Friday, May 02, 2008

friday-catching up and an article about a memphis principal outing her students

catching up a bit i hope; roxette playing in the background and i blogged one of their songs -not their best but i like their sound-

didn't get time to blog yesterday and only did 4 miles of recovery on the mostly usual 4 mile loop, though they are doing construction on the southern part of the canal path and that will be closed most likely for the rest of our time here. was always my short cut back to gloucester green, but will manage.

spent a lot of yesterday between rain storms practicing golf at the range. wanted to really figure out a few things and spent the day there hitting three hundred balls and chipping for a little over an hour. was well worth it and i figured out a few things and was hitting pretty well. would hope in an unusual way that it will have some bearing on today's practice rather than feeling like it is all new again.

they had mizuno and taylormade demo days the past two days and the place was crowded yesterday. not many people showed up in the pouring rain the first day.

anyway, went out today intending to go slow and long and managed to get 14 miles in. would have settled for 12, but added a long dead end trail to my run and had to turn back. started out up binsey past the cow herds grazing there and went up to st margaret's past the sheep and did a little loop around the church cemetery which i hadn't done in awhile. then turned back down and went over and up the river trail past two more cows who were mooing at each other which was pretty funny. only a river between them, but they were clearly responding to each other.

a pretty day so far. the sun was out and the temps were high 40's. spring is here, but hides a lot. everything is trying to bloom out and from a distance you can see the trees budding. there is a large field of yellow rape growing on the hill by wytham and they tell me it is used to make oil. pretty in the distance.

the river is gorgeous and the crews practicing leave their little wakes and the geese and ducks trail behind them. funny. not sure where i was actually going to go, but when i got to the nunnery i met a guy from a crew team and we ended up chatting a bit about his just run marathon and i ended up going over godstow road to wolvercote where he headed south and i went on. just didn't want to get on the canal at that point and i went over to wolvercote village and got some water at the store and went east towards cutteslowe park. first i added the loop around wolvercote green village as it is pretty hilly and i like to add any hills i can find here.

was still running pretty good, the hills went ok, and only slightly feeling any left over twinges from previous runs and range days. four hours on your legs can be fun too. figure three hundred balls is almost like playing six rounds of golf. anyway, i ran east and then cut back down a decent looking trail figuring it would cut over towards banbury rd, but it dead ended about a mile down. they usually tell you if a road dead ends but there was no sign i saw. so back i went and there was the two extra miles. eventually i headed down and through summertown and then cut over a nice street with lots of pretty gardens- this was a nice area- and found woodstock road and ran south. got another bottle of water here and came out to find the sky darkening and the wind picking up. colder now but i was headed back at least.

found my little shortcut road and took it back to the bridge that brought me to the canal north of jericho. felt good though as the air was cleared out a bit by the wind and cold and my legs were awake rather than tired. ran all the way down towards the bridge back to the thames and met a woman slower than me and we went towards the train station as she lamented blair and bush befriending each other and wasting so many lives in the war. i remember people here liked the first bush and i always had to watch what i said, but they loved clinton and now they hate bush 2.

she went south and i went west and headed home. a nice little run actually and i seemed to have recovered ok. will see how it all feels in the morning. laundry done and bills paid and up to the range i go. a really retirement sort of day.

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where do people like this come from? remember the principal is your pal?--lt

Memphis Principal Outs Gay Students To School, Parents
Posted: 01 May 2008 05:35 PM CDT
My Eye Witness News:

Memphis, TN - Attorneys for the American Civil Liberties Union say Daphne Beasley, the principal of Hollis F. Price Middle College High School in South Memphis, went way beyond her role as educator.

The ACLU says in September 2007, Beasley asked her staff to give her the names of students who were couples, heterosexual and homosexual, because she wanted to keep an eye on them to cut down on public displays of affection.

She’s accused of publicly posting the names of those students, including two boys, Andrew and Nicholas, who had just started dating. The ACLU says that in doing so, Beasley revealed their relationship to other students, teachers and even their parents.

Nicholas says his teachers and other students treat him differently as a result of Principal Beasley’s decision and that he and Andrew have both had to deal with verbal assaults. Nicholas was also not allowed to go on a trip to New Orleans to help rebuild homes because, as one of his teacher’s explained, he would “embarrass” the school by engaging in gay affection. Read on…

The article also states that the male students had NOT been showing “gay affection” anywhere in the school, and that Nicholas had just made the Dean’s list and is an exemplary student. What a rotten, hateful thing to do to those guys. These are some sick people and this principal needs to be held accountable for her deplorable behavior.
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