Thursday, August 31, 2006

Meeting the needs of a community


Meeting the needs of a community
Page 3 Charter Oak-Ute NEWSpaper & Schleswig Leader- Thursday, August
31, 2006

We hear a lot of crusty veteran teachers complain that the profession just isn’t what it used to be. Often they point out that it’s the kids. Kids just don’t respect their teachers like they used to or learning just isn’t as important to these kids anymore.

To some degree that’s true. Society has certainly evolved over the years so that what we used to call its basic fabric seems to be worn thin. Divorce is twice as prevalent as it was fifty years ago. Television, games and the rest of the media have desensitized youth to sex and violence to the point where both are taken for granted. The world itself and its economy seem to have forever altered what used to be thought of as “the American Dream.”

High School teachers are especially frustrated when their students don’t seem to be prepared enough for them to learn the subjects in their class. High pressure from new un-funded laws make things more complicated, as do special needs students being added to the mix of already over sized and under equipped classrooms.

Elementary teachers are frustrated because they feel like they have to become all things to all their students. It’s not enough that they need to teach their subject matters, but they need to teach manners, civility, conflict-resolution, drug prevention, abstinence or sexual responsibility and a host of other responsibilities that fifty years ago were the responsibility of the nuclear family, extended family, or church and civic organizations to address.

But maybe instead of wishing for the good old days, we all need to recognize the society we live in today and start addressing the needs of our kids here and now.

For some of us, teachers and communities alike, this may require major adjustments to our thinking and how we do things.

I’d bet that more than half of all kids don’t have what used to be traditional “nuclear family” situations anymore. How then, could we begin to imagine, let alone expect that they’d have “family values?”

For many kids, their “values” are down right primal. An over-simplified explanation might look like this: If you’re “family” makes more than $250,000 per year, you probably value influence and status. Between say $40,000 and $250,000 and you’re probably valuing things, conveniences, clothes, gadgets, vehicles, etc. Your stuff. Under $40,000 and you’re going to value things like your next meal, your security, your safety, and people who accept you and are loyal to you.

Abraham Maslow was a psychologist that almost every teacher is taught about. He had a theory that every human being has some very basic needs. I think that it’s time that all of us, not just teachers, considered the needs of our children.

Maslow was the first of seven children born to his parents, who were uneducated immigrants. He ended up being the chairman of the psychology department at Brandeis University throughout the 1950’s and 60’s.

Abraham Maslow broke down people’s needs into two categories, “deficiency needs” and “growth needs.” If the deficiency needs aren’t being met, the person is in survival mode. Once the deficiency needs are met, then we can start to address the growth needs.

Here are Maslow’s first four, or “deficiency” needs:

1) Physical: hunger, thirst, bodily comforts, etc.

A kid can’t learn if they’re malnourished. Their brains and bodies literally aren’t able to, besides that it’s hard to concentrate.

2) Safety/security: being out of danger.

How can you learn and behave well, when you don’t have a place to sleep, or you’re constantly threatened? For many kids, school is the least volatile place they spend time at. Alcohol, inappropriate sexuality, illegal drugs including meth, and physical violence are all routine parts of many children’s lives.

3) Belonging and Love: being accepted or part of something.

4) “Esteem:” to achieve and become competent, gaining approval and recognition.

It does seem unreasonable to expect classroom teachers to have to fulfill all of these needs for all of their students before they ever begin to address “growth needs” like thinking and learning skills, and aesthetic judgements, let alone academic subject area content like math and reading.

But the needs remain. Schools and communities need to adjust and adapt in order to be able to address these needs. Whether because of ignorance, circumstance, poverty, or impatience, fewer and fewer parents seem to be managing to.

Boyer Valley School District has added a day care, and a family-community coordinator. Our library is shared with the city and soon we’ll have a community based fitness center on our campus. The Area Education Association helps provide psychological and social services.

Many school buildings host things like recovery group meetings or community college classes in the evenings. I wouldn’t doubt that the Denison Schools offer adult education classes or at least English as a second language classes on their campus.

