The Blackbird Chronicles

You've Seen This Before ...

But this time, it's been sped up and remixed to some horrible do-si-do song!

They should really teach people how to park a car when they take drivers' ed. Seriously.

Teaching Information Literacy

It's pretty fascinating to me how the job of librarians - particularly public librarians and, in the fascinating case of this article, school librarians - has changed so dramatically over the past decade or so. What these teachers are doing is unique from everything else taught in school, and in my opinion could potentially be more useful to many of these students than anything else they may learn while they are there. Three cheers for librarians!!!

We're Off to Málaga!

We'll be eating Andalucian food and attempting to salsa this upcoming weekend! Pictures will go up when we return ...

Latest German Pop Obsession

Clueso (think Inspector Clouseau, ha, it's a pun, get it?) is one of relatively few German pop stars who write and perform songs in German that I actually like. I can't help but find him sort of endearing in a gangly, over-energetic, kid-who-never-quite-grew-into-the-size-of-his-own-jaw sort of way, plus his lyrics tend towards the thoughtful and introspective end of the pop spectrum, which I think is kind of nice. He's also become one of my de facto German "teachers" of late. I just translated this song for my own edification: enjoy.

Oh, the Tribulations of the Disgustingly Wealthy!

This wretched piece in today's NY Times does nothing to make me feel sympathetic for those whose privileged lives have gone all topsy-turvy in the wake of the world's financial implosion. I can't really perceive the tone here, but I'm going to do a bit of a re-estimation here just for giggles.

The article estimates a $500,000 salary-earner's weekly (yes, WEEKLY) take-home pay at $5,180. However, this estimate explicitly does NOT include:

• Any non-mandatory deductions or tax-deferred contributions to health savings plans;
• IRA's or 401k's, or whatever financial vehicle the massively rich use to make sure they will be well kept in caviar and tapioca well past their 200th birthdays, because I sure as heck don't have any reason to know what kind of pension plan a person in this income bracket would choose to invest in;
• Tax shelters of any kind that will retroactively reduce the amount of taxable income these people can legally report at the end of any given tax year, bullish or bearish alike;
• Capital gains (only 5% tax on that, just about the best deal our government has to offer!);
• Non-wage compensation of the sort folk in the upwards-of-half-a-million crowd tend to accumulate, most of which goes virtually untaxed and spends most of its useful life either sunk into real estate or buoying up the banking industries of Switzerland, Aruba, and the Cayman Islands.

Moving on: expenses mentioned for this golden crowd include completely inflexible necessities such as:

• At least two vacations a year, one in the spring and one to the ski slopes in the winter, estimated at a "minimum" cost of $16,000;
• A "modest" 3-bedroom apartment with a sticker price of $1.5 million ("not even the top of the market!" the article gushes) and a monthly co-op payment equal to the $8,000 mortgage payment;
• A personal trainer for the inevitable Stepford wife that comes in at approximately $12,000 a year;
• At least 3 size-2 designer cocktail dresses for the aforementioned Stepford wife at about $35,000 per year;
• Two kids in private school at $64,000 a year;
• A nanny at $45,000 per year (hope they're paying taxes on that, lest they aspire to Daschle-style meltdown when the public sector calls);
• Blah, blah, whinycakes. Really, it's not worth paying any more attention to this rubbish. You get the point.

One question, and forgive my Midwestern impertinence here, but ... who the hell ARE these people??? I don't care HOW big your firm is, or how important you perceive yourself to be - even in good times, expenditures on this scale are frankly, well, obscene.

I can't really figure out where the NY Times is coming from on this one. Even though the article is ensconced in the Style section, I can't figure out if I'm supposed to somehow feel bad for those shining few who can't afford their co-op payments in hard times (excuse me as I weep while playing a tiny, tiny violin!), or if I'm supposed to be flat-out astonished that even the Demigods of Wall Street might have a tough time making the rent this month.

Whatever.

Newsflash from 1981

I was just a little tyke when this report came out ... what fun to watch it now, ON MY HOME COMPUTER!!! Ha!

Pure, Unadulterated Insanity

The guy's completely nuts.

Seriously - WTF???

A Sad Day on Glenwood South ...

The restaurant where the husband and I had our second date just closed. So sad! It was such an excellent place back in the day ...

Our New First Lady Loves Military Families!

