Friday, July 18, 2008

Puritans and Jesus Juice

I found the article which follows on Sun-sentinel.com.

You can scroll to the bottom of the blog and read it, but basically, it works like this. This teacher came to school drunk and now she is probably going to get fired. The question is, does she deserve to be fired?

Yes, this particular teacher because she clearly has a problem . . . (read the article).

But in general, no, teachers who come to school drunk ought not be fired.

Teachers who come to work drunk should be reprimanded perhaps, and sent home definitely, but not fired.

In fact, workers in general who go to work drunk should not be fired, unless of course they are airline pilots and other people who work in sensitive areas--and even in these cases, maybe they should be reprimanded and sent home rather than fired.

But in America, where we are really just modern Puritans, teachers who appear drunk in front of their students in a classroom will be fired.

It is not because the teacher is "drunk" or otherwise incapacitated that she will and must be fired in America, but because alcohol has long been considered a vice and a sin and therefore singled out for an especial level of vilification by we modern Puritans.

Don't believe me?

Instead of arguing this point, let me just drop a few scenarios on you.

A teacher comes to school groggy, tipsy, and otherwise incapacitated due to the stength of the medication she has been taking for her cold--the principal says, "Go home. I came down to get you because some of your kids came and told me that you don't look so good. You're stumbling and mumbling. Go home. Get better. See you tomorrow, or whenever you can stand up straight." Sounds reasonable, no?

This actually hapened to me. I did not go home because that is the way I am--I don't let colds or principals push me around.

A teacher comes to school groggy, tipsy, and otherwise incapacitated due to the stength of the pain killers she has been taking after her recent dental/oral surgery--the principal says, "Go home. I came down to get you because some of your kids came and told me that you don't look so good. You're stumbling and mumbling. Go home. Get better. See you tomorrow, or whenever you can stand up straight." Sounds reasonable, no?

This one happened to me, too--the medicine was oxycontin, and I did not go home because I could not even drive--only God knows how I was able to drive to school under such strong medicine--I went into a dark room and stretched out on a couch for the rest of the day--but I was not fired.

A teacher comes to school groggy, tipsy, and otherwise incapacitated due to the stength of the medication she received after giving birth a week earlier--the principal says, "Go home. I came down to get you because some of your kids came and told me that you don't look so good. You're stumbling and mumbling. Go home. Get better. See you tomorrow, or whenever you can stand up straight." Sounds reasonable, no?

This one did not happen to me--duh--I'm a male. But something similar happened to my eighth grade English teacher. She was bleeding and what not. It was gross. They sent her back home for another week, or maybe it was two.

A teacher comes to school groggy, sleepy, and otherwise incapacitated due to the 36 straight hours she has spent wide awake grading her midterms and those of another teacher has suddenly taken ill--the principal says, "Go home. I came down to get you because some of your kids came and told me that you don't look so good. You're stumbling and mumbling. Go home. Get better. See you tomorrow, or whenever you get some sleep." Sounds reasonable, no?

Been there. Done that--and no, I did not go home. I took over three classes for a faculty member who due to an emergency suddenly and unexpectedly moved away. My grading load was incrediable. I am sure I stayed awake more than 36 hours straight that first weekend to get caught up. I was basically stumbling and mumbling through my classes that day. Everyone who saw me, patted me on the back and told me what a great and honorable thing I was doing.

A teacher comes to school groggy, tipsy, and otherwise incapacitated due to the excessive alcohol she drank the night before at a friend's celebration--the principal says, "Go home. I came down to get you because some of your kids came and told me that you don't look so good. You're stumbling and mumbling. Drunk, huh? I know how that is. Well, get out of here. See you tomorrow, or whenever you get that liquor out of your system." Sounds reasonable, no?