We as communities, church congregations, and civic organizations need to open our eye, our hearts, and perhaps our schedules or at least pocket-books to the needs of the children who live around us.

School districts, boards, administrators, and teachers need to open our minds to new ways of approaching these needs. That may include collaborating with cities or businesses, or with other districts. It will certainly take patience and compassion.

All of us need to consider ways that we can help provide for these most basic needs of our neighbors. If we don’t we’ll all pay a heavy price.

___________________________________________________________
Ted Mallory is a resident of Charter Oak and a teacher and coach at Boyer Valley Schools in Dunlap. He has taught History, Art, Journalism, and Religion over the last 13 years at Trinity Lutheran Middle School in Reseda, CA, Los Angeles Lutheran Jr/Sr High School in Sylmar, Ca and now at Boyer Valley MS/HS.

Thursday, August 24, 2006

Back to school


Annual Back to School Column
Page 3 Charter Oak-Ute NEWSpaper & Schleswig Leader- Thursday, August
24, 2006

Happy New Year. By now students and teachers at Denison-Schleswig, Charter Oak-Ute, and Maple Valley are resuming classes. Boyer Valley has been back for a week already.

It might surprise kids and parents that teachers have been fretting and working for days or weeks before now in preparation. It’s true. A little like how musicians, actors and performers get nervous before they have to go on stage, teachers get anxious too and put a lot of work into being prepared.

In some ways this is a good thing. Some of the biggest stars feel that if they don’t get stage fright, they don’t do as well. Many teachers are the most enthusiastic the first quarter. Even the most grizzled veteran gets excited about learning again in the Fall and forgets about being burnt-out at least for the first few weeks.

I myself hardly slep the whole first week of school. Of course I had a nasty head cold too.

Rookie teachers of course, get buried very quickly, but sort of like anyone caught in a traumatic or crisis situation, they are so pumped full of adrenaline that they manage to keep on trying new things and trying to be every student’s “cool older brother or sister” kind of best friend.

Non-professional educators are always giving us teachers a hard time because we get the summer off. Funny how it never feels that way. Someone was asking my wife the other day why she was always gone so much. Well duh! She’s a teacher, it’s August. In her case, they have her teaching three new high school classes on top of being an elementary counselor. She’s not just decorating classrooms. She’s reading, researching, taking notes, devising lessons, creating handouts, writing quizzes and assignments and preparing presentations. What did you THINK she was doing?

Last summer I took two classes over four weekends. This summer I just took one and stayed through for a full week at the college. And I wasn’t even working on a Master’s Degree. All teachers have to constantly be taking classes toward license renewal, even if they’re not working on graduate work.

And of course most of us get summer jobs. That’s because while non-teachers get to read out salaries in the newspaper and think we’re paid too much, they forget that a third of that is taken out for taxes (just like everybody else) but then another third (or more) is taken out for the crummy insurance programs that our tiny districts can barely afford. I kid you not- something like $609.33 per month for hospital insurance. Per month! THAT is something I wish the Legislature would work on, let alone getting us a raise. And keep in mind, health insurance tends to go up around 24% every year. What would you do if they raised your mortgage rates by 24% every year?

Sorry. I shouldn’t complain. When I first went into teaching it was in a Lutheran school. We were considered “Commissioned Ministers of the Gospel.” Only pastors were “Ordained Ministers,” but the point is, it wasn’t just a job, it was a “calling.” I figured God wanted me to become a teacher so like a Franciscan monk, I was ready to take a vow of poverty.

Now as a public school teacher I still believe that it’s not merely an occupation, but a vocation. Some people go to college to get a job and make money, other people go to college to get a job where they can make a difference. Of course, even the most passionate idealists have to face reality of bills and kids and making ends meet.

So we teachers get summer jobs. I was really lucky and instead of scrubbing floors and toilets, flipping burgers or painting houses, I got to work at this newspaper. The three vocations that probably get paid the least, work the hardest and get the least respect in our society- journalists, farmers and teacher. Yes, we’re martyrs, give us your sympathy.

