Secretary Shocked When Told to Take Notes by Superior

LOS ANGELES - Secretary Janice Jones said she felt shocked and betrayed when her boss at a Los Angeles law firm asked her to take notes during a staff meeting Tuesday.
Jones, 45, has worked for O’Neil, Bryant, and Jones for seven years and said that she had never been told to not participate in the discussions.
“They basically told me to shut up and type,” Jones said Tuesday night after work. “My input didn’t matter to them.”
Attorney James Bryant said he respects Mrs. Jones, but said he feels that she oversteps her role.
“We met to discuss some very technical points in a death-sentence appeal and she kept saying things like, ‘Why don’t you just do this’ and ‘Why not try this,’” Mr. Bryant said. “Basically I had to tell her to just take notes.”
Mrs. Jones called in sick to work Wednesday.
“My husband said that no one should limit me,” she said. “So I decided to show them how much I’m needed.”
“She wasn’t here?” Mr. Bryant asked incredulously. “I didn’t even notice.”
But Mrs. Jones said she has more “tricks up my sleeve” to let her bosses know that she won’t sit by to take notes.
“I’m more than just a secretary,” she said.
When told of her feelings, Mr. Bryant said he’s not angry.
“But she is just a secretary,” he said.

Pet Peeves by Students

The following are pet peeves my students came up with in class:
1. Long lines at rollercoasters
2. When moms eat their babies' food
3. 2012 end-of-world theories
4. Campers on Call of Duty
5. When people smack their gums
6. When people take food without asking
7. When little kids interrupt when a teenager is talking to an adult. Or when an adult interrupts a teenager because the adult thinks he/she is more important
8. Loud breathers
9. Bloggers (DANG IT!)
10. People talking annoyingly during online games
11. When you are ignored even though you know the answer
12. Twilight fans
13. Tone-deaf people who think they can sing
14. People who talk smack, but can't back it up, or can't take smack-talk back
15. "JK" and "LOL" in non-text situations
16. Texting adults

Thank You, Howard Zinn

The death of Howard Zinn, author of A People's History of the United States, has really affected me. I wrote a pretty long post at my political blog.

Visit my other site and let me know what you think. If you haven't read A People's History, you must.

The Problem With Right-Wing Ideology

The problem with right-wing ideology is simple: the right wingers attempt to take the person out of politics.

For them, politics and the practice of governance is a game. It's a game to gain more money and more power. It's a game to see how the sheep will react with scare tactics.

"Beware the black man!"

"Beware the immigrant!"

"Beware the poor!"

But individuals are taken out, according to right wingers. 45,000 people died last year from lack of health care. But to the right wingers, this isn't important. Did it happen to someone they know?

And this is why I consider myself a liberal. I don't care about ideology. I care about people.

I care about the individuals I deal with on a daily basis. The students I teach at school and the stability of their home lives is important to me. I want them to be taken care of. I want to know that if something happens, they or their parents get sick, their lifestyles can remain the same. I care about my mother and father. They've worked their whole lives. Do they deserve to go broke if they get majorly sick?

I wish the right wingers would realize that politics is not a game. That decisions they make regarding health care isn't a win for the D's and a loss for the R's. They need to realize that the decisions they make on this issue would be a win for all of us, and for each of us.

Twitter - Town Square for the 21st Century

Just been thinking about why twitter is so popular. It's that human need to be connected to one another. It's not a self-obsessed populace like cynics claim.

More to come later.

Books that appeared on Lost that I want to read

If you don't know, the writers on Lost often find a way to work books onto the show. The books usually have something to do with the direct storyline of that episode, or of the series as a whole. ABC recently put up a site called The Lost Book Club, which features many of the books and when they appeared.

Here are the books I want to read:
1. The Island by Aldous Huxley
- Appeared in The Pilot
- Lost Book Club synopsis: For over a hundred years, the inhabitants of the Pacific island of Pala have been part of a social experiment whereby western science has been brought together with eastern philosophy and humanism to create a paradise on earth. In Island, Huxley gives us his vision of Utopia.

2. Walden Two by BF Skinner
- Appears in The Pilot
- Publisher synopsis: B.F. Skinner's book presents a fictional outline of a modern utopia in which human problems are solved by a scientific technology of human conduct.

3. The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoyevsky
- Appears in Season 2's "Maternity Leave." Locke offers it to the imprisoned Henry Gale.
- Lost Book Club Synopsis: After being involved in the murder of their father, three brothers are consumed with rage and revenge.

4. Valis by Philip K. Dick
- Appeared in Eggtown - Locke offers it to Ben
- BN Synopsis: Valis is a theological detective story, in which God is both a missing person and the perpetrator of the ultimate crime.

5 Signs I'm Getting Old

1. Mysterious ankle pain
2. The belief that I actually need to rest
3. On orneryness with other adults
4. A belief that life is too short (as opposed to there being a whole lotta life ahead)
5. The need to pee every hour or so