It's not the test, guys. It's the people taking the test. It's time to look a little deeper for the reasons that black and white applicants don't score in racially equal porportion on job application tests. Maybe the NEA needs to look at their fight against charter schools and vouchers which help the minority communities gain a better education. Maybe the problem goes a little bit deeper than a test. Are we testing the individuals or the test? Is this test, which has been "scrubbed" clean of all/any raciality, what we will base our quotas on? Evidently so, according to the New Haven city board. Nothing seems to matter to them except the outside of a person.
Are you too fat? Are you disabled? Is your skin black or brown? No, no--don't tell me what you know. That will confuse the issue. I just need to look at you to determine whether you are fit to hold a position of authority in our fire department. Don't open your mouth to say you don't have the knowledge to run the computer on the truck, or to gauge quickly the stability of a burning building so you can either send men into it--or not. I don't want to know these things. I just want to see your outsides. That will tell me immediately whether you are able to hold the position.
New Haven, just admit that you don't care about qualifications of intelligence, knowledge, wisdom, experience. All you want is to avoid the racial discrimination lawsuits. Bring on the lawsuits that come after the burning building has fallen on the six firefighters your fat/black/brown/disabled lieutenant sent into it. Bring them on, you are saying. Call us accessories to murder, but don't ever, ever call us racists.
Thursday, April 23, 2009
Wednesday, April 22, 2009
Bird Feeder Therapy
Two Curve-billed thrashers at the new birdfeeder yesterday afternoon while Barbara and I were eating our lunch. I don't think I've ever seen one, but my mother knew right away by my scant description--long curved beak. I got the bird book and asked her why not a Crissal's. She said they're not nearly as common, and it's a bit northerly for them.
My mother is a widow of 14 months. Fifty years of her life she spent watching, listening to, banding, studying birds--with my dad. When I got here to Silver City, she told me she has no interest in birds anymore. But all that knowledge is in her head, and she can't help it. The first bird to our new feeder was a plain titmouse. I hurried back to her room to tell her, and she said, "How exciting!" She can't help it. Though she has told me she doesn't get excited about anything anymore, she just can't help it because she is naturally a cheery person. Every bone in her body, and nerve and muscle, is filled with optimism. She had a "flat morning" the other day, but it wasn't an hour before she was back on her emotional feet. My mother is 92. She was married to my dad for nearly 65 years at his death. Half of her is gone. But she can't help being happy and optimistic and positive even so.
What an example she is to me--to us all.
My mother is a widow of 14 months. Fifty years of her life she spent watching, listening to, banding, studying birds--with my dad. When I got here to Silver City, she told me she has no interest in birds anymore. But all that knowledge is in her head, and she can't help it. The first bird to our new feeder was a plain titmouse. I hurried back to her room to tell her, and she said, "How exciting!" She can't help it. Though she has told me she doesn't get excited about anything anymore, she just can't help it because she is naturally a cheery person. Every bone in her body, and nerve and muscle, is filled with optimism. She had a "flat morning" the other day, but it wasn't an hour before she was back on her emotional feet. My mother is 92. She was married to my dad for nearly 65 years at his death. Half of her is gone. But she can't help being happy and optimistic and positive even so.
What an example she is to me--to us all.
Tuesday, April 21, 2009
Hey--free thoughts, dummy!
I didn't think it would be so difficult to choose a name for a blog no one really cares about except maybe me. But I guess it is/was, as I have now created two blogs and deleted one. I find that one shouldn't create a blog name in the evening just to cross "create blog" off the list before bed. I find again that one shouldn't create a blog in the morning while walking (at least after age 60) as one will have forgotten it by the time one gets back home. I find that today I just want to get it done and started, so I have named my 2nd new blog Free Thoughts. Kind of cheesy, but if I wait for the right moment to sit and think about just the right blog name, I may never start one. Here I am. Online, blogging. Slogging through a first blogging session. Logging a blogging so I can say I did. I may need a nog to help me through this blog. Or a better noggin for bloggin'. I wonder if a blah blog is read. I wonder if a blog in Australia is a bloggie--like football is footie and school kids are schoolies. Maybe an Australian will read this and let me know.
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