Pont is, we’ve been working all summer. And many of us have been working for the past month or two to get school ready for you kids. So please cut us some slack. We know you haven’t woke up before 11 all summer and you think that books and homework is a drag. But we’ve been working hard to share our knowledge and experience with you so that you can make this a better world.

On top of all that, may teachers, like me had been drinking 8-10 cups of regular coffee a day at their summer jobs and now we’re switching back to decaf. Don’t be surprised if we talk a little slow at first. At least through September.

Monday, August 21, 2006

still trying to let go

You're not supposed to blog about your job or your boss if you don't want it to come back to bite you, but this Dilbert really shows how I felt last week. They gave a new teacher a class that basically covered stuff I already teach in two other classes. Between all the hours of planning & preparation I'd put into both of them and that I really have my sense of self tied up with one of them it was a blow. I had to tell myself not to take it personally, because it was no doubt, just an inadvertent omission or error (oversight) on the part of the administration- but with the onset of a nasty summer head cold and the typical adjustment from summer to school-year- it was blown all out of proportion in my psyche. One student correctly assesesd that I was jealous. In so far as I was territorial about my areas of expertise, you're dang right I was jealous. But I wasn't angry with the new colleague- only frustrated to no end with the inadvertent omission on the part of the administration!

Sometimes a picture is worth a thousand words and in this case, Scott Adam's cartoon does a better job of expressing my feelings than the above hyperanalytical, clinical explaination. But hopefully it's dry enough to not get me into any trouble with my current or future.potential employers.

Anyway, I THINK that I'm over it. Almost.

Thursday, August 17, 2006

God's Grace

My oldest daughter, Grace, receives speech therapy at the University Medical Center in Omaha every other Thursday. They've been awesome.

Help for Kids Speech Homepage
Scottish Rite Masons Clinic for Children with Language Disorders
Munroe-Meyer Institute
985450 Nebraska Medical Center
Omaha, NE 68198-5450
Telephone: (402) 559-6460

When she was 18 months, she'd jabber away (saying nothing we could understand) and we couldn't wait until she could speak for real. When she was two, we still couldn't wait, and when she was three…and four. After countless trips to doctors and therapists and specialists and consults and exams and tests it was determined that Grace suffered from a developmental disorder called dysarthria. It didn't effect her brain or cognitive abilities at all, but her nerves and muscles were effected in that she'd less coordinated and lacks much of the fine motor control that other people take for granted. It hasn't slowed her down intellectually or academically, but obviously it's been a barrier socially because of the delay in her speech and bathroom controls (feel bad for her homeroom teachers).

We don't know why she has this. Ordinarily Apraxia and Dysarthria are things that happen to people who suffer strokes or Cerebral palsy. Our best guess is birth trauma. Grace was caught in the birth canal with her embilical chord wrapped around her neck. That's one reason we named her Grace- because it was a gift from God that she was even born.

She's taking dance & gymnastics again this Fall and that seems to help some. She also sees a special chiropractor in Spirit Lake usually once a month on Saturdays. We've been to Children's in Omaha and the Shriner's in Minneapolis. Someone suggested Mayo in Rochester, so that may be an avenue we pursue as well.

Today my wife called me to tell me that the muscular-neural specialist Doctor for the University of Iowa Children's Hospital of Iowa & the Iowa Children's Miricle Network. I'm not sure what all it is, but I understand that he's pretty important and that it's a pretty big deal to get him to take on her case.

Just thought I'd share this with you as an update for family and friends. Thank you for your prayers- keep them coming. And for anyone else on the web- maybe you stumbled on this page or were searching for something about dysarthria- I hope that the links on this posting can help you and your family.

The Middle East Untangled


The Middle East Untangled

Page 3 Charter Oak-Ute NEWSpaper & Schleswig Leader- Thursday, August 17, 2006

The most important thing to remember about the Middle East is to remember that it's not any ONE thing. It's LOTS of very different things. Too many supposed "experts" on TV "news" fail to differentiate between all these different and not always directly related, complicated things.
"Muslims" are followers of "Islam" (God's way). They believe that God, ("Allah"- that is "the One worthy to be praised" ) is this "Jehovah" of the original Jews, but that somehow they have gone terribly wrong. They believe that Allah's final and most important prophet was a guy by the name of "Mohammed."


