Let’s talk about choices, shall we?
Teachers love framing everything in terms of “making good choices” and “that’s your choice.” Why do you have a ‘D’? Well, you chose not to turn in work. Why are you in lunch detention? You made some poor choices about your behavior in class.
I’ve been trying to follow up on a previous post about the “divorce industry” in Oklahoma Territory (1889 – 1907), but I keep getting sidetracked by odd search results and unexpectedly engaging-but-off-topic tangents. I’m finally admitting that my ADHD (Abstemiously Distracted History Dysfunction) has won, and figure I might as well share some of the results.
I’ve been looking into the “divorce industry” in Oklahoma Territory (1889 – 1907), and I spend more time than seems reasonable searching online newspaper archives for terms like “divorce” or “Oklahoma.” I’m not sure this makes me a crack researcher, but it has certainly led me down some weird paths.
Pick any topic – ANY topic – and start scratching at it. Something fascinating will almost always unfold… and yet leave you with a congress of unknowns, smirking and smug like Alice’s cat.
For those of you who've been letting your real lives get in the way of following Blue Cereal as faithfully as you know deep down inside you should, I've been rebuilding and reforming the world of Blue Cereal on a new site: BlueCerealEducation.NET.
It's a bit more legit, less ranting, better editing, more focus on history and pedagogy - in other words, a complete change of style for yours truly.
So another year is concluded, and I'm once again doing my best to focus on things I might control, might impact, might get right from time to time. Clearly my game-changing influence on state politics didn't turn out to be very impressive.
I thought by way of purging myself, though, I might look back and see how much carrying on I actually did on the topic of the Oklahoma Legislature this past year - and, um... well, it was a lot.
My wife and I live in a non-descript middle class suburban neighborhood. It’s more white than not, but there are a half-dozen families of color up and down the block, including a Hispanic couple and their kids two doors down and across the street. We haven’t socialized, but we wave from time to time.
“So… why do you think they hate Mexicans so much? Do they really think we’re all bad people, or are they just racists, or…?
It was a sincere question from one of my most brilliant girls. She doesn’t yet know all she will, but she sees more than most and asks the most sincere, probing questions. They always grab my interest, and are rarely easy to answer.
And yeah – her family is from Mexico.
Some of you have noticed over the past few months that there’s a new Blue Cereal site – BlueCerealEducation.net. This originally came about due to technical issues I was having with the host of this site – the .com site – issues which now appear to be resolved. *fingerscrossed*
By now you’ve heard or read the kerfuffle. A group calling themselves the Oklahoma Republican Platform Caucus has issued their “plan” for resolving the state’s budget woes.
If for some strange reason you’ve not already read Part One several times already and copied favorite bits onto sticky notes to post around your bedroom and kitchen, I there waxed adoring over Helen Churchill Candee and her first extensive article about life in Oklahoma Territory, published in The Forum, June 1898. She wrote at least three other articles about O.T. in the time she lived there, all very positive towards her temporary homeland but varied in style and focus.