The Krait (the other half of the NY Fishwrap's distaff Op-Ed columnists with Maureen "The Cobra" Dowd) aka Gail Collins wrote a column today with a title that was a take on Richard Linklater's 2003 film, "School of Rock." That reference stirred this blogger's fading memory to the original school(s) of rock (actually two elementary schools in rural British Columbia) and the incredible impact a rock musician (a new elementary school music teacher by way of financial necessity) brought to those two schools. The Krait mocks the unlimited stupidity of the Dumbos/Teabaggers who want to arm every man, woman, and child in the Land O'The Dumb and the Home O'The Dumber to create a free-fire zone on every corner of the land. The best idea of all is the suspension of the prohibition of firearms on college campuses so that students can go "Dirty Harry" with any shooter on a rampage. If concealed weapons had been permitted at the Collegium Excellens before 2004, this blogger probably would have left a trail of SpaghettiOs® on the classroom wall. In the meantime, to clear your mind of that image, dear reader, consider a more positive classroom presence.
[x YouTube/VH1 Channel]
Langley Schools Music Project - Part 1
Documentary of music school teacher working with grade school kids in the 1970's covering classic rock songs.
Langley Schools Music Project - Part 2
Elementry School Music teacher records students singing classic rock songs in the 1970's to vinyl. Later made to a CD: "Innocence & Despair", 2001 (Compilation of previous 2 LPs, recorded 1976-77) 1.Venus and Mars/Rock Show 2.Good Vibrations (The Beach Boys) 3.God Only Knows (The Beach Boys) 4.Space Oddity (David Bowie) 5.The Long and Winding Road (The Beatles) 6.Band on the Run (Paul McCartney & Wings) 7.I'm Into Something Good (Herman's Hermits) 8.In My Room (The Beach Boys) 9.Saturday Night (Bay City Rollers) 10.I Get Around (The Beach Boys) 11.Mandy (Barry Manilow) 12.Help Me, Rhonda (The Beach Boys) 13.Desperado (The Eagles) 14.You're So Good To Me (The Beach Boys) 15.Sweet Caroline (Neil Diamond) 16.To Know Him Is To Love Him (Teddy Bears) 17.Rhiannon (Fleetwood Mac) 18.You're Sixteen (Ringo Starr) 19.Little Deuce Coupe (The Beach Boys) 20.Wildfire (Michael Martin Murphey) 21.Calling Occupants of Interplanetary Craft (Klaatu)
Langley Schools Music Project - Part 3
Hans Fenger Quote: "I knew virtually nothing about conventional music education, and didn't know how to teach singing. Above all, I knew nothing of what children's music was supposed to be. But the kids had a grasp of what they liked: emotion, drama, and making music as a group. Whether the results were good, bad, in tune or out was no big deal — they had a good time."
No Glocks; Guitars only. Rock on, Krait. If this is a (fair & balanced) appeal for sanity, so be it.
[x NY Fishwrap]
School Of Glock
By Gail Collins
Tag Cloud of the following article
It’s been nearly nine weeks since that tragic shooting in Tucson, and you may be wondering whether there’s been any gun legislation proposed in the aftermath.
Well, in Florida, a state representative has introduced a bill that would impose fines of up to $5 million on any doctor who asks a patient whether he or she owns a gun. This is certainly a new and interesting concept, but I don’t think we can classify it as a response to Tucson. Jason Brodeur, the Republican who thought it up, says it’s a response to the health care reform act.
A sizable chunk of this country seems to feel as though there is nothing so secure that it can’t be endangered by Obamacare. It’s only a matter of time before somebody discovers that giving everyone access to health insurance poses a terrible threat to the armed forces, or the soybean crop, or poodles.
Brodeur’s is one of many, many gun bills floating around state legislatures these days. Virtually all of them seem to be based on the proposition that one of the really big problems we have in this country is a lack of weaponry. His nightmare scenario is that thanks to the “overreaching federal government,” insurance companies would learn who has guns from the doctors and use the information to raise the owners’ rates.