I guess the mountain wouldn't come to him, so he went to it and they believe Allah gave him the last word in scripture, the Koran (sometimes spelled Qur'an).


There are 5 "pillars" believers must adhere to in this faith; 1) belief in only one (not triune) god and that Muhammad is his prophet, 2) daily prayer, 3) concern and giving charity for the poor, 4) self-purification through fasting, and 5) making a pilgrimage to the Kaaba in Mecca if you have the means. This is where they believe that Abraham built an altar with his son Ishmael. Whenever they pray, Muslims face the Kaaba, no matter where they are in the world.


But Islam is by no means uniform. First there's Sunnah ("the Muslim way of life") followed by Sunni Muslims. They have a second book besides the Koran, called the Hadith. In theory, this form of Islam is pacifist and they think of Mohammed and the Koran as absolutely inerrant only when it comes to theology, but not necessarily so for civil and cultural law. This is the biggest denomination in Islam, 80%. They think that Mohammed set up a council of "Imans", or leaders after his death.


Then there's Shi'a, practiced by Shiites, 20% if Muslims. They think that Muhammad's Koran is the absolute inerrant word of Allah on all topics. You might call them "Fundamentalist." They're much more militant. They believed that Mohammed appointed his cousin (who was also his sin-in-law) his sole successor.


But there is also "Ibadi" Islam, an even more conservative sect set up
50 years after Mohammed's death in Oman. And then there's Wahhabism. This is an extremist, fundamentalist sect of Sunnism. "Wahhabi" is a pretty funny sounding name, that's probably why they prefer to call themselves. "Salafist."


"Salaf" means "the earlier generations. They follow the teachings of their founder, Muhammad ibn al Wahhab. They believe that they are the ONLY true practitioners of Islam, not merely a sect. (Sounds like lots of Christians I know.) As you can imagine, they are going to hate Shiites like the Irish Protestants hate Irish Catholics. They are
going to resent mainstream Sunnis the way "born-again" fundamentalists think that main-line Christians are somehow lazy hypocrites.


Osama bin Laden and Alqueda, the perpetrators of the 911 attacks are Wahhabists. Bin Laden may be hiding out in either Afghanistan or Pakistan but he is from Saudi Arabia. They are predominantly Sunni, own lots of oil, have a royal family, NOT a democracy, and they're supposedly our allies. We gave bin Laden and other groups in Afghanistan tons of money and weapons in the 1980's to fight the Soviet Union.


Bin Laden loathed and hated Saddam Hussein, but not as much as America. Saddam Hussein is a non-religious Sunni. His Ba'athist party was nationalistic and fascist. It's ironic because Iraq isn't one nation. It's a bunch of nationalities pieced together first after WWI and then again after WWII. There are Sunnis, Shiahs, Kurds, Turks, a handful of Jews and Christians. All of whom pretty much hate each other. That may be why it's basically disintegrated into chaos. The poor majority of Iraqis were Shiite and had been persecuted by Hussein.


We gave Hussein tons of money and weapons in the '80's to fight Iran and so he'd like us more than the Soviet Union.

Muhamoud Ahmadinejad is the current President of Iran, who hates Iraq (they had a war in the '80's). Iran used to be one of our greatest allies in the Middle East until they had a revolution in 1979. Their Shah, or king, who violated lots of human rights and lived a pretty extravagant lifestyle at his subject's expense. We gave the Shah lots of money and weapons so he'd like us more than the Soviet Union.

You might remember their revolution was led by a the Ayatollah (supreme leader) Ruhollah Musavi Khomeini, who practiced a mystic version of Shi'a called Irfan- sort of like what Salafism is to Sunnism.


As you may have heard, Ahmadinejad wants nuclear power- we think he want's the bomb. (Pakistan and Israel both have the bomb. Pakistan and India hate each other, Iran pretty much hates Israel, but I'm not sure why, except that their Jews.) You also may remember that our President indelicately characterized Iran as part of an "Axis of Evil" in a speech a few years ago, along with North Korea two countries that have absolutely nothing to do with each other or with bin Laden or Alqueda.

