Bailing

Hey y'all. It's been awhile. I could try to explain how, during my long absence, I've been wrangling with my convictions about the Greater Good and the Rightness of participating in the public education system, and about how putting kids in private schools doesn't do anything to improve public schools (indeed, probably makes them worse); and then about how, with much distress, we bailed at the last minute on our local public school system in order to see whether $10K can buy a more stimulating and well-rounded education for our child. I could write about the good (if not good enough) job his former school was doing, given the circumstances of a state legislature that has screwed children and teachers by slashing the education budget year after year, and of state and federally mandated testing that has made adequacy the new standard of excellence, and of the flawed philosophies of No Child Left Behind. I could try to unpack my expectations about what constitutes an "education" in the first place, and ask how the government expects children to get good ones when classrooms are ridiculously overcrowded. But goodness, I'm just all wrangled out.

So instead, I'll show you some photos of a bunch of greenware full-octave chickarinas waiting to be bisque fired. They seem a little trivial in the context of a school crisis, but life must go on, and nothing soothes the nerves quite like music and anthropomorphizing. This is a flock interrupted, as chicken whistles take waaaay more time to make than chicken rattles (have you ever tried tuning a chicken?), and lately every time I've gotten started on a subflock, some unrelated event has destroyed the momentum.

When these birds are done, I expect they will sound something like this green polka dot ocarina, but more in tune and without all the white noise.