“(CNN) -- Actress Alaina Reed-Amini, best known for her long-running roles as Olivia Robinson on the children's program "Sesame Street" and Rose Lee Holloway on the comedy "227," has died. Reed-Amini lost a two-year battle with breast cancer at St. John's Medical Center in Santa Monica, California, on Thursday, according to reports.”
With all the hype of shallow celebrities and famous athletes getting face time in the headlines it is sad that the passing of someone who did so much good will be a passing headline buried underneath the latest news of who else Tiger Woods was shagging or how drunk some Rodeo Drive princess got at the latest party.
“But Jefe” you say...”she was just another actress.” Je ne partage pas mon ami! She was an actress on Sesame Street, the pinnacle of all children’s programing. She helped bring to life a world of learning and understanding for generations of children. While the programing could be relevant to all children (and a few adults) it brought the world of inner city children into view and let them know that it was OK if the they weren’t rich, or couldn’t afford the latest toys. It help them understand that the world around them wasn’t always rosy, happy, and beset with joyful purple dinosaurs that could make everything alright by singing a song. It was a world that looked like the inner city world. It was brick and concrete, gray and worn down, but within its borders there were people who were colorful. People (and monsters) of all shapes and sizes. Characters that had problems just like them. There were kids (and monsters) from broken homes, that had problems, that were scared, that had trouble learning or didn’t speak English and had to cope. They even dealt with death and loss. Heck, they even have a character (Kami) that has HIV. Sounds horrible for a kids show but it is a reality of life, especially among poor inner city kids. There odds are that they know someone who has HIV or has died from AIDS.
The troubles of the world don’t go away just because the happy purple dinosaur sings a happy purple song. The world is real and the pain is still there when the TV turns off. Over the decades Sesame Street has addressed the things that creep into children’s lives and has tried to present them with copping skills. They have taught understanding, tolerance, love, acceptance, and patience along with a health dose of the A,B,Cs and 1,2,3s wrapped into fun songs and silly games that kept children engaged. Oh yes...and plenty of not-so-scary monsters!
As a college student studying for a BS in Elementary Education and parent of two teenagers who got their fair dose of Sesame Street when they were young, I still look to Sesame Street for inspiration and guidance. There is a high likelihood that I will teach at a Title I school with a mixed population. They will have the challenges that typically accompany any poor area and I will be faced with how to help them since the social resources to help are few and often times there own family may be part of the problem. I will have to find creative ways to guide them, to help them understand and learn to make good choices, all without over stepping my professional boundaries.
The actresses and actors who work on Sesame Street aren't getting paid millions per year to entertain. They may make a decent living but make far less than Brad Pitt did for his last film. I imagine Pitt has made more in one shallow meaningless film than all of the actors and actress (and probably the entire production crew) combined make in one year. Yet they have for decades and hopefully for many more decades, fed the minds and hearts of children from all walks of life in many countries.
Farewell Olivia, you will be missed but not forgotten.
Dec 22, 2009
Dec 17, 2009
Hating on Christmas
I have grown very weary of the anti-Christmas attitude in America. It hasn’t been an overt attack, more like a subtle subversion. Commercial industry slowly replacing the word Christmas with Holiday etc. People using the greeting Happy Holidays instead of saying Merry Christmas. It is sicking dang it!
We live in a socially free society. Why can’t I have a Merry Christmas if I want to. By celebrating the birth of Christ I am not subjugating anyone's religion or belief. It’s one of the beautiful freedoms we have in America: everyone gets to believe (or not believe) as they see fit.
My belief in Christianity does not make a Muslim, Jew, Hindu, etc any less of their respective religion. I believe that by allowing these freedoms makes us all a little bit better at the religions of our choice.
I try to take note of the people in my life and to some degree the things they believe in, but I wish people a Merry Christmas. I have associates that are members of other religions and when I am aware of their holidays I respect them and try to remember to acknowledge their importance. Please allow everyone the same respect.
Religions are the cornerstone of almost every society in the world. They shape our lives, laws, social morays and how we go about our lives.
Allow everyone the freedom to celebrate as they chose and don’t demean their beliefs by generalizing them. By saying Happy Holidays you chose to minimize the importance of Christmas and Chanukah (two major holidays associated with mid to late December).
Take the time to know those around you and greet them appropriately.
The below links are provided as information/education only. They are not endorsed or supported by me and I have not reviewed what they post.
Major Religious Groups
Religious Tolerance
Chabad Lubavitch - Torah, Judaism and Jewish Info
IslamiCity.com - Islam & The Global Muslim eCommunity
Christianity Today
Hinduism Today
BuddhaNet - Worldwide Buddhist Information and Education Network
The Sikhism Home Page
We live in a socially free society. Why can’t I have a Merry Christmas if I want to. By celebrating the birth of Christ I am not subjugating anyone's religion or belief. It’s one of the beautiful freedoms we have in America: everyone gets to believe (or not believe) as they see fit.
My belief in Christianity does not make a Muslim, Jew, Hindu, etc any less of their respective religion. I believe that by allowing these freedoms makes us all a little bit better at the religions of our choice.
I try to take note of the people in my life and to some degree the things they believe in, but I wish people a Merry Christmas. I have associates that are members of other religions and when I am aware of their holidays I respect them and try to remember to acknowledge their importance. Please allow everyone the same respect.