However, it turns out that the health care law has a provision that specifically prohibits insurers from reducing any coverage or benefits because of gun ownership. A St. Petersburg Times reporter, Aaron Sharockman, looked this up. I had no idea, did you? Apparently Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid himself stuck this in to make the gun-lobby folks happy.
Which they really aren’t. The gun lobby will never be happy, unless the health care law specifically requires every American to have a pistol on his or her person at all times.
Great idea! thought State Representative Hal Wick of South Dakota, who tossed in a bill this year requiring every adult citizen to purchase a gun. Actually, even Wick admitted this one wasn’t going anywhere. It was mainly a symbolic protest against the you-know-what law.
Actual responses to the Tucson shooting — that is, something that might actually stop similar tragedies in the future or reduce the carnage — seem to be limited to a proposal in Congress to ban the sale of the kind of ammunition clip that allowed the gunman to fire 31 shots in 15 seconds. That bill is stalled at the gate. Perhaps Congress has been too busy repeatedly voting on bills to repeal the health care law to think about anything else. But, so far, the gun-clip ban has zero Republican supporters, which is a problem given the matter of the Republicans being in the House majority.
Meanwhile in the states, legislation to get more guns in more places (public libraries, college campuses) is getting a more enthusiastic reception.
The nation’s state legislators seem to be troubled by a shortage of things they can do to make the National Rifle Association happy. Once you’ve voted to allow people to carry guns into bars (Georgia), eliminated the need for getting a permit to carry a concealed weapon (Arizona) and designated your own official state gun (Utah — awaiting the governor’s signature), it gets hard to come up with new ideas.
This may be why so many states are now considering laws that would prohibit colleges and universities from barring guns on campus.
“It’s about people having the right to personal protection,” said Daniel Crocker, the southwest regional director for Students for Concealed Carry on Campus.
Concealed Carry on Campus is a national organization of students dedicated to opening up schools to more weaponry. Every spring it holds a national Empty Holster Protest “symbolizing that disarming all law-abiding citizens creates defense-free zones, which are attractive targets for criminals.”
And you thought the youth of America had lost its idealism. Hang your head.
The core of the great national gun divide comes down to this: On one side, people’s sense of public safety goes up as the number of guns goes down; the other side responds to every gun tragedy by reflecting that this might have been averted if only more legally armed citizens had been on the scene.
I am on the first side simply because I believe that in a time of crisis, there is no such thing as a good shot.
“Police, on average, for every 10 rounds fired, I think, actually strike something once or twice, and they are highly trained,” said Bill Bratton, the former New York City police commissioner.
Concealed Carry on Campus envisions a female student being saved from an armed assailant by a freshman with a concealed weapon permit. I see a well-intentioned kid with a pistol trying to intervene in a scary situation and accidentally shooting the victim.
And, somehow, it’ll all turn out to be the health care reform law’s fault. Ω
[Gail Collins joined the New York Times in 1995 as a member of the editorial board and later as an op-ed columnist. In 2001 she became the first woman ever appointed editor of the Times editorial page. At the beginning of 2007, she stepped down and began a leave in order to finish a sequel to her book, America's Women: 400 Years of Dolls, Drudges, Helpmates and Heroines. Collins returned to The Times as a columnist in July 2007. Besides America's Women, which was published in 2003, Ms. Collins is the author of Scorpion Tongues: Gossip, Celebrity and American Politics, and The Millennium Book, which she co-authored with her husband, Dan Collins. Her new book is about American women since 1960. Collins has an undergraduate degree in journalism from Marquette University and an M.A. in government from the University of Massachusetts-Amherst.]
Copyright © 2011 The New York Times Company
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Sapper's (Fair & Balanced) Rants & Raves by Neil Sapper is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License. Based on a work at sapper.blogspot.com. Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available here.
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