Well, this one has never happened to me because I do not drink. Never have. Never will--and not because of some religious objection, I'm no Puritan--but because I simply do not like the taste of alcohol. At weddings, I sip a little champagne in honor of the bride and groom. At strip clubs, where I used to go before I got married and was forbidden by my wife to dare visit ever agaian, I would sip a little beer from the mandatory cover charge drink they forced me to purchase. In college, I think I drank a whole beer and a cup or two of wine to prove to my friends that I could drink, but simply chose not to. I do not drink. I have one vice, gambling. And that is enough.

But I have seen drunk teachers harrassed and persecuted in the public schools; in fact, one of my favorite teachers in seventh grade was fired because a student went through her desk one day when we had a sub and found a bottle of wine. She was fired, and let me tell you this, she was hands down one of the best teachers I have ever had. Her replacement was someone we came to love after a while, but she was only an okay teacher.

In college, unlike in high school, instructors (with tenure) who come to work drunk don't necessarily get fired, but they are looked at with distaste and scorn as they are told to go home.

And this is weird because we would admire the courage of an employee who fought an illness or fought through lack of sleep to come to work . . . think about it. What a hero that person is! What a work ethic! This has happened to me several times.

But here comes this other employee, incapacitated to the same degree as all the other hypothetical employees mentioned in this blog, but due to that evil fire water from hell, alcohol, and not pain medicine . . . pain medicine which is much, much stronger than alcohol can ever be . . . and we fire him/her.

. . . so the firing has nothing to do with the level of incapacitation of the teacher, who, we know, would be far more incapacitated by pain medicine than by alcohol . . .

. . . the firing, then, must have to do with how we feel about the thing which has caused the incapacitation . . . alcohol . . . spirits . . . liquor . . . fire water . . . Jesus juice (shut up, Michael Jackson!) . . .

Finally, we have to deal with the facts. People drink. It is a fact of American life. When they drink to the point of drunkenness, they should not be at work, especially around children or heavy machinery or dangerous chemicals or motor vehicles or airplanes or the White House's Red phone--they should be sent home.

But they should not be fired--not by a sane and rational culture like ours, no more so than we would fire someone who came to work tipsy on painkillers or from lack of sleep.

But, of course, we modern Puritans are not the most rational people in the world.

Not when it comes to Jesus juice.

Preston


_________________________________________________________

Pompano Teacher Accused of Going to Work Drunk Could Lose Job
by Kathy Bushouse




A Pompano Beach High School teacher accused of showing up to work while drunk could lose her job on Tuesday, when the Broward County School Board is scheduled to vote on whether to fire her.

Valjean Marguriet, a 27-year veteran of the school district, has been on leave from her job since January 14, when she came to class smelling of alcohol, according to the district's complaint.

Last year, a federal judge sentenced Marguriet to three years' probation after she pleaded guilty to charges she assaulted a flight attendant on an AirTran Airways flight from Atlanta to Newport News, Va. The judge also ordered Marguriet to undergo alcohol and mental health counseling.

The school district's complaint against Marguriet said students saw Marguriet drunk at work. She was "repeatedly telling her students she loved them," and "unable to answer simple questions. Her speech was slurred."

Laboratory tests confirmed Marguriet was under the influence of alcohol, according to the complaint.

The complaint said Marguriet came to school while intoxicated on multiple other occasions. It cites a complaint from teachers and students who recalled Marguriet appearing at Silver Trail Middle School "with slurred speech and repeating the same things over and over" and attending a school basketball game while drunk.

Kathy Bushouse (Sun-sentinel.com)

San Francisco IT Bandit Withholds Secret Password Despite Arrest

I found this on a site called "The Guru of 3D," but you can find it all over the web.

It is funny . . . and a bit disturbing.

And another thing--I forgot who the comedian was, but he said, "The scary thing about being forty is, one day you wake up and your junior high school class is running the country."

Yes, indeed. The presidential candidate is my age. The great athletes (retired) are my age--the rest (still playing) are all kids. The IT guy who shuts down a city is my age. Strange. Scary. Mmmmmmmm.

Thanks,

Preston


__________________________
Administrators still cannot access San Francisco's main IT system, thanks to a now jailed employee who changed all the passwords and won't give them to authorities.

