Paying the Danegeld

Michele has a nice rant about school fundraisers.

I do not like to be almost forced to buy stuff from your kids. I know, your kids are cute, your kids are unique and special and amazing and those beautiful little dependents of yours are trying to raise money for a playground/school supplies/field trip/scout troop/whatever. The thing is, your kids are not the only kids who are doing this. Everyone's kids are selling something. So when you bring their catalog of goodies into the workplace, you are about the 100th person this week alone to do so. How much wrapping paper, mixed nuts, cookie dough, magazines or pizza mix can a person buy? Apparently, not enough. Because you keep bringing this stuff in. And you keep expecting everyone to buy it from your little snowflake.

This parental peddling for prizes is a relatively recent phenomenon. As is the proliferation of these fundraisers.

Back in the olden days, when I was in school, I sold Girl Scout cookies and only Girl Scout cookies. My friends who went to Catholic school would occasionally be called upon to sell something, but we public school kids didn't have to sell anything. That changed by the time my son was of school age. Now everyone at school had at least one fundraiser plus one for each extracurricular activity--we had band.

I also grew up somewhere between the "Leave it To Beaver" era and the "razor blades in Halloween apples" era; a time before playdates and Amber alerts. It was also a time of parental neglect. A very benign neglect.

Back then I wouldn't have dreamed of asking my father to sell the cookies at work. No one else's parents sold them either. Most parents bought a few boxes and left it at that. Except maybe the Grand Prize winner--the girl whose mother wore a grown up version of the scout uniform. And no one really wanted to be her, even if she did win a trip to Florida.

So, after we'd exhausted the family resources, we went door-to-door for customers. It generally worked like this: One day Beth or Elena or Eva would come by and we'd go door-to-door in my neighborhood; the next day we'd continue in Beth's or Elena's or Eva's neighborhood. I'm guessing we were allowed to cover the trick-or-treating perimeter set by our parents--I don't remember--but I doubt we even got that far. We were indifferent salespeople. A couple of Nos in a row and we were ready to throw in the towel. And I'm not even sure we even made it to Eva's neighborhood most years.

When cookie sales results were announced we'd be somewhere in the middle, probably nearer the bottom than the top. We never won anything, but at least we didn't have to suffer the indignity of seeing our mom in a girl scout uniform. And that was enough for us.

Today's Girl Scout cookie saleswoman is a hardened professional. And her mother is even worse. Girl Scouts and their mothers have commandeered the entrance to all the local supermarkets around here. They pounce on you as soon as you get out of your car. And they'll block the doors and hogtie you if you don't give in and buy at least one box of Thin Mints.

It's a different world.

World War II without Churchill--or Hitler

Winston Churchill no longer merits a mention after a drastic slimming-down of the syllabus to create more space for "modern" issues.

Along with Hitler, Gandhi, Stalin and Martin Luther King, the former prime minister has been dropped from a list of key figures to be mentioned in history teaching.

This means pupils may no longer hear about his stirring speeches during the Second World War, when he told Parliament that defeating Hitler would be Britain's "finest hour".

The only individuals now named in guidance accompanying the curriculum are anti-slavery campaigners Olaudah Equiano and William Wilberforce.

~ The UK's new slimline curriculum.

Olaudah Equiano Secondary School:
Revised: 20th Century History
The Road to World War II

1919

April 28 - League of Nations founded.

June 28 - Signing of the Treaty of Versailles.

1921

July 29 - Adolf Hitler becomes leader of National Socialist 'Nazi' Party.


1923

Nov 8/9 - The Beer Hall Putsch.

1925

July 18 - Hitler's book "Mein Kampf" published.

1930

Sept 14 - Germans elect Nazis, making them the 2nd largest political party in Germany.
1932

Nov 8 - Roosevelt elected President of the United States.

1933

Jan 30 - Hitler becomes Chancellor of Germany.

Feb 27 - The Reichstag burns; significant but we don't have time to cover that now.

March 23 - Enabling Act gives Hitler dictatorial power.

April 1 - Boycott of Jewish-owned shops.

May 10 - Nazis burn books in Germany.

July 14 - Nazi party declared only party in Germany.

Oct 14 - Germany quits the League of Nations.

1934

June 30 - The "Night of the Long Knives."

Aug 19 - Adolf Hitler becomes Führer of Germany.
1935

Sept 15 - German Jews stripped of rights by Nuremberg Race Laws.

1936

Feb 10 - The German Gestapo is placed above the law.

March 7 - German troops occupy the Rhineland.

May 9 - Mussolini's Italian forces take Ethiopia.

1937

June 11 - Soviet leader Stalin begins a purge of Red Army generals.

Nov 5 - Hitler reveals war plans during Hossbach Conference.
1938

1938

March 12/13 - Germany announces 'Anschluss' (union) with Austria.

Aug 12 - German military mobilizes.

Sept 30 - British Prime Minister Chamberlain appeases Hitler at Munich.

Oct 15 - German troops occupy the Sudetenland; Czech government resigns.

Nov 9/10 - Kristallnacht.

1939

Jan 30, 1939 - Hitler threatens Jews during Reichstag speech.

March 15/16 - Nazis take Czechoslovakia.

May 22, 1939 - Nazis sign 'Pact of Steel' with Italy.

Aug 23, 1939 - Nazis and Soviets sign Pact.

Aug 25, 1939 - Britain and Poland sign a Mutual Assistance Treaty.

Aug 31, 1939 - British fleet mobilizes; Civilian evacuations begin from London.

Sept 1, 1939 - Nazis invade Poland.

Sept 3, 1939 - Britain, France, Australia and New Zealand declare war on Germany.

Sept 4, 1939 - British Royal Air Force attacks the German Navy.

Sept 5, 1939 - United States proclaims neutrality; German troops cross the Vistula River in Poland.

Sept 10, 1939 - Canada declares war on Germany; Battle of the Atlantic begins.

Sept 17, 1939 - Soviets invade Poland.

Sept 27, 1939 - Warsaw surrenders to Nazis.

In Oct - Nazis begin euthanasia on sick and disabled in Germany.

May 10, 1940 - Winston Churchill becomes British Prime Minister.




Via David Foster.

You'll cheer for them--and you'll like it

Title IX takes on cheerleaders.

Whitney Point is one of 14 high schools in the Binghamton area that began sending cheerleaders to girls’ games in late November, after the mother of a female basketball player in Johnson City, N.Y., filed a discrimination complaint with the United States Department of Education. She said the lack of official sideline support made the girls seem like second-string, and violated Title IX’s promise of equal playing fields for both sexes.

But the ruling has left many people here and across the New York region booing, as dozens of schools have chosen to stop sending cheerleaders to away games, as part of an effort to squeeze all the home girls’ games into the cheerleading schedule.

Boys’ basketball boosters say something is missing in the stands at away games, cheerleaders resent not being able to meet their rivals on the road, and even female basketball players being hurrahed are unhappy.

If everyone is equally unhappy, that's a good thing, no?