Ms. N-- may have to take an extended leave for surgery in late May until June, so she asked me if I'd be able to sub for her class. I said I should be able to, but she should check with me again first week of May. Not sure if I could handle the class though, though at least JM won't be going to a different classroom to see me. But there's R, who apparently kneed G in the privates today. One of the other kids told me about it at lunch, and I talked to R and reminded G to tell Ms. N--. Still... the other day R said his mom was going to take him to a strip club. How the heck does a 2nd grader know about such things, and was he really just reporting what his mom said?

CEB was pretending to be a mean girl today--this week she's been telling me that she's been bad and should be benched. Hilarious. She's probably one of the more quiet and hard-working students in her class. (Though she does talk to her friend who sits right next to her from time to time. NOT PERFECT! j/k) It's nice to bring up church and Christ with her when the opportunity presents itself. I'll have to ask her which parish she goes to.

After school, there was a faculty meeting. The secretary asked me this morning if I'd like to go, since I'll be with the class for a while. The purpose of the meeting was to introduce some new equipment for adaptive PE--the replacement for the stegle (sp?). I remember using the stegle back when I was in elementary school--it had ladders, balance beams, a ramp, and some stands/pillars(?) to hang everything on. The new equipment isn't as elaborate--I don't think the ladder could be transformed into a set of monkey bars, for example.

I think about 1/2 the teachers showed up today. During the meeting a petition protesting the new state budget was circulating. Since I'm not a member of the CTA, I didn't sign. They were also collecting votes for the (CTA) State Council. I do think the the Governator's proposed budget is wrong-headed; but I don't think I'd want to be associated with a teacher's union, even if I were to become a teacher at a public school. (Unlikely.) My guess is that there are a lot of Clinton and Obama supporters at the school. I'd be surprised actually if there were any McCain supporters or 'conservative' independents. Both the blonde schoolteacher and another (blonde) teacher (6th grade, iirc) were in attendance. When I was subbing for the latter's class she had a copy of Naomi Wolf's The End of America. While there are some things in that book a paleo- or traditional conservative would agree with (PCR's Goodbye to All That), still the differences are great.



Naomi Wolf: Fascist America, in 10 easy steps | World news | The ...
Colbert: Naomi Wolf and Fascism in America

(See Daniel Larison's response to Ms. Wolf: Larison's Guide to Anti-Fascism)

I found this website while looking for paleo commentary on Wolf's book: Republican Renaissance

Some have commented on how the U.S., like the U.K., no longer has a conservative political party. (Peter Hitchens made this point again recently, with respect to the U.K.) I do not have much hope for the National Government, or the national political parties. There may be a chance for independent parties to flourish at the local level in certain places, but I think the local Republican party, with its ties to (and dependency upon) both the elites and the national party, is probably lost to reform as well. Tom McClintock is known as a libertarian, but what are his positions on the Constitution and decentralization? What is his view of Ron Paul? Looking at his website for his run for the U.S. Congress, I am not that impressed, though the position statements are very terse. What would the LRC make of McClintock, especially given what he says about military spending?

Improving our national defense

We need to fully fund our nation’s military in order to protect our nation from any threat in the world. Reagan’s idea of “peace through strength” is an idea we need to return to.

So what are our options? At least the LoS has The Grey Book. (Surprise--the hardcover edition from 2004 is available for preview at Google Books.) There doesn't seem like much can be done for political and social reform in California, at least not at this moment. All one can do here (and in many other places), is to build up strong enclaves of Faith and tradition, and to cooperate with other groups that have similar goals with respect to relocalization/decentralization and sustainability, no?