Back in the '80's the Reagan Administration had Israel sell weapons to Iran for us and then we used the proceeds to fund a band of right-wing terrorists called the "Contras" in Nicaragua. Remember that one?

Lebanon used to be a pretty westernized, country just North of Israel. Last year they held these big protests to get rid of a President who supported a political movement called Hezbolah who are supported by Syria, which is just east of Israel and sort of West of Iran and Iraq. But their new President didn't bother to disarm Hezbolah or get them away from the Israeli border.Yes, "disarm." See Hezbollah is a political party and a paramilitary movement, kind of like "Sinn Fein" is the political version of the Irish Republican Army.

Hezbolah's Secretary General is a guy named Sheikh Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah. They like to mix politics and religion. They're Shiites and Hezbolah means "the party of God." (Sounds like "Conservative-Christians.") Anyway, they don't think Israel should
exist since it was pretty much created by the U.N. after WWII and they want Lebanese prisoners released by Israel. All the latest hubbub started when they kidnapped a couple of Israeli policemen.

Meanwhile, Israel had hoped to have peace with the Palestinians (Muslims who claim to have been displaced when Israel was created.) Unfortunately the political party called "the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO)" was replaced in democratic elections this past year by a party called "Hamas."

"Hamas" means "The Islamic Resistance Movement" Hamas are Sunni, so they hate Hezbollah for being Shi'a, but of course, they hate Israel more. Many Palestinian expatriates living in Saudi Arabia and Syria send their support to Hamas, who demand that Israel pull out of Gaza and the West Bank area along the Jordan river. With the PLO, Israel had been negotiating peaceful coexistence. Two nations in one place, so to speak.

So, it should be clear that it's not so clear. What is clear is that this is a time and a region that requires delicate diplomacy. I appreciate the desire to "take the battle to the terrorists," and that waiting for politicians and diplomats to work can be frustrating because it doesn't seem as satisfyingly clear and concrete as firm military action- but it just seems to be part of a cycle of counter production.

Middle Easterners (regardless of whether they're Muslim or not or which strain of Islam) resent America for our decadence or for our meddling in everybody else's affairs (playing policeman to the world) or because of our influence over their oil. But they aren't necessarily out to take over the world and attack all Jews and Christians. They
disagree with, resent, and even hate each other too much to cooperate that much.

We still haven't caught bin Laden, five years after the first 9/11 attacks and we've strained our military and resources (not to mention American and Iraqi lives) on an unnecessary invasion of Iraq- that had nothing to do with Alqueda or 9/11.

Israel's reaction to Hezbollah may have been excessive, but this doesn't have to become WWIII. When something similar happened in the '90's, President Clinton called up the President of Syria and asked him to get Hezbollah to back off and they did.

The "War on Terror" was supposed to be taking out Alqueda, not taking on every last group that uses terrorist tactics, not an excuse to try to recreate an entire region the way we'd like it and certainly not an excuse to chip away at our own Constitutional rights and freedoms.

Maybe it's time we remembered that. Who knows, maybe if we did, it might even have a positive effect on fuel prices. It's hard to sort out, but it's important to try, because thinking is the only way to solve problems instead of making them worse.

Thursday, August 10, 2006

Disorientation Meeting

(in case you hadn't noticed, the political cartoons and the columns rarely have anything to do with one another except that they appear in the same paper on the same days. Click on this cartoon to read more about Iowa's 5th District nut-case, Steve King. Or, if you are a wealthy publisher who'd like to syndicate my comics or columns thus making me fabulously rich and famous beyond my wildest dreams, please email me right away. Thank you)

Disorientation Meeting

Charter Oak-Ute NEWSpaper — Schleswig Leader,
Thursday, August 10, 2006 – Page 3

“Doh!!” I said to my self, sounding just like Homer Simpson when I remembered what I had forgotten. I had forgotten to remember that I had a meeting to attend. The adrenaline rushed into my bloodstream. Did I miss it, was it this morning already? What if I did miss it, will I be reprimanded? What will the repercussions be?

