Hey, a glimmer of hope exists here in North Carolina that people may one day be treated equally!

Heidi and I had our first pre-marriage counseling last night. We met with the pastor and chatted for a few minutes, then he showed us to the fellowship hall and had us fill out a 165-question questionnaire specifically for people who cohabitate. He will send this along to a service that will match up our answers, and then send him some topics where we agree strongly and should discuss, and some topics where we disagree and will need to talk. The questions focused mainly on several topics: our own self-esteems, children, finances, problems and abuse, and spirituality. I’m reasonably certain that most of these will raise warning flags, since we believe different things, but the test didn’t reveal a whole lot that we have not talked about yet.

If you’re interested, here are my answers:

And here are hers:

The divide between the haves and have-nots is never more apparent than when you put teachers from rich and poor school systems together and let them talk over lunch. Invariably, the teachers from the rich systems will mention a technology, a policy, or parental involvement that just does not happen in the poor school system. There will be an uncomfortable silence, which the teacher from the rich system will sometimes mistake for the teacher from the poor system not understanding. It is not, in fact, a misunderstanding; it is a sense of awe and astonishment, and a quiet moment of introspection where the teacher from the poor system considers how amazing life would be if they had equal access.

Well, that Jack Black sure is adorable and he sure does sing some wacky songs. But seriously, I almost did not make it through School of Rock. Heidi and I went for a walk today, and we went on a path that’s been cut through some thatch and overgrowth by some ATVs. Walking through small patches of poison ivy was more stimulating than School of Rock.

Well, here’s the upsetting search of the day, pulled straight from my logs:

2004.06.25 16:34:48  152.2.177.151  Search: query for 'tits'
2004.06.25 16:35:16 152.2.177.151 Search: query for 'penis'
2004.06.25 16:35:59 152.2.177.151 Search: query for 'heidi'
2004.06.25 16:36:19 152.2.177.151 Search: query for 'heidi'
2004.06.25 16:41:41 152.2.177.151 Search: query for 'heidi'
2004.06.25 16:43:42 152.2.177.151 Search: query for 'heidi'
2004.06.25 16:44:11 152.2.177.151 Search: query for 'heidi'
2004.06.25 16:45:42 152.2.177.151 Search: query for 'lsd'
2004.06.25 16:46:00 152.2.177.151 Search: query for 'lsd'
2004.06.25 16:46:02 152.2.177.151 Search: query for 'acid'
2004.06.25 16:46:05 152.2.177.151 Search: query for 'pot'
2004.06.25 16:46:24 152.2.177.151 Search: query for 'heidi'
2004.06.25 16:46:30 152.2.177.151 Search: query for 'pot'
2004.06.25 16:47:24 152.2.177.151 Search: query for 'chronic'
2004.06.25 16:47:33 152.2.177.151 Search: query for 'death'

And the party that pisses me off is that the IP address reveals that it’s someone in Heidi’s office, though not Heidi.

That’s the sucky thing about technology– sometimes you find out that people you know are creepy.

I have been sleeping pretty hard the past couple nights, but as I am snoozing in the morning, I become aware that Kirk is in crazy mode. He’s been simply insane in the mornings, attacking the comforter, the pillows, our toes, anything that moves, and trash. But this morning, he was curled up next to my legs, sleeping peacefully, and when I got out of bed, I sat for a minute and played with him. I told him, “You’re such a good sleeper!” (Yes, I know I am retarded for my cats.)

About 20 minutes later, as I was getting out of the shower, Heidi began picking a fight with me, and I was completely in the dark as to what it was about or why she was picking it. “Like me better asleep, do you? Is that so I can’t poke on you, or just so I’ll shut up?” She wasn’t angry; she was playfully angry.

I managed to defend myself against this mysterious attack and dry off.

Around 11:15, a phone repair guy came so I wandered into Jess’s cube while he was in mine. She has her kitten Reggie on her screen, and she showed me some other cute pics, including one of him sleeping on Nick– paws up in the air, out like a light. She said he slept through the night last night, and I said, “So did Kirk. He was a good sleeper.” And at that moment, I realized that the attack this morning from Heidi was because she didn’t know I was addressing the kitten, and she thought I was telling her she’s such a good sleeper.

So, problem averted, but it does raise several questions about our relationship– What kind of person does she think I am that I would prefer a sleeping girlfriend to an awake one? And why does she wait to pick fights until it’s early in the morning and I am naked?

