UCLA.
Keep on coming.
Just a short note: It is only the 23rd and as of today I have had more readers than in any other month.
Movie review: Chop Shop.
We went to see Chop Shop last night. It is a small indie with a story line that is a little thin, but a film that moves you just the same. Ali (short for Alejandro) and Izzy (short for Isamar) are brother and sister in the area of Queens that sits across the expressway from Shea Stadium and the US Tennis Center.
Were it not for the Manhattan skyline that appears for a few seconds on screen, you would think it was a village in the third world.
Ali, who has never gone to school but has amazing street smarts, scratches out a living working for a body shop (and lives in a room upstairs), selling candy on the train and popping hub caps off of cars in the Shea parking lots. Izzy sells food off of a food truck and makes some money in trade for sex on the side.
They have a dream to buy their own food truck. There is no Hollywood ending.
Sunday links.
And occasionally it finds voice in the church on Sunday morning, in the pulpit and in the pews. The fact that so many people are surprised to hear that anger in some of Reverend Wright’s sermons simply reminds us of the old truism that the most segregated hour in American life occurs on Sunday morning. That anger is not always productive; indeed, all too often it distracts attention from solving real problems; it keeps us from squarely facing our own complicity in our condition, and prevents the African-American community from forging the alliances it needs to bring about real change. But the anger is real; it is powerful; and to simply wish it away, to condemn it without understanding its roots, only serves to widen the chasm of misunderstanding that exists between the races. Barack Obama
Mr. McCain’s calamitous behavior was relegated to sideshow status by many, if not most, news media. At a time of serious peril for America, the G.O.P.’s presumptive presidential nominee revealed himself to be alarmingly out of touch on both of the most pressing issues roiling the country. Frank Rich
Last week in the classroom, I started dreading the idea of the two worst words for any regular teacher in this country: test prep. I hate it because it’s a contrived barometer of what they’ve truly learned, and en masse, becomes the data for metrics used to evaluate student progress, teacher competency, school preparedness, and demographic success rates. Unfortunately, only the people on the bottom of the totem pole ever address the malleability of these tests; they change at the behest of the emperor’s needs and not actually creating a standard for what certain grade levels should learn at any given part of their academic careers. Jose Vilson
In following news coverage about charter schools around the state, I’ve seen many, many articles about situations like this: charter school demands space; school district has no choice but to come up with some; existing school (somehow always one serving low-income minorities) protests the disruption of having to share space with a second school. San Francisco Schools
So John McCain is a little fahrblunget on the concept of Purim. So was the Talbot’s-clad lady in front of me at the deli bakery in Bethesda, who said to her friend, “Ooh look, they have the hamantaschen.” Her Lilly Pulitzer-wearing friend asked, “What are those?” “Poppy-seed pastries. It’s German. They make them for Easter.” Jonathan Kulick