My anxiety eased, “wait a minute…” I reassured myself. That wasn’t on a Tuesday, it was on a Wednesday- so even if it is this week, I’m pretty sure it’s tomorrow, not this morning. Sure enough, I looked at the calendar in my DayRunner and the meeting was 9-Noon, but it wasn’t Tuesday the 1st. “Whew.”

It’s not always easy being a scatter-brain. I’m not sure what else to call myself. I’ve never been formally diagnosed with Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD). As a teacher I’m faced with students every year with ADHA (Attention Deficit & HYPERACTIVITY Disorder) some diagnosed, some not, some treated, some not. I’m definitely not ADHD, even with enough coffee. At worst I may have ADLD (Attention Deficit LETHARGY Disorder- I just made that one up). Whatever you call it, I can remember every Vice President since the Eisenhower administration, but I can’t remember the names of people I live next door to or work everyday for years. I certainly can’t keep track of meetings scheduled months in advance.

I tried reading a book on ADD once, but I couldn’t finish it. (that’s a joke, in case you missed it). After a few years of teaching I did try reading Steven Covey’s “7 Habits of Highly Effective People.” I’d like to think it made me more effective, but it certainly didn’t make me any more efficient, or attentive, focused, organized, linear, proactive, punctual, handy, mechanically inclined… or anything else my wife needed.

Finally we decided I should get organized. That’s when I bought a DayRunner. Only here’s the thing. An organizer is only as organized as the organizer who’d organizing it. So my organizer has my scribbles all over it and is constantly filled with a variety of scraps of paper from Post-It notes to gas receipts. I don’t know what day anything because I’ve got the calendar that came with it, plus a school sports calendar, plus the school-year calendars from Boyer Valley, where I teach, Maple Valley, where my wife teaches, and Charter Oak-Ute, where my kids attend.

It’s got loads of addresses and phone numbers for people I never call or write. It would probably get a lot less beat-up if I only kept things I actually used in my organizer, but then I might not even keep an organizer if I did that. You see, in order to remember things, you have to remember to refer to your organizer. For that matter, you have to remember where you left your organizer. Too often, I’m just not organized enough to be able to keep track of my organizer.

My wife as an electronic organizer. I figure, spending money on a Palm-Pilot or other such PDA would be like buying expensive sunglasses for me. Why pay more than $15 on something that you’re probably going to lose, sit on and break, or drop in a lake? That’s why I look for the $6 pair of sunglasses whenever I can. That way, when the baby bends the frames playing dress-up with her big sisters, I’m only out six bucks. By the way, a PDA is a Personal Data Organizer- I know, how do they get “PDA” out of “PDO?” I don’t know either.

Back to my story. Once I calmed down, I simply planned on attending this meeting. Here’s where it got complicated. I looked all through my briefcase and couldn’t find the email that I had printed out with the specifics. It was to be an orientation for teachers who will be offering dual-credit courses through Iowa Western Community College. Avid readers may remember that I took a course at IWCC in web page design, which Boyer Valley hopes to have me teach to kids.

I couldn’t find the memo anywhere. My anxiety again began to mount. No problem, I thought, I’ll just open the original email message and print it off again. This was about ten-till five in the afternoon. Nope, not in recent messages… hmm… okay, how about “sent” messages, maybe I replied to the email, just to say “thanks, I got it.”

Nope…hmmmm…okay, how about the “trash,” I never empty my trash, just incase I need to un-delete a message that I had mistakenly deleted. Mmmmm-nope. 30 days worth of things I read or deleted without reading, but no original from IWCC.

Okay, okay, this is okay, I knew it was 9-Noon, I’d just try to get there about 8:30 so I could ask around for what building and what room. Okay, problem solved.

So I barely sleep that night.

Once down to the college I try three different offices and two lecture halls in two buildings before somebody figures out that my meeting is Tuesday, August 8th, not Wednesday, August 2nd. That can’t be right, I open my DayRunner to prove that I wrote it down correctly on my calendar, I am ORGANIZED, after all.