The President of the Senate– yup, your Vice President, ladies and gents– dropped the f-bomb in heated debate. Says his spokesman, “…there was a frank exchange of views.” Says Dr. Wade, “Well, when you’re the embodiment of pure evil, you have to expect some profanity. I mean, would you expect Satan to say ‘Gosh golly gee willikers’?” Way to go, Dick.

Friends, the final version of this article was published at: http://www.learnnc.org/Index.nsf/doc/comics0703?OpenDocument. This version is still missing a wee bit of content.

>>Another draft of this article. Some images missing. Again, if you have meaningful comments, do it up.

Comics in the Classroom

Comic books. You’re probably thinking about Superman or Spider-Man. Batman
or Wonder Woman. Maybe cheap, cheesy horror stories, pirate adventures, or some
other muscle-bound, spandex-clad crusader whose first response is a strong punch.
You’re probably not thinking about your classroom right now.

You should be.

Comics in Culture

A recent explosion in academic interest in comic books and graphic novels has
stirred the creation of comics curricula nationwide. Several colleges and universities
are now offering courses in comics literature, and high school teachers are
exploring graphic novels as a new way to stimulate young readers’ interest in
literature. The National Association
of Comics Art Educators is producing exercises,
study guides, and handouts on comics in the classroom, and several comic
book companies, notably CrossGen, are
including resources for educators in each issue they produce. Comics have been
the subject of a national best-seller, Michael Chabon’s The Amazing Adventures
of Kavalier and Clay, and novelists and screenwriters like Brad Meltzer and
Kevin Smith have lined up to write the adventures of the heroes they grew up
with. Art Spiegelman’s Maus, the story of his father’s internment in Nazi Germany,
was the first comic to win a Pulitzer Prize, and comics have nabbed prestigious
awards in other fields.

Considering the success of comics-inspired film and television shows like Smallville,
X-Men, and Hulk, and their popularity with children, there is a tremendous interest
in comics-related material that educators could easily turn into an enthusiasm
for reading. However, it’s difficult to know which comics are appropriate for
children, and many educators place a stigma on comic books– a stigma that dates
back to the 1950’s, when at the height of McCarthyism, comics were the targets
of congressional scrutiny. (For an abbreviated history of comics, check A
Brief History of the Comics Universe.) In fact, it’s tough to know what
a comic is, when the most respected example of the form, Maus, received this
“praise” in the New York Times: “Maus is not a comic book.”

What Are Comics?

Comic books, the pulpy-papered, saddle-stapled mixture of art and story, have
gained a new respect from the literary community in the past fifteen years.
The alter ego of the comic book is the graphic novel, which is also a medium
in which stories are told through both text and pictures, but replaces the flimsy
saddle-stapling with solid binding. Increasingly, comics publishers are collecting
multiple issues into single volumes, and comics writers are responding with
more ambitious and artistic story arcs that spread across many issues. Graphic
novels are increasingly appearing in local libraries, are reviewed alongside
traditional novels in publications like the New York Times and Entertainment
Weekly, and have sections devoted to them in bookstores and on Amazon.com.

With a renewed emphasis on independent reading in schools, comics appeal to
students and teachers with a variety of interests and are increasingly being
seen during D.E.A.R. (Drop Everything and Read) time. Comics have a wide range
of subjects, well beyond the super-hero or funny animal. Because they are cheaper
to produce now than ever before, the comics industry is now able to take gambles
on more artistic fare that’s been less traditionally marketable than super-hero
comics. Until the 1980’s, comics appeared on newsstands, and up to 50% of comics
might be returned to the publisher if they didn’t sell, which meant tremendous
pressure to create the “next big hit.” Most comics are now distributed through
speciality retailers and mass merchants, which means unsold issues won’t be
returned, and small companies have more freedom to explore offbeat writers and
artists.

As a medium, comics and graphic novels (which are lumped together in a term–
“sequential art”– coined by one of the field’s pioneers, Spirit author Will
Eisner), now have a definitive textbook, as well. Scott
McCloud penned Understanding Comics, which explored the medium and its history
in comic form. His sequel, Reinventing Comics, is also penned as a comic book,
and explores the effects of new technologies and cultural changes on an existing
industry.

