1. I’m In! – November 6, 2011. I’ll see you in Central Park.
2. Oh Shit! – 191 days? I guess this means it’s time to get my ass in shape.
Anyone else out there running?
3. Wedding Photos - What better way to celebrate the Royal Wedding than a Vietnamese wedding in Phnom Penh?
4. Crack – I’m not going to lie though, while I did go to Phnom Penh for a wedding, it wasn’t just a coincidence that I was in my hotel room with TV turned on when CNN started its Royal Wedding coverage.
5. Better Than TenThingsIThink – It pains me to say it, but if you’re looking for the best Peace Corps Cambodia blog, you’re in the wrong place. Instead you should go to Travis Thompson’s Barang blog. It’s quality stuff.
6. JOY! - In Khmer, “joy” is one of the most popular curse words. Saying joy is basically the same as saying fuck. That presented a little bit of problem today when my friend Joy visited my village.
Fortunately Joy came prepared with a fake name and a ton of awkwardness was avoided.
7. ANGELINA! – According to the Phnom Penh Post “Hollywood megastar Angelina Jolie is set to return to the Kingdom today to shoot an advertising campaign for fashion label Louis Vuitton in Siem Reap.”
One of my best friends in the world is also supposed to arrive in the Kingdom tomorrow, but it’s pretty hard to get excited about Jenna Gottlieb when you’ve got Angelina Jolie…
8. Shallow – The Roommate is proof that as long as you cast a lot of attractive women, it doesn’t matter how bad the movie is, men will still pay to see it.
Or at least I will…
9. The Limits of School Reform – Joe Nocera pointing out what school reformers often miss….
Yet the reformers act as if a student’s home life is irrelevant. “There is no question that family engagement can matter,” said Klein when I spoke to him. “But they seem to be saying that poverty is destiny, so let’s go home. We don’t yet know how much education can overcome poverty,” he insisted — notwithstanding the voluminous studies that have been done on the subject. “To let us off the hook prematurely seems, to me, to play into the hands of the other side.”
That last sentence strikes me as the key to the reformers’ resistance: To admit the importance of a student’s background, they fear, is to give ammo to the enemy — which to them are their social-scientist critics and the teachers’ unions. But that shouldn’t be the case. Making schools better is always a goal worth striving for, whether it means improving pedagogy itself or being able to fire bad teachers more easily. Without question, school reform has already achieved some real, though moderate, progress.
What needs to be acknowledged, however, is that school reform won’t fix everything. Though some poor students will succeed, others will fail. Demonizing teachers for the failures of poor students, and pretending that reforming the schools is all that is needed, as the reformers tend to do, is both misguided and counterproductive.
Over the long term, fixing our schools is going to involve a lot more than, well, just fixing our schools. In the short term, however, the reform movement could use something else: a dose of humility about what it can accomplish — and what it can’t. (The Limits of School Reform)
10. Shame On You NBC! – Lawrence O’Donnell bites the hand that feeds him…
(And while I agree with everything O’Donnell said, I still think the Donald is hurting the Republicans way more than Obama and the Dems.)
SHAME ON NBC indeed. And the despicable Trump. “Race baiting and fear mongering” of the highest order. Get rid of him now. The whole thing is truly unforgivable. Thank you Larry O’Donnell.
On a happier note WELCOME JENNA! We’re way more excited about her arrival than Angelina’s. And hooray for the NYC MARATHON! There is a chance KBE might join you as he’s having so much fun training for his first ever DA TRI. C&T will definitely be there. Which makes me think Irondad and I had better figure out a way to find some numbers. So much easier to run the damn thing than stress on the sidelines about you all!
Have fun in Bantay Meanchey.
xo
Okay, can we breathe easier now? NYT is officially reporting a Thailand-Cambodia truce. Cease fire Thursday after 7 days of fighting that took at least 14 lives and displaced tens of thousands of civilians.
Be safe Cooper. (And Jenna!)
xo
Here Cooper, another video of Trump making an ass of himself, this time in Vegas, last night. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qT0QAEp5IuU&feature=player_detailpage
I loved the royal wedding. Kate Middleton looked amazing/awesome in that dress..
Wish I had gotten up to watch it.. only saw the balcony kiss live with
my queen! Kate will be a prettier queen than Camilla (are they queens or just dutchesses married to kings.. Lolly, help me.. **)
Not much news – OneNews moving forward well. Off to NYC and Miami for the next two weeks, with a little Poetry Slam and Deerfield mixed in.
** Lolly, please post for Cooper your royal wedding watching attire – priceless.
kate will be queen one day and charles is fighting for camilla to be titled the same when he becomes king. we will have to wait and see. not sure that everyone wants to see my wedding attire. still wearing my tiara. i may never take it off.
Thought of all you royal devotees when I wandered into my favorite Denver tea shop late this afternoon in somewhat of a paper writing fog (desperate for a cup of tea and a scone) and was immediately sure I was crashing a private party. It was packed. All the waitresses (and many of the customers) were wearing fancy hats. And there was a HUGE wedding cake on display and mini cupcakes on all the tables with little golden/chocolate tiaras on top. Something felt terribly wrong.
And then it hit me. This was a milehigh rendition of a royal wedding celebration. And there I was smack dab in the middle of it all (after quite happily sleeping through the morning festivities). So I sat myself down, ordered a pot of Lady Grey, had the cranberry scone and red velvet wedding cake and the tiara laden cupcake. Thinking all the while that Lolly and Cooper and Oliver and Emmett and Regina and Mom Mom no doubt would be extremely proud of me. And then I even brought cupcakes home for dinner for my very own prince charming (who refused to eat the chocolate tiara because of the golddust).
Ah royalty.
xo
oh i’m so excited that you walked in on that party lisa. long live the queen ( eventually)!!!!!!!!!!!