came up with what they felt was an acceptable compromise that could avoid discrimination: The pupils, who are aged 14 and 15, would not be required to shake any teacher’s’ hands, whether they were male or female.

However, the plan hit a hitch when the Schweiz am Sonntag reported on it, sparking a public debate about the compromise. “We cannot accept this in the name of religious freedom,” Swiss Justice Minister Simonetta Sommaruga said in an interview with Swiss-German broadcaster SRF. “The handshake is part of our culture.”

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RIP, Joe Medicine Crow

MoonHowler

Washingtonpost.com:

According to Crow tradition, a man must fulfill certain requirements to become chief of the tribe: command a war party successfully, enter an enemy camp at night and steal a horse, wrestle a weapon away from his enemy and touch the first enemy fallen, without killing him.

Joe Medicine Crow was the last person to meet that code, though far from the windswept plains where his ancestors conceived it. During World War II, when he was a scout for the 103rd Infantry in Europe, he strode into battle wearing war paint beneath his uniform and a yellow eagle feather inside his helmet. So armed, he led a mission through German lines to procure ammunition. He helped capture a German village and disarmed — but didn’t kill — an enemy soldier. And, in the minutes before a planned attack, he set off a stampede of 50 horses from a Nazi stable, singing a traditional Crow honor song as he rode away.

“I never got a scratch,” he recalled to the Billings Gazette decades later.

Medicine Crow died Sunday at 102, according to the Gazette. He was the Crow’s last war chief, the sole surviving link to a long military tradition. But he was also an activist, an author, a Medal of Freedom recipient and a vital chronicler of the history of his tribe.

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Sarah Palin: April Fool or just a fool?

MoonHowler

This speech is pathetic and embarrassing. Is she on drugs or does she drink too much? Every time she talks it gets worse. She is incoherent and doesn’t even make sense.

I heard the morning on TV that she is supposed to be fixing Trump’s woman problem. I don’t think that is possible and I sure wouldn’t use her to do it. I am not sure what she said nor do I think she did Trump any favors.

It’s time for Palin to go back to Alaska and stay there. The lights are on but nobody is home.

The Obamas rise above it all with dignity

MoonHowler

Washingtonpost.com:

Opinion by Petula Dvorak

The Obamas: Refusing to give in to the haters after years of threats and abuse

The most popular license in America now?

A license to hate.

And one of the most popular targets is President Obama, the country’s first African American commander-in-chief.

It’s no secret that America’s first family has received an unprecedented number of threats over the past seven years.

But the fever pitch of hate and bile toward the president and his family have taken an even sharper tone thanks to the primordial swamp that is the current presidential campaign.

It’s impossible to utter a single word about the White House, the first family or the president without a blast from the fire hose of haterade.

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Open Thread ………… April 1

MoonHowler

American-Dogwood-Tree-Westchester-Tree-Life

 

Has spring really arrived?   It’s still questionable, even though the days are a little warmer and it is staying light longer.

The daffodils are long gone.  Tulips are slowly coming to life.  The one predictable thing has been pollen.

I hope to get up to the Skyline Drive to see the dogwoods.  There seem to be fewer and fewer each year.  Supposedly some dogwood disease is killing them off.

dogwood

George Mason Law School to be renamed Antonin Scalia School of Law

MoonHowler

Washingtonpost.com:

The George Mason School of Law will be renamed in honor of the late U.S. Supreme Court Associate Justice Antonin Scalia, who died earlier this year.

The university announced Thursday that it has received $30 million in combined gifts to the George Mason Foundation to support the law school, the largest gift in the university’s history. The donations make possible three new scholarship programs. Twenty million dollars came from an anonymous donor, and $10 million came from the Charles Koch Foundation, which has given millions of dollars to colleges in the United States. The family is well known for its support of conservative political groups, sometimes stirring controversy.

The Board of Visitors approved the renaming of the school to the Antonin Scalia School of Law at George Mason University. “This is a milestone moment for the university,” Ángel Cabrera, the university’s president, said in a statement. “These gifts will create opportunities to attract and retain the best and brightest students, deliver on our mission of inclusive excellence, and continue our goal to make Mason one of the preeminent law schools in the country.”

Who says you can’t buy yourself a law school?  Is anyone else offended?  I certainly don’t want to clone Justice Scalia and make a whole bunch more little Scalias.   It appears that George Mason sold out to the highest bidder.

This “gift” seems to have a big caveat attached.