Blogging, School Boarding, and History Reading are all taking a momentary backseat to summer homework as in painting my home’s trim. I have probably spent thirty hours on ladders scraping and painting so far and am probably about 40% done. I don’t plan to do it all this summer. I got the front and back done a few years ago so I’m mostly working on the sides of the house where old paint had/has begun to flake off. I’ve also put in ten hours painting our church’s parlor. My plan is to get these tedious tasks out of the way in this cooler part of the summer so I can attend to the other stuff as things heat up.
I also have a way of adding interesting projects to my to do list. Yesterday I read the Trib’s account of an author trying to tempt Hollywood into producing a movie based on his screenplay of Duluth’s infamous Lynching. Its a subject I’ve commented on previously. Today he plans to have folks audition for a “teaser” movie of a pivotal scene to take to potential investors. I gave him a call and plan on heading over to read for a part. I’d take a non speaking role gladly. I’ll have to start painting soon before the sun gets too high to finish today’s portion. It may rain tomorrow so I want to cover bare wood with a first coat while it is clement.
I have put a stub of a blog post preceding this one. (I do that when time is short to force myself to write about stuff. It doesn’t always work. I did it a couple weeks ago and still haven’t returned to four such stubs. If I ever get them finished I’ll make a note of it in future posts with links to the finished product.) “Ouropia” will include two emails taking issue with me when I say the Red Plan didn’t cause all our problems. I don’t view the replies as a contradiction so much as part of a more nuanced picture of where ISD 709 stands. I’d hate to have us elect a Donald Trump-like school board based on nonsense much as Britain has voted itself out of the European Union based on pie in the sky promises which are all being retracted now after the damage has been done. No one has a monopoly on the Truth. I noticed the “cogent” letter written by Greg Sandbulte and commented on by me was challenged by a Mr. Jim Lyttle. I do agree with one line from Mr. Lyttle when he says:
“When the teachers’ union stops being defensive and starts to understand the real answers to that question, all of the children of Duluth will benefit.”
I would enlarge the circle to say that the defensiveness can be found in the School Board, some elements of our school administration, and some folks who have been embarrassed that the Red Plan has proven not to be a panacea for all our District’s ills.
Yesterday a little bit of my Israel trip came back to me which a quick review of my blog’s search engine revealed I had not mentioned previously. That was my obligatory visit to Yad Vashem, Israel’s holocaust memorial. I bought three books after touring the memorial. They were all published by Yad Vashem and are not generally available outside of its premises or website. One was a book written by Otto Weiss, And God Saw That It Was Bad. I’m a sucker for books that seem to be aimed at children by authors and illustrators who endured terrible historic events. This book was written in the concentration camp at the Terezin Ghetto. It was used by the Nazi’s as a Potemkin Village to fool the world into thinking Jews were treated humanely. The book makes clear it was hardly that. Weiss wrote the book as a gift to his wife and its story was illustrated by his daughter another guest of the Nazis. As the Title makes clear it was bad at Terezin when God pays it a visit.
I didn’t bring the book back with me because one of our peacemakers on the tour had lost family members at Terezin. After I read it I gave it to her as a remembrance before returning to Minnesota. A couple weeks ago I went online and ordered anothe copy. It has joined the books Maus 1 and 2.
