A Strike, A Bargain, and The Aftermath

     I can't say how the aftermath of the Reynolds School Districts teachers' strike will affect the rest of the school year but I should hope that the backlash of having had a full week off school is less disastrous than coming back from a spring break or winter vacation. For planned weeks off such as spring break most students have an ample amount of homework to try and keep as much knowledge from slipping as way as can be hoped for. However, in the case of this strike many teachers had different views and approaches to the looming strike.
     Some teachers gave homework assuming students would be back within a day, others gave no homework assuming all would be well and settled soon enough, while still others treated it like the end of the school year, (which it very well could have been in hindsight seeing how long things lasted). The result? The scattered approaches, mixed with 20 minute class periods on the last Friday to make time for a "Raider Rumble" carnival type event left a feeling of the last day of school and the possibility of no school for a while looming. Many students instead of cheering for what looked to be an early summer sat and watched updates daily to know if they would be returning to school any time soon, fretting over grades yet to be resolved  because of grades never entered. In an effort to keep families informed the school district set up a strike information hotline where parents (and students) could call for the latest update on school closures.
     After negotiating for for 21 straight hours on Sunday, the day before the strike was set to begin, a settlement still could not be reached and the teachers of the Reynolds School District took to the pickets lines at 6am Monday May 21. Both sides continued to work through issues to return to school and work as quickly as possible, however, a full week passed before any sort of agreement could be reached. Throughout the week both sides pushed the facts to show their side in the best light. Whether this helped, hindered or did nothing for either side is not obvious, but that's politics for you, eh?
     With a tentative settlement finaly reached students of Reynolds High School are set to to resume classes on Tuesday May 29. The question is: when students return, what will they be coming back to? Unless changes are made the school year is set to end June 13, just 2 weeks after students return. With a week lost and the end of the school year nearing how will lesson plans be adjusted to make up for the the missing class time? Will finals still happen as scheduled? What is the best way to make up for lost time without leaving students confused on curriculum with no time to actually learn the information being thrown at them? Questions, questions and more questions remain.
     The strike has be a hardship on all parties involved. From teachers, to parents, to the school board to even students, this strike has caused quite a stir. Unlike Barlow and Parkrose, the strike lasted a good while. Now that the initial issues are solved it's time to face the aftermath and see what these last two weeks of school really will be. 

Summer Time (well, kind of), Food Time

Between my English table group's Baked Goods Friday tradition and all this nice weather, (good weather just puts me in a generally good mood,) I've found myself doing a good deal of cooking and baking. I figured I might as well share one of my favorites. So here it is, simple, easy, and delicious:

Lemon Bars

I recommend laying out all of your ingredients first. This way you can easily make sure you have enough of everything you need as well as having everything easy to get to when you need it. 
 
  Ingredients you'll need:

• 1 cup of all purpose flour (so basically just normal flour)
• 1/2 cup of butter or margarine (doesn't really matter which)
• 1/4 cup of powdered sugar 
• 2 eggs
• 1 cup of granulated sugar (which is the regular stuff not, the powdered sugar)
• 1/2 teaspoon  of baking powder (not baking soda!)
• 1/4 teaspoon of salt
• 2 tablespoons of lemon juice

First off you want to start your oven pre-heating to 350 degrees fahrenheit.
You'll also need a mixing bowl (or two if you don't want to wash it out since you'll need to use it for two different things) and an ungreased  8x8 inch baking pan.

     In your bowl, mix thoroughly the flour, butter and powdered sugar. You want to mix it until it become slightly doughy but still soft and slightly (but not very sticky. This will be what you could call the crust of your lemon bars.Now take your crust and press it into the 8x8 pan so that it is spread evenly and is about a quarter to half an inch thick. 

BAKE FOR 20 MINUTES

     Once the crust is baking if you're only using one mixing bowl now would be the time to wash it out so you can make the filling. If you're using a second bowl go ahead and grab that to use. You can make the filling right away and let it sit until the crust is ready, in which case you'll have to mix it slightly again before you pour it, or you can wait until there is about 7 minutes or so left until the crust is done to make your filling. 

     Beat the remaining ingredients, (meaning the eggs, sugar, baking powder, salt and of course lemon juice) together with an electric mixer on low to medium power for about 3 minutes. Pour the filling over the hot crust and return it to the oven.

BAKE FOR ANOTHER 20 MINUTES

Once your bars are done baking set them out to cool for about 15-20 minutes. Longer is always better if time allows. 

     After everything is cooled off cut into squares, serve and enjoy! 

     And there you have it, simple, easy and delicious, lemon bars. 

An Air of Superiority?