McCloud defines comics as "juxtaposed pictoral and other images in deliberate
sequence, intended to convey information and/or to produce an aesthetic response
in the viewer." According to his definition, the following set of images
would be a comic:

However, as teachers, we know that this image more than likely belongs to an
instruction manual. We expect comics to look something like this:

Each of the images serves the same purpose, in the end. The reader is expected
to see a progression of time through images displayed in a certain order. Looking
at the two examples, we can deduce that comics may be strong teaching tools
for visual literacy, and McCloud supports this by analyzing the six types of
transitions in comics, and how their use is fairly consistent among artists
who seek to convey meaning with images.

But Are Comics Appropriate For the Classroom?

The short answer: some are, some aren’t.

StoryArk provides a list
of how comics can fit Gardner’s Multiple Intelligences, and James Sturm,
author of the acclaimed The Golem’s Mighty Swing, makes The
Case for Comics. Read-Write-Think provides a lesson plan for using comics
as an introduction to narrative structure.

Comic books and graphic novels have a wide range of styles and subject matter.
They range from social commentary to fantasy to autobiography to mystery to
didactic. But, as with any reading in the classroom, teachers should consider
their classroom objectives, the age-appropriateness of the materials, and MELISSA,
ANY SUGGESTIONS?

If you’re a teacher or media specialist, and you’d like to try using comics
in your curriculum, here are some suggestions. You can find more at No
Flying, No Tights, a website devoted to reviewing graphic novels for teens
and kids.

	Maus by Art Spiegelman Relevant subjects: Art, Language Arts, Social Studies Perhaps the best-known comic in the world, Maus tells the story of Spiegelman’s father, a concentration camp survivor. The depiction of Jews as mice and Nazis as cats is shocking, and the juxtaposition of cartoonish imagery with the horror of genocide only reinforces the tragedy of the Holocaust. There are a number of education sites devoted to Maus, including Gordon Thomas’s Using Maus in a Composition Class.
	Kurt Busiek’s Astro City: Life in Cig City by Kurt Busiek, Brent Anderson, and Alex Ross Relevant subjects: Art, Language Arts, Psychology, Social Studies What do super-heroes dream about at night? How do they go out on a date? What’s life like for an average citizen when super-heroes won’t come to your neighborhood? Kurt Busiek’s Astro City is a series that looks at life in a city full of superheroes, alternating between the perspectives of the super heroes and the people they come in contact with. Busiek and his co-creators have imagined a world where alien invasions and supernatural mysteries are part of daily life; though the series was conceived in the 1990’s, it has practical application when teaching in a post-9/11 America.
	Orbiter by Warren Ellis and Colleen Doran Relevant subjects: Art, Language Arts, Psychology, Science, Social Studies Life is different for Americans since the space shuttle Orbiter disappeared ten years ago. But now, the shuttle has mysteriously returned, and the pilot, who hasn’t aged a day, is speaking in a tongue no one understands. Exploring the scientific and cultural merit of manned spaceflight and exploration, Orbiter is a breathtaking look at the possibilities of the Universe.
	Persepolis: The Story of a Childhood by Marjane Satrapi Relevant subjects: Art, Language Arts, Social Studies Best used with high school students, Persepolis: The Story of a Childhood is the autobiographical story of Marjane Satrapi’s childhood in Iran during the Islamic Revolution. Tracing the dethroning of the Shah, the rise of fundmentalism, and the war with Iraq through a child’s eyes, Persepolis gives the reader a strong view of Iran’s history and culture, and serves a nice point of comparison and contrast for American teens.

I may one day be very concerned that my pecker won’t do what I tell it to, but until women can get their birth control covered, people have a realistic vision and dental coverage, or the co-pays go back down, I’m a little pissed that the state Senate is wasting precious time and dollars looking at putting Viagra, Cialis, and Levitra back into the health care budget.

Warren Ellis found it, I link to it: Someone has been fucking with Spider-Man. (Try refreshing the page, there are 20 of these.)

We are one step closer to the wedding; Linda Walters said she would photograph for $700 and give us the negatives. That’s amazing. She shoots 35mm, so she said that I should talk to my mom and make sure that 35mm sounds OK, but if that doesn’t present a problem, I think we have a wedding photographer. Hot damn.

I spent longer than expected in meetings today; a conference call with class.com, and then an extended NC WISE deployment team meeting. At least I am getting a feel for when NC WISE will roll out. So, that’s not so bad.