And sure enough, Tues, Aug 8.

I didn’t want it to be a complete waste of a trip. So I sat down and wrote this column about it.

Wednesday, August 09, 2006

It's all happening at the zoo

Something tells me
It's all happening at the zoo.
I do believe it,
I do believe it's true.

Mmmmm. Mmmmm. Whoooa. Mmmmm.

The monkeys stand for honesty,
Giraffes are insincere,
And the elephants are kindly but
They're dumb.
Orangutans are skeptical
Of changes in their cages,
And the zookeeper is very fond of rum.

Zebras are reactionaries,
Antelopes are missionaries,
Pigeons plot in secrecy,
And hamsters turn on frequently.
What a gas! You gotta come and see


Took the family to the Henry Doorly yesterday. All I posted on my Art blog was pictures of plants. So I thought I should prove that I actually take pictures of my family by posting these. That way I can also prove that this blog can be personal- it's not just for my column and cartoons only.

They were cleaning out the shark aquarium when we went through, so we got to watch a sea turtle attack some zoo personel in their S.U.B.A gear.

Exotic plants and animals from all 7 continents, the world's largest indoor jungle, penguins, a giant geodesic "desert dome," and they're fascinated by the trash in a tree planter outside the front gate! Whatchyagonnado?

Nothing runs like a Deer(e)

Here's one of my cartoons that accompanied a column in the Charter Oak-Ute NEWSpaper a couple of weeks ago. I just noticed that WildArt was starting to get a little photo-heavy and I wanted to remind you that I can draw and paint and do graphic design too.
Thanks for visiting web-surfers!

jungle lush

I LOVE this picture that I took at the zoo. I made it my desktop wallpaper on my computer. Feel free to do the same if you like it.

More from the zoo




There's the Lied Jungle, the penguins and sharks, the Desert Dome (that most of these shots are from), and the new Orangatang and Gorilla habitats. Amazing place. I may sound like a commercial, but you owe it to yourself to visit the Henry Doorly Zoo in Omaha.

Something tells me, it's all happing at the zoo




The Henry Doorly Zoo in Omaha not only has animals to rival even the San Diego Zoo, it also has plants to rival any botanical garden in the world. Here, and in the next couple of posts are some shots I took yesterday on our family outing.

Monday, August 07, 2006

Foul weather friends


Geese and ducks on the pond in Ida Grove, Iowa

Friday, August 04, 2006

This hat would make me look so "BUFF"


Hey, anybody want to do some early Chrsitmas shopping for me? Here's a hat from the new chain of lunch joints started by one-time CNN mogul Ted Turner. What a great name! Plus he likes bison, bison rock, I mean, buffalo are the way to go.

Buy me a hat:
http://www.tedsmontanagrill.com/store_item_khakicap.php

Thursday, August 03, 2006

Girl Talk


Girl Talk

Charter Oak-Ute NEWSpaper/Scheswig Leader Thursday, August 3, 2006

More than most men, I’ve had to build up my filters, almost an immunity, you might say to young-female verbal expression. Don’t get me wrong, I hope I’m not more chauvinistic, but I imagine I’m not less so than other guys. But either way I end up having to hear a lot more of it than other guys.

For those of you who didn’t know it or don’t remember, I- straight, middle aged, all American regular guy coach both middle school and high school cheerleading. And I have for about 12 years. But more meaningful than that, for about half those years I’ve listened to my own little girls.

Having daughters has always meant having pink clothes and Barbie dolls, but this summer we painted their rooms. Now their mom assures me that Ellen’s room is magenta and Grace’s room is lavender, but even with a college degree in Art they both look pink to me. One’s a reddish pink and one’s a purplish pink. All I know is that back when there was only one of them, I had a room with my junk where I could watch baseball, now half my house is pink.

But it’s the talk that confounds me more than their taste in décor. Teenagers will talk about boys, their parents, music, clothes, make-up, each other, you get the idea. My girls are 18 months, 4 and 7. They don’t always have the best luck communicating with each other, let alone with we adults.