     We've harnessed the use of tool, built shelters, then villages and towns, and now cities. Humans have lived, if not comfortably, apart from nature for some time now. Some how we've gotten it worked into our minds that we're smarter and/or better than anything else out there. But think about this, could you survive in a rain forest on your own for a week? What if you weren't the biggest thing out there, are we really that well adapted or have we learned to create environments that suit us instead of adapting to the environment we live in? We don't stop to think about it much but  Michael Crichton and Richard Preston's new book, Micro, has got just the right mix of science fiction and colorful detail to stir up a a thought provoking tale.
      Micro takes seven graduate students and thrusts them into the harsh unforgiving natural world. These grad students are ethnobotanists, arachnologists, entaomologists, botanists, biochemists studying pheromones and an expert in venoms. Stranded in the Hawaiian rain forest with only their brains and any survival gear they can make these students face a world like no other, and to top it all off they've all been shrunk down to the grand size of about half an inch tall. Now, not only is this group of graduate students stranded with no one to call to their aid but they're no longer the biggest thing in the jungle, far from it at that.
      Even if we're not the biggest thing out there we're still the smartest though, right? We're smarter so we can think our way out of a tight spot and are smarter than any old bug that come our way. Except how to avoid a dangerous situation? We're soft creatures, no exoskeleton, we don't produce any kind of poison, and we don't exactly look terribly scary either, we're could be a meal waiting to happen.
     While in the the jungle our group of students faces venomous wasps, sticky spider webs, aggressive ants and an unforgiving world. To survive it'll take more than just wits and thinking you're the best. Crichton and Preston's book Micro is both a thrilling story with a touch of science fiction for flair and has just a few intriguing details not so far from reality that make for a good bit of food for thought.

Are are we really as brilliant and well evolved as we seem to think so are?

The Return of Holmes

     Holmes and Watson are back for BBC's next installment of three episodes. The first episode, A Scandal in Belgravia, aired in the US on Sunday night. This episode is based off of the tale A Scandal in Bohemia and introduces us to the seductively cunning Irene Adler. Ms. Alder flashes into the world of Holmes quickly and intensely only to disappear once again, leaving Sherlock to deal with a tide of emotions he has no way of knowing how to handle. But is she really gone for good?
     This first episode gives promise to season two being just as grand and enticing as season one. Watson's blog is up and running as he writes up each case the crime solving duo takes on their publicity continues to grow. Living in the media age Sherlock has become something of a celebrity to the public, whether he likes it or not. As promised the classic Holmes look was completed with a newspaper shot of Holmes and Watson exiting a crime wearing the long jacket and hat that could be considered classic Holmes trade mark items.

     Next up on the adventure list is Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's The Hounds of Baskerville. This episode's description promises thrills, chills and laughs as our Cleaver detective and his blogger head into the moors to investigate Baskerville's legendary Hell Hound. 
     A Scandal in Belgravia kicked off the season with a twisting plot, Sherlock's down fall and redemption and set the tone for what looks to be a promising second season for the mystery solving team. Stay tuned for The Hounds of Baskerville Sunday night at 9pm on OPB.

Sherlock Holmes Steps into the 21st-Century

      The classic stories of Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle have been done, redone and done again numerous times. One remake of these classic tales of mystery are the Sherlock Holmes action movies that hit theaters in December of 2010 and followed by a sequel in December of 2011. These movies made decent action films but lacked an authentic classic Sherlock Holmes feel. In comparison, another recent Sherlock Holmes come to us from BBC in the form of a three episode TV series.
     What BBC has done is not only have they taken plots that have been done many times over with remarkable results but also beautify brought these classics into the 21st-century. Creators Steven Moffat and Mark Gatiss have taken Sherlock Holmes and Dr. John Watson and landed them in the middle of modern day London solving crimes in the media age, while still keeping true to classic Holmes.
     Gatiss and Moffat's 21st-century Sherlock Holmes incorporates elements of classic Holmes and brings them into this century. Some things from classic Holmes that have been brought up to date include:

• Smoking habit/the classic pipe –––> Nicotine patch
• Holmes trench coat  –––> trade mark jacket w/ scarf 
• Magnifying glass  –––> tiny pocket magnifying glass
• Watson's journal  –––> a blog
• Holme's arms (if you can call it that) of lost children  –––> London's homeless population 
• Both versions have a veiled allusion to drug use
• The classic Holmes hat (to be introduced in season two)

Smoking is more generally frowned upon these days, so if Sherlock does smoke what does he do? He's got a nicotine patch of course. As for Watson's journal that recounted all the stories (which is the point of view the original stories are written from), what is the modern equivalency of a journal? How about a blog? Living in a media age Holmes is not only cleaver and cunning but is also fully technologically adept. This retelling and modernizing of Sherlock Holmes is both classic and witty, as well as modern and well done. With the dynamic Holmes/Watson duo back in action and up to date this is one series worth watching. 

