Learn To Spell!

I've recently discovered a site called Passive Aggressive Notes. It's hilarious! Weird notes from people all over the world, in English. The problem is that most of these notes are misspelled. And I don't mean difficult words. I mean words like "stupid" (stuiped). Admittedly, some of these notes are written by kids or by people who have English as a second language. But the majority are written by English-speaking people who supposedly graduated from high school. After hours of scrolling through this homage to our educational system, I became rather depressed. How can I expect my students to spell, if regular adults can't?

Yes, Rich, Jews were oppressed

Wow - it's been a while since I blogged! I felt the need to comment on this though. And I hope it does not come out as trying to defend Rich Sanchez. Sanchez was fired from CNN after calling Jon Stewart a bigot, saying he was part of the liberal northeast elite, and when it was pointed out that Stewart is Jewish, that:

I'm telling you that everyone who runs CNN is a lot like Stewart, and a lot of people who run all the other networks are a lot like Stewart, and to imply that somehow they, the people in this country who are Jewish, are an oppressed minority? I can't see someone not getting a job these days because they're Jewish.

Like I said, I don't mean to defend Sanchez, but maybe he just doesn't know? I'm an educated woman, and it wasn't until I was in my early twenties that I found out Jews had been discriminated against in America (and that was because of a movie!). I grew up with discrimination being black and white. As far as I knew, there was no other kind. It wasn't until college that I learned the KKK had at one point been anti-Catholic. Looking back, it really makes me wonder - why was I never taught this in school? Was it because there were comparatively few Jews where I lived, so it was considered unimportant? Or was it because there were so many people of African descent that all other discrimination was crowded out? But from some of Sanchez's comments, I think he may simply be ignorant of the past.