Prez Day

So I have to work today. Some of you may be SHOCKED at this (as my students often were) because I work for one of these fine United States. (Or as my Honey's school play had it, the "fifty nifty United States." Not to steal her story or anything (she says while actually doing it), but when the time came for her to shout out "New Jersey" and hold up the map of same, she did neither because she left the map somewhere. So for that moment there were only forty nine nifty United States. New Jersey might not be at the top of everyone's "if we're getting rid of a state which one should it be?" list. But I'm guessing it's in an awful lot of people's top five. I'm voting to keep it because it went Dem in the last election. (53% to 46% for Kerry). Make your own list. I'm going with Texas (if we can keep Austin), Florida, Utah, Arizona, and Alabama as my top five to let go.

Anyway, my university observes the minor holidays during the week between Christmas and New Year's Day. It allows the staff to have a week off and the University to shut down without affecting instruction. Students don't like it. Faculty don't like it. People like not having to go to school. It's a thing.

Just so you all know, Prez Day will be observed by all who work here at XXXX on December 27, 2006. I can hardly wait.

One other holiday observation note: our esteemed Governor pushed through a law that mandates that Veterans' Day be observed on, well, Veterans' Day. So this year we're going to have to open the University back up for Friday December 29th. We''l be closed from 12/23/06 until 1/1/07 except for 12/29/06. Smart. Very smart.

In a deeply passive-aggressive show of yuck, I arrived this morning to discover that no one from the front office team had shown up for work. OM had the day off because her daughter's daycare is closed (ok), Front Desk woman (FDW) isn't here because her visa expired (right to work, not credit card) and she had to resign (ok). But then the third member of the "team" called in sick. Now, she knew she would be the only one in today. OM has poisoned the waters with her and me and AD in the new "accountability regime." So she called in sick. Um Hmm. So did the student assistant. Third team member (TTM) better be really sick. I better see evidence of it when she next shows up. I'm talking snotty tissues, vomit in ziplocks, whatever. The advisors are covering the front and the office has been really slow. The office is slow, of course, because TTM and OM screwed up and we have no student appointments because they had no back-up of the schedule. OM swore up and down that we were "booked" this week and last. You could shoot a cannonball through the office and not hit anybody. We weren't "booked."

OM is doing what my mother calls "shining her fanny." Last week she threw away an application from someone who wanted to replace FDW because it didn't go to Human Resources. She then announced that she had done so. I told her to get it out of the trash and call or e-mail the person to help them get the application to the right place. Then a faculty member from our advisory board wanted information on from whom we had ordered lanyards and how much they cost. She sent half the info that was asked for. Lanyard ordering information is not a secret. There's no CIA "need to know" standard. I told her to send the faculty member all the information she had. High gloss fanny.

While I'm ranting, Ice Dancing is really annoying to me. The costumes, the smiles. Oh the humanity.

So what does all of this have to do with Washington and/or Lincoln? Not much, I guess. I have the right to rant (thanks GW and TJ and JM) and some of the states I listed for expulsion wouldn't have been part of the picture were it not for AL.

In honor of those guys, I guess I'll turn rant mode off. We are at a crossroads, it seems to me. We have to choose whether the notions that the country was founded upon are still worth believing in. In a world of sound-bites and spin, Lincoln's words are worth reading one more time:

"It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us -- that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion -- that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain -- that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom -- and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth."

Freedom and proof of illness. Those are my themes for President's Day this year. Anyone else?