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Lainey

Lainey
Location
Ohio,
Birthday
February 25

Lainey's Links

Salon.com
NOVEMBER 11, 2009 2:20PM

(Invisible Women)

The grievous thrumming in my head sounds like MasterCard’s punch line: Priceless. You know the commercial; it starts with a recitation of expenditures and ends with some heartwarming finding about human relationship, overlaid with that word, “Priceless.”

Except my private punch liRead full post »

SEPTEMBER 26, 2009 7:54PM

Police and Protesters: G-20 Original Video

 This is the fourth of a series of G-20 Summit posts. Here are the firstsecond, and third.

 Here is some original footage of the police and protesters in Pittsburgh. Please decide for yourselves what the atmosphere was like. 

1. The police video was taken in on… Read full post »

SEPTEMBER 26, 2009 3:35AM

The G-20 in Retrospect: A Balanced View

          After hoofing it in Pittsburgh for three days, these exhausted reporters (my sister and I) don't feel like writing a post. So we're just dumping our pictures and videos here for you to judge for yourselves. We're big proponents of independent thinking. :)

~&nbs… Read full post »

Editor’s Pick
SEPTEMBER 25, 2009 2:06PM

David and Goliath at the G-20 - updated

Update: Luke Rudkowski, the boy with the bullhorn, was arrested Friday night for failure to disperse. He spent the night in jail.  

 Second Update: See bottom of this post for embedded video from wearchange.org for footage of events leading to Luke's arrest.

 

bullhorn protester 

 … Read full post »

  sign

          Clean energy and green jobs were the themes Wednesday at the rally in Pittsburgh on the eve of the G-20 Summit, the annual meeting of the Group of Twenty world leaders, finance ministers and central bankers. Crackpots were nowhere to be foun… Read full post »

SEPTEMBER 18, 2009 8:22PM

Thinky Thoughts

 1. Do other people get a momentary panic when sliding a credit card through the machine at a self-service gas pump, because it says “Slide your card quickly”? I’m always just a little paranoid that IRead full post »

SEPTEMBER 9, 2009 10:26PM

Why Didn't the Republicans Stand Up?

 

When Obama spoke against the disinformation about health care reform, he was particularly vociferous about the bogus claim that there are "panels of bureaucrats with the power to kill off senior citizens." He charged that it was both cynical and irresponsible and, finally, "a lie, plain and si… Read full post »

Our local school system is grappling with the "Obama speech problem," suggesting that perhaps they'll require permission slips for elementary students and leave middle and high school decisions up to the individual teachers. Amidst the droves of crazies in my town who are already storming around… Read full post »

Editor’s Pick
JULY 9, 2009 10:05PM

A Teenager's Take on Who Owns the News

OK, in a nutshell:

     Connie Shultz, the Cleveland Plain Dealer's Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist (and lovely wife of Ohio Democratic Senator Sherrod Brown), wrote about trying to protect newspapers' rights to their reporting. She and a publishing attorney, with the help

Read full post »
APRIL 23, 2009 8:57PM

On Kit Kats and School Bullies

kit kat

 Miss Harp’s kindergarten was full of impulsive boys. As we sat in Morning Meeting going over the weather and calendar, Eduard was in and out of my lap several times, John was turning the globe, Michael was showing off his LeBron James jumps, and Byron had wandered completely out o… Read full post »

     I want to know where I’ve been.

     Yes, yes, I’ve married a fine man,[1] raised three boys, taught English, campaigned for Obama, worked hard in a rigorous graduate program for a degree I’ll likely not benefit from financially, and… Read full post »

MARCH 27, 2009 9:41PM

What Boys Do

Mess with carts

apples 23

 cart again

 

Navigate terrain with sticks

beach explore 23

   cemetery 23

 

 Catch hail with frisbees

hail 230


 Contemplate the universe

contemplation 23

D building again

 

 

 Play in the snow

snowball fight again

  snowlou 23Read full post »

MARCH 24, 2009 1:14AM

Confused by the News? Crisis Basics

scaredmoney

      I used to feel really well informed. Sure, I always knew it was a function of time--that I had more than most--but I secretly hoped that others never caught on to that simple truth. So when I could detail the politics of the moment or delve into the history… Read full post »

FEBRUARY 11, 2009 11:57AM

Lincoln and Leprechauns

            I didn’t know how to pronounce the word “Deringer,” and that intrigued the first-grade boys surrounding me; they were used to teachers knowing everything. We discussed the possibilities—soft or hard g, whether… Read full post »

FEBRUARY 3, 2009 6:12PM

Science is Not a Religion.