An IT employee who is charged with gumming up the works at the City and County of San Francisco's main data center by changing access passwords for administrators could have been stopped short of crippling access to the system if IT management had had the right security software in place.

Terry Childs, 43, of Pittsburg, Calif., pleaded not guity in court July 17 at his arraignment on four felony counts of computer tampering. Childs remains in custody in lieu of $5 million bail. Childs, who makes $127,000 per year and has worked for the city for five years, has a bail hearing set for July 23.

Childs, a computer network administrator for the Department of Technology, is charged with tampering with the system's FiberWAN [Fibre Channel-connected wide area network], which contains San Francisco's sensitive Human Resources, payroll and other personal data. He created an administrative password that provided him superior access to the network.

Childs, who was arrested July 13, refuses to divulge to authorities the new secret password he concocted—even four days after his arrest.

Childs is accused of "tampering with the City and County of San Francisco's FiberWAN network system in such a way as to deny other authorized administrators access to the network and to set up devices to gain unauthorized access to the system," according to a statement from District Attorney Kamala Harris's office.

The city system—which handles most of the city's digital records, including confidential law enforcement documents, inmates' bookings, payroll records, and departmental e-mail—apparently has no back door access, even for highly authorized administrators. City officials were still trying to figure out how to get back into the FiberWAN Thursday afternoon.

City and County of San Francisco technology department manager Ron Vinson declined to return numerous messages left on his office phone by eWEEK. Mayor Gavin Newsom has had little or nothing to say publicly about the case thus far. Law enforcement officials have been tight-lipped with the media.

Security companies that sell into this market are beginning to come forward with their expertise to discuss the incident. EMC's RSA Security—which also uses a relatively new security approach called dynamic security—Hewlett-Packard, Sun StorageTek, IBM and NetApp are the larger IT companies that sell centralized key management.

Cyber-Ark, an identity management specialist based in Newton, Mass., said that the network lockout could have been avoided if managers had operated a high-security approach to master passwords.

"This is yet another example of the power privileged identities, such as administrative passwords have and the havoc they can cause in the wrong hands," said Cyber-Ark vice-president Adam Bosnian.

"Hackers, or rogue employees such as this case, are savvier on how to create the most damage with the least effort, and the use of admin passwords does just that. Unfortunately, the San Francisco department left themselves wide open by not taking their privileged identity management seriously."

A city spokesperson estimated that this internal breakdown will cost millions of dollars in repairs. Though the network is running, there is still no way for IT administrators to access it at this time.

"It is critical to take a more proactive approach to secure company back doors," Bosnian said. "Companies install complex systems for personal passwords and overlook the more numerous privileged passwords and identities that provide even more system access. These security breakdowns will continue to occur until these keys to the kingdom are securely centralized and managed."

Sunday, July 13, 2008

An Interesting List from AOL

Did you guys see this on AOL?

http://www.aolhealth.com/healthy-living/worst-places-for-your-health

Pretty scary stuff!

Preston

________________________________________
The Worst Places for Your Health

*Unhealthy Spots*

Location, location, location

Store owners aren't the only ones concerned with finding the perfect spot in which to situate their stuff. Researchers in a wide variety of fields know that how you organize your environment--from where you stand in fitness class to the place you choose to store your meds--has a surprising effect on everything from your weight to your chances of staying well. In other words, when it comes to how you feel, it's not just what you do, it's where you do it. Here, surprisingly bad locales for your health--and the best places to optimize it.


1. The worst place for your toothbrush

On the bathroom sink: There's nothing wrong with the sink itself--but it's awfully chummy with the toilet. There are 3.2 million microbes per square inch in the average toilet bowl, according to germ expert Chuck Gerba, PhD, a professor of environmental microbiology at the University of Arizona. When you flush, aerosolized toilet funk is propelled as far as 6 feet, settling on the floor, the sink, and your toothbrush. "Unless you like rinsing with toilet water, keep your toothbrush behind closed doors--in the medicine cabinet or a nearby cupboard," Gerba says.