Religions are the cornerstone of almost every society in the world. They shape our lives, laws, social morays and how we go about our lives.
Allow everyone the freedom to celebrate as they chose and don’t demean their beliefs by generalizing them. By saying Happy Holidays you chose to minimize the importance of Christmas and Chanukah (two major holidays associated with mid to late December).
Take the time to know those around you and greet them appropriately.
The below links are provided as information/education only. They are not endorsed or supported by me and I have not reviewed what they post.
Major Religious Groups
Religious Tolerance
Chabad Lubavitch - Torah, Judaism and Jewish Info
IslamiCity.com - Islam & The Global Muslim eCommunity
Christianity Today
Hinduism Today
BuddhaNet - Worldwide Buddhist Information and Education Network
The Sikhism Home Page
Naming The Past
This was taken from a Facebook post by one of my oldest friends, Andrew Wood, who is a professor at one of the California State Universities. You can find his blog at http://woodlandshoppersparadise.blogspot.com/
"A local reporter called yesterday, asking if we could set up an interview for a story he wants to pursue. His topic? As our decade is drawing to a close, what should we name the last ten years?
We were unable to find a mutually workable time in our schedules, but we had a pleasant phone chat on the topic anyway. Here's the gist...
It seems that most media-types refer to the years between 2000 and 2009 as "the aughts." There's precedent for that choice going back to the turn of the last century. However "the aughts" has not caught on this time around -- most likely because of its archaic sound (fit for horse and buggy-times perhaps, but not for these days).
However, the reporter's research suggested another explanation for why we generally don't refer to the last decade as "the aughts:" Perhaps the passing decade doesn't seem "finished" enough to name.
Think about it.
The pivotal event of the last ten years - 9/11 - punctured us in ways we still don't fully understand. We're still engaged in the wars we launched after the September 11th attacks, and we're not wrapping those wars up anytime soon. Indeed, it seems as if we're digging ourselves deeper and deeper into those quagmires.
Then there's the other big news of the decade: The collapse of banks, housing prices -- heck, entire countries (Wanna buy Iceland? I hear it's on sale at eBay). These problems erupted in the past ten years, but they are hardly resolved enough to call forth a name. Just as with the wars that confound us, we're still stuck in the economic mess that marks our times.
We'd love to name this miserable era if only to render it safely past-tense. But the last ten years remain frustratingly present.
In contrast, we can easily spot the end of previous decades...
The fifties? Kennedy's election
The sixties? Altamont
The seventies? Some would say Reagan's election, but my vote goes to Disco Demolition Night in Chicago's Cominskey Park.
The eighties? The fall of the Wall
The nineties? Hmm. Can you guess?
Anyway, while the reporter and I couldn't schedule a formal interview, we enjoyed the opportunity to chat about how history and language sometimes converge to shape meaning -- and sometimes team up to destabilize meaning-through-naming altogether.
December 31, 2009 will mark a turning point in a chronological way, no doubt. Naming that turn? Maybe we're just not ready yet."
Below is my response to Andy
Aught? Why Naught?
"A local reporter called yesterday, asking if we could set up an interview for a story he wants to pursue. His topic? As our decade is drawing to a close, what should we name the last ten years?
We were unable to find a mutually workable time in our schedules, but we had a pleasant phone chat on the topic anyway. Here's the gist...
It seems that most media-types refer to the years between 2000 and 2009 as "the aughts." There's precedent for that choice going back to the turn of the last century. However "the aughts" has not caught on this time around -- most likely because of its archaic sound (fit for horse and buggy-times perhaps, but not for these days).
However, the reporter's research suggested another explanation for why we generally don't refer to the last decade as "the aughts:" Perhaps the passing decade doesn't seem "finished" enough to name.
Think about it.
The pivotal event of the last ten years - 9/11 - punctured us in ways we still don't fully understand. We're still engaged in the wars we launched after the September 11th attacks, and we're not wrapping those wars up anytime soon. Indeed, it seems as if we're digging ourselves deeper and deeper into those quagmires.
Then there's the other big news of the decade: The collapse of banks, housing prices -- heck, entire countries (Wanna buy Iceland? I hear it's on sale at eBay). These problems erupted in the past ten years, but they are hardly resolved enough to call forth a name. Just as with the wars that confound us, we're still stuck in the economic mess that marks our times.
We'd love to name this miserable era if only to render it safely past-tense. But the last ten years remain frustratingly present.
In contrast, we can easily spot the end of previous decades...
The fifties? Kennedy's election
The sixties? Altamont
The seventies? Some would say Reagan's election, but my vote goes to Disco Demolition Night in Chicago's Cominskey Park.
The eighties? The fall of the Wall
The nineties? Hmm. Can you guess?
Anyway, while the reporter and I couldn't schedule a formal interview, we enjoyed the opportunity to chat about how history and language sometimes converge to shape meaning -- and sometimes team up to destabilize meaning-through-naming altogether.
December 31, 2009 will mark a turning point in a chronological way, no doubt. Naming that turn? Maybe we're just not ready yet."
Below is my response to Andy
I am not as interested in what people wish to name the decade as to why they want to name it. It seems there is an unconscious belief that by naming it people can gain control of it. That by naming the past people can either feel closer to or distance from events as if they are empowering themselves with some mystical ability. It is simply the past. Unyielding, unchanging and and no more important than one wishes it to be. Remember, learn, and then let it go.
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