Political and religious ideologues like to say that science is just another kind of religion. Here’s why they’re wrong, why science is not anyone’s religion.

 As a teacher, I’ve marveled at the near impossibility of reconciling the competing philosophies of critical th… Read full post »

JANUARY 30, 2009 4:33PM

Darrel and James

Darrel and James

 

     I left the mall’s food court feeling sick.  It wasn’t the food; it was the conversation:  Over sandwiches and diet Coke, my friend had just told me about her experience at her son’s 4th grade lunch table the previous day, and togeth/Read full post »

Editor’s Pick
NOVEMBER 25, 2008 10:21PM

Middle School Substitute

I don't notice the competing paper banners until the day is over and I'm exhausted and demoralized. YOU are RESPONSIBLE for your own ACTIONS! goes one, with the lower case letters cursive and blue, the capitals a screaming orange print. And the other, in what the kids call “bubble letters,&rdqu/… Read full post »

Editor’s Pick
OCTOBER 30, 2008 9:53PM

Free Will and The Secret

Most people overestimate the role that merit plays in their lives, and by “most people,” I mean the vast majority who has seen some measure of conventional success.[1]  By corollary, people underestimate chance, evolution, history, government, and culture as factors that influence th/… Read full post »

Editor’s Pick
OCTOBER 28, 2008 1:15AM

On Black Presidents and Live Babies

Daytime and evening phone banks are qualitatively different. On Tuesday mornings I wax philosophical with Strongsville’s universe of undecided voters about the local homeless man who registered 79 times at the behest of ACORN (I assure them that not only was the man not going to vote 79 times,… Read full post »

Editor’s Pick
OCTOBER 6, 2008 11:45PM

On Slugs and Fear

 
big slug
 
 

     My childhood friend Janice used to call her brother a slug, and I always took it to mean he was lazy.  Now I’m wondering if there wasn’t a hint of the repugnant intended as well.  I/

Read full post »
Editor’s Pick
SEPTEMBER 26, 2008 11:49PM

A Real Debate

It may not play well here on Open Salon, but I thought I saw a real debate tonight. As the two candidates sparred over tax plans, the economy, and foreign policy, they went back and forth, clarifying issues and positions in a way that

Read full post »
SEPTEMBER 19, 2008 11:09PM

NO MORE WAR! Phil Donahue Comes to Town

Phil Donahue and union worker
 

As Ike gasped his last breath into Northeast Ohio, I found myself driving along Interstate 71 toward downtown Cleveland, heart seizing each time my van acquiesced to the 70 mph winds. I parked on a street littered with uprooted giants—maples, oaks, and chestnuts—and hur

Read full post »
SEPTEMBER 8, 2008 6:30PM

The Chess Set

chess pieces
 
 

I spent some time last fall on the internet looking for a nice chess set. Okay, because I’m a maximizer,* I spent a lot of time looking for the perfect chess set. Each kid was going to get one big present for Christmas—the oldest,/… Read full post »

SEPTEMBER 6, 2008 11:40AM

Undecided in Ohio

ohio

 “Hi. Is Mr./Mrs. ________ available? My name is __(Lainey)   , and I’m a volunteer with Barack Obama’s Campaign for Change here in Strongsville.  How are you today?

 So started my debut volunteer effort for Barack Obama two

Read full post »
Editor’s Pick
AUGUST 31, 2008 10:37PM

We've Come a Long Way, Baby.

Barack Obama and Jill Biden at the Convention

 

“’Bye baby,” a mischievous Emmett “Bobo” Till tossed out to the  pretty white woman as he left her family’s small-time grocery store—and then, full of the bravado a fourteen-year-old knows when surrounded by a dozen friends egging him on,

Read full post »