Grace, our oldest is finally emerging as a conversationalist. When she was 18 months, she’d jabber away (saying nothing we could understand) and we couldn’t wait until she could speak for real. When she was two, we couldn’t wait, and when she was three…and four. After countless trips to doctors and therapists and specialists and consults and exams and tests it was determined that Grace suffered from a developmental disorder called dysarthria. It didn’t effect her brain at all, but her nerves and muscles were effected in that she’d less coordinated and lacks much of the fine motor control that other people take for granted. It hasn’t slowed her down intellectually or academically, but obviously it’s been a barrier socially. But time, speech therapy and practice have all helped her make great strides in communicating. Maybe more than we bargained for.

I always anticipated sighs and complaints from my kids once they reached adolescence. In fact that’s one of the most frightening things that students and cheerleaders can say to you- “Mr. Mallory, what will you do if your kids turn out like us?” But, I had no idea that Grace would start talking like a teenager before she even hit second grade.

I don’t know how many times she’s said to me, exacerbated, “Da-a-ad, don’t worry,” or “I know Da-a-ad, I KNOW.” I don’t know when my one-syllable nickname turned into a three or four syllable complaint. Then there’s, “You TOLD me already.”

Worst of all is this one- “I just want my privacy!”

Ellen, our 4 year old pretty much has only two speeds, high and off. That goes for her mouth too. She makes up lyrics to her own songs. In fact, she recently announced to me that she wants to be a country music singer like the ones on CMT. I’m sure glad we don’t have MTV on our cable system.

This middle-child is the one who serves us up the “but everyone else gets to,” and “I NEVER get to have any fun,” and the every popular “I hate this dinner.”

But we did get a big kick out of her after we’d redecorated in pink. She said to her mom, “Mom, do you know what I love?…” what honey?… “MY ROOM!”

Anyone who’s had two daughters knows that the talking never ends and occasionally can get pretty heated. “Fine, I’m just not going to play with you anymore, and I’m not going to be your sister anymore!” “Fine! And I’m never going to play with you again and I’m going to run away so I never have to see you again!” So? Fine! Fine! Go AWAY! FINE, I will! Fine, just leave me alone!

Pretty soon these sort of exchanges leads to this “Da-a-ad, she’s bugging me, Da-a-ad, she won’t leave me alone, Da-a-ad she says she gets to ride the but to our game, but she’d not on the team ‘cause she’s too little and we don’t even ride a bus, but she won’t listen to me and she won’t go out of my room and I told her to just leave me alone!!!” Etc. Etc.

Occasionally I’m not the only one syllable name to get stretched- “Mo-o-om, can you help me?”

“Your Mom’s on the phone with someone honey, can I help you? What do you need?”

“Not you Dad, I sa-a-id Mo-o-om, I want Mo-o-om.”

So far Annamarie, the baby hasn’t been drawn into any verbal scraps yet with the other two. In fact, so far the word she seems to use most is “this.” Sometimes “this” means, “can I have this?” or “I want this” or “can you open this?” or “do YOU want some of this?” It’s pretty interesting. Some people think of me as a writer and I’m not even sure what part of speech “this” is. Is “this” a preposition? Seems like it’s sort of like a noun.

Her first word, I’m proud to say was “Dad,” but of course at the time “Dad” referred not necessarily to me but to anything that is now “this.” Last night she was calling me “Mom.” She’s at that stage where once in a while we’ll SWEAR she said something but we aren’t sure, of course, she’s too independent to repeat anything like some trained bird doing tricks, so we can never confirm anything we think she’s said.

Just the other day I could’ve SWORE she said “Why did they send that Neanderthal Bolton to the UN when he doesn’t even believe in the legitimacy of the institution and we’re in such precarious times that require sophisticated diplomacy more than ever?”

Okay, you’re right, I made that up. It was more like her Grandma thought she pointed to the door and said “go outside, please?”

But I definitely KNOW that whenever I have any ice cream she walks up to me and clearly asks “some? Some?”

Tuesday, August 01, 2006

Lebenon? Syria? Iran? N.Korea?

Yeah, it's been a long hot summer, but do you feel a DRAFT coming on?