2. The worst place for your sneakers and flip-flops

In the bedroom closet: Walking through your house in shoes you wear outside is a great way to track in allergens and contaminants. A 1999 study found that lawn chemicals were tracked inside the house for a full week after application, concentrated along the traffic route from the entryway. Shoes also carry in pollen and other allergens. Reduce exposure by slipping off rough-and-tumble shoes by the door; store them in a basket or under an entryway bench. If your pumps stay off the lawn, they can make the trip to the bedroom--otherwise, carry them.

3. The worst place to try to fall asleep

Under piles of blankets: Being overheated can keep you from nodding off, researchers say: A natural nighttime drop in your core temperature triggers your body to get drowsy. To ease your way to sleep, help your body radiate heat from your hands and feet, says Helen Burgess, PhD, assistant director of the Biological Rhythms Research Laboratory at Rush University Medical Center in Chicago. Don socks to dilate the blood vessels in the extremities--then take the socks off and let a foot stick out from under the blankets.

4. The worst place to cool leftovers

In the refrigerator: Placing a big pot of hot edibles directly into the fridge is a recipe for uneven cooling and possibly food poisoning, says O. Peter Snyder Jr., PhD, president of the Hospitality Institute of Technology and Management in St. Paul, MN. It can take a long time for the temperature in the middle of a big container to drop, creating a cozy environment for bacteria. You can safely leave food to cool on the counter for up to an hour after cooking, Snyder says. Or divvy up hot food into smaller containers and then refrigerate--it'll cool faster.

5. The worst place to keep medicine

The medicine cabinet: It's not uncommon for the temp in a steamy bathroom to reach 100F--well above the recommended storage temperatures for many common drugs. The cutoff for the popular cholesterol drug Lipitor, for instance, is around 77F. To stay out of the red zone, store your meds in a cool, dry place, such as the pantry.

6. The worst place to sit on an airplane

The rear: Avoid this section if you're prone to airsickness, says retired United Airlines pilot Meryl Getline, who operates the aviation Web site fromthecockpit.com. "Think of a seesaw," Getline says. "The farther from the center you are, the more up-and-down movement you experience." Because the tail of the plane tends to be longer than the front, "that's the bumpiest of all," she says. "The smoothest option is sitting as close to the wing as you can."

7. The worst place to pick up a prescription

The pharmacy drive-thru: In a survey of 429 pharmacists, respondents ranked drive-thru windows high among distracting factors that can lead to prescription processing delays and errors, says survey author Sheryl Szeinbach, PhD, professor of pharmacy practice and administration at Ohio State University. If you don't want to give up the convenience of a rolling pickup, be sure to check that both drug and dose are what the doctor ordered.

8. The worst place to set your handbag

The kitchen counter: Your fancy handbag is a major tote for microbes: Gerba and his team's swabs showed up to 10,000 bacteria per square inch on purse bottoms--and a third of the bags tested positive for fecal bacteria! A woman's carryall gets parked in some nasty spots: on the floor of the bus, beneath the restaurant table--even on the floor of a public bathroom. Put your bag in a drawer or on a chair, Gerba says--anywhere except where food is prepared or eaten.

9. The worst stall to pick in a public restroom

The one in the middle: The center stall has more bacteria than those on either end, according to unpublished data collected by Gerba. No, you won't catch an STD from a toilet seat. But you can contract all manner of ills if you touch a germy toilet handle and then neglect to wash your hands thoroughly.

10. The worst place for your coffee

The refrigerator or freezer: Think that you're preserving freshness by stashing it in the fridge? Think again. Every time you take it out of the fridge or freezer, you expose it to fluctuating temperatures, which produces condensation. "The moisture leeches out flavor--it's like brewing a cup of coffee each time," says John McGregor, PhD, a professor in the department of food science and human nutrition at Clemson University. The best spot to store beans or grounds: in an opaque, airtight container kept on the counter or in the pantry.

