Banjos and Mandolins in the Morning- Things Could Be Worse

One thing that makes New Orleans a little like Gotham City is Mayor Nagin's "Crimestoppers" billboards that feature criminals with red stripes over their mug shots saying "ARRESTED" really victoriously over 3 and "WANTED" really agressively over the 4th. A youth organization, Hip-Hop Teen Magazine (which is an AMAZING adolescent organization that produces really relevant and powerful products, services, and opportunities), started a billboard project which the intent to promote positive self-images for the young black community (particularly for the males) of New Orleans. See above: Instead of "ARRESTED" the banners say, "ACCOMPLISHED." A helluva lot more inspiring. Check out
http://rootsandrevisioning.blogspot.com/ for more about them and their projects.

A few things:

First of all, I'm listening to Britney's "Kill the Lights" right now and loving it. I'm not even embarassed.

Secondly, the mockingbirds and nightengales are out. The former are hilarious in their imitations of car alarms and the latter are obnoxious with their nocturnal songs.

It is good to be here. Since California, the sun has kept shining and we even turned on the Air Conditioning yesterday. The summer countdown has begun.

I leave you with a sample of student work:

"Where is Ms. Craven?" J asked. "Ms. Craven isn't here, I think she'll be back tomorrow." B responded. I found a note on the board and it said she was took by pirates. They wanted ransom or she would walk the plank. We wrote back saying that we didn't have the money.

The pirate made Ms. Craven walk the plank. She didn't want to jump so the pirate cut her arm. She still didn't want to jump so he tried to cut her again. She block it and let the sword cut the rope on her hands. Then she jumped into the water and swammed home.

She returned to Truman Middle School the next day. She was thankful she was alive. All the bad kids thought she was gone for good, but in the end, Ms. Craven was alive.

Some of them I love.