Dean Dad recently experienced a forehead-slapping moment about bilingual education:

Thanks to Dr. Kiki Wants Your Help at .51 for leading me to The Bird's Brain.

Before moving to Georgia, the back-to-school issue that constantly stuck in my craw was dry-erase markers, of all things. Yes. Every child was required to bring a 4-pack of dry-erase markers as part of their supplies, at the kids' old school.

I was sitting in the Clara Shortridge Foltz Criminal Justice Center court house in downtown Los Angeles. I got called for jury duty. A responsibility that most upstanding Americans expended their most creative efforts to get out of serving. 300 of my fellow Americans failed to find that perfect excuse.

It's back-to-school time for not just public school students in the U.S., but for many (if not most) homeschooled students as well. Today, I read a hundred or so back-to-school blog entries by homeschooling parents to get a sense of what it's like to "send" your kids back to homeschool. What I discovered: Back-to-school time is as anxiety-ridden for many homeschooling parents as it is for parents of public school students. AngiesAngels is second-guessing her decision to homeschool this year:

Which would you choose: a modest salary and with modest regular pay raises and a guaranteed position as long as you weren't negligent at your job, or a higher salary and bigger raises in an environment where the people you supervised underwent high-stakes tests every year--and where you underwent annual evaluation (to determine whether you get a raise, retain your job, or are fired) based in part on their performance on the test?

Do you remember what books you had to read in high school? I thought about this a few years ago when some of my friends and I were comparing reading notes. I came up with what I think is a pretty standard high school reading list. Brave New World, Oedipus Rex, Death of a Salesman, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and The Catcher in the Rye. Shakespeare was represented by Romeo and Juliet and MacBeth. I don't think I enjoyed reading a single one of them. We didn't have a conversation about them in class. No, we sat there with our literary scapels and dissected them to bits leaving no likeable parts. We didn't read books in school - we killed them.

And now for the footnote: I heard about some online tools that help with citations, bibliographies, and other research helps. One was Zotero. Zotero is a Firefox 3 plugin that helps you collect, manage, and cite your research sources. I installed it and gave it a whirl. Easy. I also tried out Easybib, which is what I used to create the professional looking citations that I use below, following the quote from each blog. Another tool I learned about is Noodle Tools.

The back-to-school adjustment always takes me a little by surprise each August. I think, with hope, that we might slide back in to our normal school routine a little more easily than we did the year before. But then reality hits.

If you've given birth in the United States in the past three years, you are eligible to participate in The Birth Survey. Thanks to The Birth Survey: Transparency in Maternity Care, "women can now give consumer reviews of doctors, midwives, hospitals, and birth centers, learn about the choices and birth experiences of others, and view data on hospital and birth center standard practices and intervention rates." If enough women take this survey, it could have a serious impact on maternity care in the U.S.

Sometimes I write too much because I don’t want folks to miss anything. I don’t want to be accused of telling parts of the story. Then there are times when I know I can’t begin to convey the inspiration and knowledge that has been graciously given from one person to another.  One of my purposes on the planet is being a conduit for information so I have to make the effort even if I fall a little short of the goal.

Finally! One of the most pressing questions in my life - how on earth did a committed socialist like me end up married to a capitalist finance professional?