To give you guys some sort of idea about what I've been going on about here's two short clips:

Clip from Season One

Clip preview of Season Two

     Season One of this show was been such a hit both in the UK, where it was created, as well as over seas here in America that it was granted a second season. BBC America will be airing the next installment of three episodes Sunday May 6th, 13th and 20th on PBS channel 10 at 9pm. Rarely are second seasons as good as the first. Only time will tell if season two will sink or float, so to speak. 

     Stay Tuned for my review of season two next week. 

Welcome to 1984

     1984 is creeping into our lives, and I don't mean the 80s are coming back, and I'm not talking about the make-up, the hair style or the clothes. I'm talking about the George Orwell book, 1984, that depicts a future where "Big Brother" is always watching and privacy is a thing of the past.
     When 1984 came and went the nation breathed a sigh of relief, this predicted Orwellian future never came and our live could continue, free and protected. Unfortunately danger is still alive today. SOPA and PIPA may not have gotten through legislation but the danger isn't past. Now running it's way through legislation is the Cyber Intelligence and Sharing Protection Act (CISPA).
     For those who missed SOPA (the Stop Online Piracy Act) and PIPA (the Protect IP Act), these acts never passed but they didn't die either. These acts were intended to protect copyrights but the bills were so vaguely written that their effectiveness in regards to their intent was pretty dubious. Under SOPA and PIPA websites like Wikipedia, Facebook and Google would be responsible for the content posted by their millions of users and if any of these websites had content violating copyright law they could be shut down. Of course expecting sites that get millions of hits a second to monitor ever post and every last bit of content the minute it pops up is crazy.
     Now it's CISPA's turn in legislation. CISPA basically hits the final nail in the coffin for the right to privacy. Under CISPA the government would not need a warrant/subpoena to access private information. This means the government would have the right to read emails, track search records, and basically bypass any privacy settings if you could even be remotely suspected of anything "suspicious". In the case of SOPA and PIPA companies like Google and Facebook were against the bill, however, under this bill these companies get full protection while disclosing personal information.
     We already have anti-terrorism precautions. Everything changed after 9/11. The Patriot Act and National Security Letters give the government power to request companies like Google, Facebook, ect. turn over your personal information while prohibiting these third party companies from informing you that your information has been distributed. In cases of personal information being distributed citizens can appeal the action, however, if you aren't told you're being monitored or having you information distributed how can you do much about it? If you wanted to keep to the theme of Orwell's book, 1984 you could sum this up with "Big Brother is watching."
     Of course we may not have TV screens that can see ever inch of our house or hear every word we speak but what we say and do on the internet, regardless of privacy settings, isn't so private these days it seems. Orwell's 1984 is a perfect distopia. Citizens live in fear and can vanish in the middle of the night never to be seen again, as if they never existed. We haven't sunk so far as to fear deviating from our daily routines and fearing every consequences of every utterance but are we still have reason enough to worry about what we say and do on the internet. Today you don't have to be formally charged with anything for there to be trouble in this post 9/11 era.

"Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely"
~John Dalberg-Acton

Sources/Additional info:
SOPA/PIPA
SOPA/PIPA
CISPA
CISPA - Democracy Now

Childhood

     A while ago I was reading the article Nature-Deficit Disorder. This article by Timothy Egan talks about how kids these days don't get out as much as they used to. Kids these days in general don't go play outside, shoot hoops in the drive way, go to the park, ect. Fresh air, camping trips and time outdoors is an important part of being a kid. Egan talks about how over protective parents who want to protect their kids from "out there" are actually doing more harm than good. I found this article pretty interesting and it made me kind of take a step back and think about my childhood a little bit.  

Childhood

Do you remember those days? The long days of summer that seemed like nothing would ever change. When you counted the minutes ‘til sunset when it was dark enough to watch your parents light colorful fireworks for the fourth of July.  The days went on and on.

Remember the days a crisp breeze played across your face and dead leave crunched under foot. Days that in the last late afternoon glow, the world was bathed in gold.

Do you remember begging to stay up five more minutes instead of wishing for more minutes of sleep? When Saturdays were for morning cartoons. The days when you ran barefoot outside to look up at the first snow and catch tiny flakes on your nose. Spending hours in the snow rolling snowmen and building an igloo just to come running back in for hot chocolate and Christmas movies by a warm fire. Ever go to bed early just so you could wake up and have it be the next day?

Do you remember pointing at a rainbow through the rain? Did you ever crawl under the tarp roof of a fort in the rain? Days when you could sit for hours listening to the rain drops on the tarp. That smell of fresh rain after a long dry period. Did you ever notice the world around you came back to life and bloomed anew?

Do you remember blowing out the candles of a homemade cake? Staying up late waiting for mom to come home from work, throwing aside the colorful wrapping paper and reading cards from aunts and cousins.

And the thrill of competition, do you remember? The days of waking up early just for a game. Running harder than you thought you ever could. Sliding through the mud, playing so long it hurts to walk when you got home. The losses and the victories, the old friends and the new ones.

The good old days of childhood, do you remember?