The doctor began work on the new DSI site, and what he has so far is awesome.

It was a mildly stressful day, all things considered, and tomorrow should be busy. I celebrated making it through by spending way too much money at the comic book store on some new books that may be useful when writing the article… I picked up an older Craig Thompson book that I’m really excited about, but man, the new Sleeper TPB has me jonesin’.

North Carolina band Fetchin Bones never issued their album Bad Pumpkin on CD. At least not that I know of. I’ve only found it on LP, and the copy that I found was scratched.

I’ve also found an LP that I assume is their first, a self-titled LP called “The Original Fetchin Bones.” I can’t find any mention of this on the web anywhere, though admittedly, I may not have searched hard enough.

I’d love to know if anyone has a digital copy of any of that music.

There’s a satelitte-looking thing, but it’s not a satellite, on top of McAllister’s Deli on Franklin St. in Chapel Hill. If anyone can tell me what, exactly, it is used for, I would be much appreciative.

A nice + for Chapel Hill: More businesses in Chapel Hill are providing wireless Internet service to their customers!

As many of you noticed, there’s a fine new banner at the top of RossWhite.com. (And thanks, Jennings, for noting that this is the end of the creepy banner era.) I wish I could claim credit for it, but this one was professionally designed, bee-yotches, by Andi Goetschius. Check out her site and hire her when you need design work done.

After a less than awesome day at work (which was admittedly made more awesome by the fact that UNC got around to reimbursing me for travel today), Ladybug and I headed home for some solace. We picked up a cell phone battery at Batteries Plus, one that promises longer life from our nerd phones, which had been sucking the old batteries dry within minutes.

We did our now-typical-but-soon-to-be-impossible dinner-and-a-West-Wing date, then took off to walk down to Lake Elton. The lake is a quiet little body of water, and were it not on Lake Elton Drive, I wouldn’t know it was a lake at all. Ladybug surmised that it wasn’t big enough to be a lake and should be Pond Elton, which doesn’t have the same ring.

On our walk, we started talking about a footrace, so Heidi took off running, and about five seconds later, I started after her. I couldn’t catch her until she got winded, but while we were both running hard (and neither of us had the shoes to sustain much of a run), I don’t think I was gaining any ground on her, but I don’t think she was particularly gaining any ground on me. Which is good, I suppose, for several reasons. One: If I ever piss her off, she won’t catch me if I keep on running. The flipside, that I won’t catch her, doesn’t present me any problems. Two: I finally found someone who is as slow as me. Because I am one of the slowest runners on the face of the planet, a fact for which I was mercilessly mocked in elementary school on the various and sundry “field days.” Three: It makes me confident that she won’t be looking to train for any races any time soon.

Now she’s at the grocery store; what was supposed to be a quick trip for some milk and apples has turned into an almost two-hour trip. She asked if I wanted to go to keep her from spending all of her money, and I declined, saying that I would rather work on some DSI stuff while she was gone so we could spend the rest of the evening together. I guess I should have gone; now, she’ll come home when I am almost ready for bed and she’ll be sour at herself for buying $1,400 worth of canned goods when the pantry is already fairly well-stocked. (Plus, I guarantee that we eat out tomorrow night.)

Linda Walters, who works at DPI, called me a few minutes ago. She’s also a wedding photographer, and she wasn’t averse to selling us the negatives. I am sad to say that when she said, “I assume this is in color,” I said that I thought we’d prefer black and white. Linda politely told me that just about everyone does color, and that I would need to talk to Ladybug on that one. And she’s right… when I thought about it, I think everyone does do color, and that probably is what we want to do.

I sent some Gmail invites today, one of which went to Ladybug, who eschewed heidiefird@ in favor of heidiwhite@. Hot damn! (Of course, when it asked for the name of the person to send the invite to, I said firstname: Heidi, lastname: White. Sneaky.) We ate lunch with Pat Shane, nee Bowers, today when we ran into her at Arby’s. Pat, who changed her name back after she got divorced, told Heidi not to change, that it was a royal pain in the ass if you ever need to change back. But still, she took heidiwhite@. And when I got my first e-mail from her, it took me a second to realize that I’m going to be seeing that name a lot in the coming years.