Michelle Obama wrote a moving piece on military families in last week's USA Weekend magazine. Here it is:

Bursting with pride

by Michelle Obama

On Tuesday, as people from all walks of life come together in common purpose to begin the work of renewing America's promise, my daughters and I will stand beside my husband as he takes the oath of office as the 44th president of the United States.

People have asked me how I'll feel at that moment. As a wife, I'll be thinking about how proud I am of my husband and how I believe so deeply that he will be an extraordinary president. As a mother, I'll be bursting with pride at the thought of my girls now being able to envision endless choices for themselves and the joy it will be to watch them grow up in the White House. And as a daughter, I'll be profoundly grateful to my parents, knowing that I am here only because of their lifetime of faith and hard work.

They're my proof that the American promise endures. It's that promise we all share -- that our children might grow up with unlimited possibility, that our families might know the dreams of opportunity and prosperity, that people in every nation might look at the proud banner of this country and know the boundless meaning of hope.

As I take on my newest role -- first lady -- I'll be thinking about what that promise means to all those whom I've had the humbling privilege to meet these past two years on the campaign trail: Americans across the country who opened their doors and hearts to share their stories with me -- stories I carry to this day.

I particularly cherished my visits with military families all across the country. I met so many strong and inspiring military spouses eager to share their stories, their dreams for the future and the unique challenges they face because of their families' selfless service to our country.

And if there's one thing I learned, it's that when our servicemen and women go to war, their families go with them. I saw how they take care of each other, heard how they fill in whenever the system fails and discovered that the trials they faced always were matched by the hope they shared that better days are still ahead.

The simple 35-word oath my husband will take and the peaceful transfer of power it completes makes it easy to forget that the great fortune of our citizenship isn't free at all. It's a responsibility inherited only because generations of Americans have fought and bled and died for it.

So as I watch Barack take that oath, I'll be thinking especially about those members of our American family who stand guard across the world and the loved ones who await their safe return. Because even as we mark this moment in American history, there still will be empty seats at the dinner table; there still will be spouses struggling to juggle roles and responsibilities; there still will be children who mark the passing of a birthday without Mommy and toddlers who know their father only by a grainy video stream from a far-flung corner of the globe.

My husband and I are deeply grateful for the sacrifices that these families make to protect all American families. And we join them -- today and every day -- in praying for their loved ones and their safety. They don't ask a lot in return, just a Washington that understands the challenges they face as part of their extraordinary commitment to our country.

My husband understands that commitment, and he will ensure America lives up to its end. As military families join us on Tuesday, in person and in spirit, I want each and every one of them to know that for as long as I have the tremendous honor of being your first lady, your voices will be heard, you will have an advocate in the White House, and the American promise you preserve always will extend to you, too.

All of us can learn a fundamental lesson from our military families: You don't need to wear a uniform to serve your country. We all have something to contribute to the life of this nation.

Monday is Martin Luther King Jr. Day. And to honor the legacy of a man who believed that everybody could be great because anybody can serve, my family and I will spend the day performing activities in service to others. And we'll ask all Americans to join us in making an ongoing commitment to serve their community and their country, because in this new season of hope, that's the only way we'll begin renewing America's promise for all who reach for it and all who defend it -- as one nation and one people.

On Tuesday night, my husband and I will tuck in our daughters like we always do. Their bedrooms will be different, their home unfamiliar. But they will drift off to sleep protected by that same sacrifice that has kept all of our families safe and safeguarded our freedom for generations -- the sacrifice of our men and women in uniform and their families.

For that, we could not be more grateful -- or more proud.

Puts the Whole Recession Thing in Context, Doesn't It?

Oddly enough, it seems that it sometimes takes the French to put things in perspective! From an excellent article on the recent downturn in the luxury goods market from today's New York Times:

Many French executives take the long view that the economy will eventually rebound. Some vintners recall that the French nobility stopped buying Champagne during the country’s revolution in 1789, forcing winemakers to find markets abroad.

“We have been in business for 300 years,” said Dominique Hériard Dubreuil, chairman of the Rémy Cointreau Group, which produces Rémy Martin cognac and Piper-Heidsieck Champagne. “We were hit by the phylloxera insect in the 19th century that destroyed our vines and our capacity to produce. We have faced two world wars. I see the crisis as a challenging but constructive event.”