I know this is odd for someone my age, but I am a huge fan of The Rat Pack, especially Frank Sinatra. Sadly, they did their stage show before my time and I’ve only seen it in a DVD I have (where they are actually performing in St. Louis at the Fox Theatre with Johnny Carson opening for them) as well as in the HBO movie The Rat Pack starring Ray Liotta, Don Cheadle, and Joe Montegna. When you think back at the time they were performing, these guys were the essence of cool. You had great music by Frank, Dino, and Sammy, along with great comedy to come together for a great stage show. It’s too bad I never got to see it. In St. Louis through the 14th of this month The Rat Pack is back. No, not the originals. That would be disturbing. Impersonators are on tour recreating the famous stage show that took place at The Sands in Las Vegas. This is something I wouldn’t mind seeing. If you can’t see the original, why not a recreation? Too bad I’m the only person under the age of 50 that would actually like to see this. I missed it the first time around, as I wasn’t born until 1983 and I’ll miss it this time as well.
Ann Coulter is still flapping her big mouth. Like I said before, she needs to shut the hell up. She’s not attacking Edwards or 9/11 widows this time, instead she’s saying that all women should lose the right to vote.
“If we took away women’s right to vote, we’d never have to worry about another Democrat president. It’s kind of a pipe dream, it’s a personal fantasy of mine, but I don’t think it’s going to happen. And it is a good way of making the point that women are voting so stupidly, at least single women.” Source
How can anyone take this woman seriously? It’s really sad.
I don’t plan on starting any time soon. I won’t start until I can afford to start, which means once I get a full-time teaching position with a school. I’ve been thinking of what I want to get my degree in. Some of the possibilities would include Education, Reading, Administration, and History. I would really love to teach at the university level some day, so I’d have to get my Masters in History in order to even be a lecturer at most universities, then PhD to be a professor. PhD will cost a lot of money and take a long time, especially if I’m teaching while going to school. I don’t think that is a realistic possibility right now. If I ever want to be a principal, I would get it in Administration, but I’m not too sure if I’d ever want to do that. What I would really like to do is find a program for Educational Technology, or something along those lines. I would like to help develop curriculum that incorporates technology use in the classroom. It would be awesome to show other teachers how you can incorporate Google Earth, Smart Boards, Wikis, and all the other wonderful new things in technology into their current lesson plans. I really think with all the technology that the kids use these days, teachers are falling behind. Kids see and do things in totally different ways than they did 5 or 10 years ago. They learn differently, research differently, become engaged differently. It’s important that we adapt our methodology to support the students. If anyone knows a university that offers something like this, I’d be very interested in knowing about it.
This is sad news for many in Cardinal Nation because Jocketty was one of the best in the business. He made some great moves and decisions with trades. Here is part of the story from StLToday.
The Cardinals will begin an intensive search today for general manager Walt Jocketty’s successor while still awaiting word from free-agent manager Tony La Russa about whether he will return to an organization suddenly in flux.
Citing a widening front-office split, Cardinals chairman Bill DeWitt Jr. dismissed Jocketty, the longest-tenured GM in club history, during a Wednesday morning meeting at DeWitt’s Clayton home.
Jocketty had received no indication of a pending move regarding his status before DeWitt invited him to Wednesday’s 45-minute meeting.
Many within the front office were unaware of the move until the club issued a press release at about 3 p.m.
The move, which was first reported on STLtoday.com, occurred less than one year after the Cardinals secured their first World Series title in 24 years, but was more directly influenced by DeWitt’s installation of a new front-office model less than 13 months ago.
Jocketty’s refusal to embrace the new structure brought scrutiny that culminated in his ouster, according to DeWitt, despite a successful 13-year run highlighted by two World Series appearances and five trips to the playoffs the last seven seasons.
I can’t tell you how much I love this song. For those of you who don’t know this song, “Little Boxes” is a song written by Malvina Reynolds in 1962 that lampoons the development of suburbia and what many consider its bourgeois conformist values. The song’s best-known performance was that of Pete Seeger in 1962. Some legends state that it was in response to the Levittown developments after World War II. This was when everyone moved from the city to the suburbs. In Levittown, everything looked the same, much like modern suburbs. Having lived in the suburbs all my life, this song really rings true to me. I’ve always wanted to get away from all the monotony and move to the city, but never have. You can see modern American life reflected in a song that was written forty-five years ago. It still holds true today. Just look at these lyrics:
Little boxes on the hill side, little boxes made of ticky tacky.
Little boxes, little boxes, little boxes all the same.
There’s a green one and a pink one and a blue one and a yellow one,
And they’re all made out of ticky tacky, and they all look just the same.And the people in the houses all went to the university
Where they were put in boxes, little boxes, all the same.
And there’s doctors and there’s lawyers, and there’s business executives
And they’re all made out of ticky tacky and they all look just the same.And they all play on the golf course and drink their martini dry
And they all have pretty children and the children go to school
And the children go to summer camp and then to the university
Where they all get put in boxes and they all come out the same.And the boys go into business and marry and raise a family
In boxes, little boxes, little boxes all the same.
There’s a green one and a pink one and a blue one and a yellow one
And they’re all made out of ticky tacky and they all look just the same.
Many of you may have heard this on the TV show Weeds. Starting in its second season the theme song was performed by a different artist each episode, with such artists as The Decemerists, Elvis Costello, Billy Bob Thornton, Randy Newman, and The Shins, among others. Here is the original song by Malvina Reynolds.