11. The worst place to stand during your first few fitness classes

Front and center: You might think that you'd want to be near the mirrors so you can check your form, but your sweat session will be more motivating if your view is obstructed, suggests a 2003 study at McMasters University. In that research, 58 sedentary women all exercised at similar intensity levels. But those who did it in a mirrored room reported feeling more anxious about their body's imperfections after their workout than women who sweated without mirrors distracting them.

12. The worst place to use earbuds or headphones

On an airplane, train, or subway: Sure, music's a better traveling companion than your seatmate's cell phone conversation. But studies show that if you listen through a headset in a noisy environment, you probably crank the volume too high. Harvard researchers found that in reasonably quiet surroundings, volunteers tended to keep the volume at an ear-friendly level. But when the researchers added background noise--the loud rumble of an airplane cabin--80% boosted the volume as high as 89 decibels, a level that risks long-term hearing damage. If you must have music, consider noise-canceling headphones--only 20% of listeners in the study who used a set got close to the danger zone. Two good options: Sony MDR-EX51LP ($40; sonystyle.com) and Etymotic Research ER-6i ($149; etymotic.com).

13. The worst place to set fruit before washing it

The kitchen sink: Of all the household germ depots, the kitchen sink sees the most bacterial traffic--even more than the toilet, says Kelly Reynolds, PhD, a professor and environmental microbiologist at the University of Arizona. If the perfect berry drops while you're washing it, pop it in the trash--not your mouth.

14. The worst place for a nighttime reading light


Overhead: These fixtures put out relatively bright light--enough to significantly delay the body's secretion of melatonin, showed a 2000 study. That can wreck your night, since rising melatonin levels are a major cue for your body to prepare for sleep. A low-power light clipped to your novel will let you read but leave the room dark enough for your brain to transition into sleep mode. Try the LightWedge ($25 to $35; lightwedge.com) or the "Itty Bitty" Slim Book Light ($40; zelco.com).

15. The worst place for a workout reminder

Stuck on your post-it laden fridge: A visual nudge can help--but only if you notice it, says Paddy Ekkekakis, PhD, an exercise psychologist at Iowa State University. In one study, a sign urging people to use the stairs rather than the nearby escalator increased the number of people who climbed on foot by nearly 200%. Put your prompt near a decision point, Ekkekakis says--keep your pile of Pilates DVDs next to the TV; put a sticky note on your steering wheel to make sure you get to your after-work kickboxing class. Just remember: The boost you get from a reminder is usually short-term, so change the visuals often.

16. The worst place for your TV

Wherever you dine: Studies show that distraction is your waistline's enemy--it can keep you from noticing how much you're eating. In a 2006 study, volunteers ate faster when watching TV than while listening to music--consuming 71% more macaroni and cheese when watching a show. If you have the tube on while cooking, turn it off before dinner at the kitchen table, and avoid being tempted into eating in front of the TV in the living room. The best place for your television: up or down a flight of stairs, so you have to "work" to get a snack--you'll be much less likely to munch.

Lipshitz 6

Lipshitz 6
Reading T Cooper for Christmas

Punk Blood

Punk Blood
Jay Marvin

Breath, Eyes, Memory

Breath, Eyes, Memory

Anonymous Rex

Anonymous Rex
Reading Eric Garcia for Christmas

Vinegar Hill

Vinegar Hill
Reading A. Manette Ansay for Christmas

Nicotine Dreams

Nicotine Dreams
Reading Katie Cunningham for Christmas

Junot Diaz

Junot Diaz
Pulitzer Prize Winner!!!

Edwige Danticat

Edwige Danticat
New Year's Reading

Greed

Greed
This Brother Is Scary Good

One More Chance

One More Chance
The genius Is At It Again/The Rapper CHIEF aka Sherwin Allen

Sandrine's Letter

Sandrine's Letter
Check out Sandrine's Letter To Tomorrow. You will like it, I insist.