Wait just one minute, Six Apart. When you unleashed the new licensing scheme for Movable Type, you made it pretty clear that you had no damn clue about how to price your product. Your stupid pricing scheme allowed a limited number of users and a limited number of blogs, and the price was jacked way the hell up for what you were offering. I was looking for alternatives to your service, since MT 3.0 didn’t add significant functionality that I was looking for, and I was more than a little miffed that so many developers had worked to improve your product with plugins because it was free, and then you came up with this bass-ackwards pricing scheme that included the number of processors a server had.

And now… now you listen to our feedback, and revise the pricing scheme? Now you offer unlimited weblogs, and a pricing scheme that includes unlimited authors? Well, how about that.

I’m still really happy with the 2.661 product, but when compelling new features are added to 3.0, which you now promise on your website, I won’t feel bad about dropping $70 for your product. I applaud you for having the sense to listen to your customers, despite the fact that many of them are complete and total freeloaders who don’t plan to give you any money. I was happy to donate $20 when your product was free, and I’ll be happy to pay $70 when you give me good reason.

Just in case you’re tired of being asked questions that you really don’t consider difficult to answer: Google It.

And you may be pleased to know that the Spivey’s Corner Hollerin’ Champion is a repeat winner.

Last night, I did a really fun show with Rene and Zach. During the show, Zach ordered chili and chicken nuggets from Wendy’s. This morning, on my way to the training center for DSI auditions, I could not help but crave chicken nuggets and chili from Wendy’s. Yum!

Sometimes when I don’t blog for a day, that means that the day was either disappointing or just failed to be noteworthy. Yesterday, while not terribly noteworthy, was a heck of a good day right up until the end.

I spent the majority of the day teaching a workshop for some kickass AP teachers at the new UNC-SOE wing of the Smith Middle School building here in Chapel Hill. This is the facility that stole our office manager Lori away from us, damn them.

Zach still had my car from the King’s show, so I caught a ride with Allen Kromer. We hit Schoolkid’s on Franklin St. so he could look for Wilco-related products, and then wandered down to Linda’s. It was Thursday afternoon, sure, but since it was still only four o’clock, I was happily surprised to see McFee already there with a pitcher of beer on the table. Others wandered in, including Ladybug, and it was a fine time.

Kromer and I took off to eat, landed at Mama Dip’s, and had the finest country-fried steak that I have ever had the pleasure of polluting my body with. It was incredible.

Then Kromer joined me for DSI Level 1 class, sitting in as a visiting improviser from Asheville. I won’t say much beyond how much I love teaching level 1, and how much I love the moment at which the lightbulb goes off for someone. Zach rolled up at 10, and some of the class took off for Zog’s, where we darted it up and drank a beer. Good times.

The one blemish on my day, and this is a really minor blemish indeed– as I was taking Zach home, I was pulled by a Carrboro cop who told me I had a headlight out. OK, cool. Then, he/she (and it wasn’t clear) took my license back to the squadcar, and made us sit, sit, sit. A second cop pulled up, got out of his car, and loomed behind us.

What the hell is up with a second cop rolling in for a busted headlight? Grrr!

But, we secured our release, and I rolled home and hopped in bed with Ladybug, while Kirk pawed at my toes incessantly.

Let it never be said that Dr. Wade doesn’t hook me up. Oh, but he does. John Beimler hooked him up with a gmail account, and I told him that I had signed up but never gotten one, and then he convinced John to use an invite on me. So, I am the proud owner of a gmail account. And I don’t want it getting spammed, so I won’t tell you, but there’s a ross and a white and a @ and a gmail and a .com in it. And no spaces.

Look, I know that everyone is up in arms about Google’s aggressive mining of our personal data. They don’t like that Orkut owns the pictures that we choose to put up there, they don’t like that Google’s planning to robotically snoop our e-mails to deliver targeted advertising data, and they don’t like that they had to sign away their first born to get Orkut or gmail accounts. To this I say, fine, don’t use the service. Just about everything I wrote for three years is public record if you look hard enough because I work for the state, and if I were really all that concerned with data integrity, I would never have used a yahoo mail account in the first place. At least Google is up front about what it is, and they’ve suckered the technorati into participating by making it invite-only. Everyone wants to be part of the in crowd.

Seriously, folks, gmail is the best webmail client I have used thusfar. The address book is way easy, the quick respond feature is way handy, the threadlogging is way… well, I haven’t really used it yet. But it might come in handy. Anyone who is developing their own webmail should be looking at gmail, because the features are nice.

I just don’t plan to say anything that I don’t want repeated.