All or Nothing

All or Nothing

Editorial Reviews of All or Nothing

New York Times--". . . a cartographer of autodegradation . . . Like Dostoyevsky, Allen colorfully evokes the gambling milieu — the chained (mis)fortunes of the players, their vanities and grotesqueries, their quasi-philosophical ruminations on chance. Like Burroughs, he is a dispassionate chronicler of the addict’s daily ritual, neither glorifying nor vilifying the matter at hand."

Florida Book Review--". . . Allen examines the flaming abyss compulsive gambling burns in its victims’ guts, self-esteem and bank accounts, the desperate, myopic immediacy it incites, the self-destructive need it feeds on, the families and relationships it destroys. For with gamblers, it really is all or nothing. Usually nothing. Take it from a reviewer who’s been there. Allen is right on the money here."

Foreword Magazine--"Not shame, not assault, not even murder is enough reason to stop. Allen’s second novel, All or Nothing, is funny, relentless, haunting, and highly readable. P’s inner dialogues illuminate the grubby tragedy of addiction, and his actions speak for the train wreck that is gambling."

Library Journal--"Told without preaching or moralizing, the facts of P's life express volumes on the destructive power of gambling. This is strongly recommended and deserves a wide audience; an excellent choice for book discussion groups."—Lisa Rohrbaugh, East Palestine Memorial P.L., OH

LEXIS-NEXIS--"By day, P drives a school bus in Miami. But his vocation? He's a gambler who craves every opportunity to steal a few hours to play the numbers, the lottery, at the Indian casinos. Allen has a narrative voice as compelling as feeding the slots is to P." Betsy Willeford is a Miami-based freelance book reviewer. November 4, 2007

Publisher’s Weekly--"Allen’s dark and insightful novel depicts narrator P’s sobering descent into his gambling addiction . . . The well-written novel takes the reader on a chaotic ride as P chases, finds and loses fast, easy money. Allen (Churchboys and Other Sinners) reveals how addiction annihilates its victims and shows that winning isn’t always so different from losing."

Kirkus Review--"We gamble to gamble. We play to play. We don't play to win." Right there, P, desperado narrator of this crash-'n'-burn novella, sums up the madness. A black man in Miami, P has graduated from youthful nonchalance (a '79 Buick Electra 225) to married-with-a-kid pseudo-stability, driving a school bus in the shadow of the Biltmore. He lives large enough to afford two wide-screen TVs, but the wife wants more. Or so he rationalizes, as he hits the open-all-night Indian casinos, "controlling" his jones with a daily ATM maximum of $1,000. Low enough to rob the family piggy bank for slot-machine fodder, he sinks yet further, praying that his allergic 11-year-old eat forbidden strawberries—which will send him into a coma, from which he'll emerge with the winning formula for Cash 3 (the kid's supposedly psychic when he's sick). All street smarts and inside skinny, the book gives readers a contact high that zooms to full rush when P scores $160,000 on one lucky machine ("God is the God of Ping-ping," he exults, as the coins flood out). The loot's enough to make the small-timer turn pro, as he heads, flush, to Vegas to cash in. But in Sin City, karmic payback awaits. Swanky hookers, underworld "professors" deeply schooled in sure-fire systems to beat the house, manic trips to the CashMyCheck store for funds to fuel the ferocious need—Allen's brilliant at conveying the hothouse atmosphere of hell-bent gaming. Fun time in the Inferno.

At Books and Books

At Books and Books
Me And Vicki at Our Reading

Bio


Preston L. Allen is the recipient of a State of Florida Individual Artist Fellowship in Literature and the Sonja H. Stone Prize in Fiction for his short story collection Churchboys and Other Sinners (Carolina Wren Press 2003). His works have appeared in numerous publications including The Seattle Review, The Crab Orchard Review, Asili, Drum Voices, and Gulfstream Magazine; and he has been anthologized in Here We Are: An Anthology of South Florida Writers, Brown Sugar: A Collection of Erotic Black Fiction, Miami Noir, and the forthcoming Las Vegas Noir. His fourth novel, All Or Nothing, chronicles the life of a small-time gambler who finally hits it big. Preston Allen teaches English and Creative Writing in Miami, Florida.