Back to School

So my alarm clock went off in the morning, like it does now that the school year has started.  I showered.  I shaved.  I put on the shirt and tie, like I do now that the school year has started.  I drove to school and stood there eyeing up a fresh new batch of ninth graders, after I worked so hard all of last year to train the last batch.  I have to say, I just wasn't feeling it. 

Perhaps it was just the beginning of the year feeling of drudgery.  Perhaps it was the dulled nerves from spending so long precariously balancing multiple stressful jobs and school work as I teeter on the brink of an abyss I had just worked so hard to climb out of.  Whatever the case, I really wasn't feeling it.  I wasn't feeling the whole teaching thing, I wasn't feeling the friendly (sometimes not so friendly) bickering with the right-wing extremist teacher in the room next to mine.  And I certainly wasn't feeling wearing a shirt and tie in my sauna of a classroom. 

I had decided even though I no longer desired friendly bickering over politics with my radical right colleague, that didn't necessarily mean I would avoid confrontation.  I just wouldn't be friendly anymore.  I didn't care anymore.  I don't know why exactly, but I fired the first shot that day.  Just before lunch I sent him this email:

    To:  Him
    From: Me
    Subject: The cult of Glenn Beck

    http://crooksandliars.com/matt-osborne/glenn-beck-your-summer-rage-here

It was actually a pretty interesting blog post about the marketing techniques Beck uses to sell himself and create a whole culture with him as the leader.  With someone else, perhaps a good dialogue would have followed.  I knew even as I sent it that wouldn't happen here.  I knew he wouldn't even read it.  But I sent it.  He replied:

    To: Me
    From: Him
    Subject: The cult of Al Gore

   
    http://www.centraltexasnow.com/Global/story.asp?S=13082607

    http://www.examiner.com/law-enforcement-in-national/hostage-taker-james-lee-influenced-by-al-gore-film

Of course.  Let's blame the lunatic at the Discovery Channel building on Al Gore.  I had just read a post by someone trying to blame those actions on Charles Darwin, so I was already primed to blow on this subject.  What follows is the complete transcript of our email exchange that day (the body of the messages anyway).  The arguments may not be well crafted, or even grammatically correct, we were after all doing this in the few precious minutes we could steal while not giving students our undivided attention.  It's true, by the way.  What you are thinking.  This is what teachers do.  Think back to your school days.  That week your 9th grade civics teacher had you working on that George Washington poster?  He was picking his fantasy football team.  That day your 11th grade English teacher asked you all to write a creative response to the poetry read the day before?  She was emailing funny cartoons to the science teacher.  That time your algebra teacher made you spend the entire class period working on a practice sheet of polynomials?  Well, he was probably just being a jerk, but you get the point.  People wonder how anyone can spend all day everyday trapped in a small space with hundreds of adolescents. This is how.  Small distractions that get us through the day.  Small, glorious distractions. 

    To: Him
    From: Me
    Subject: Re: the cult of Al Gore

    hahaha.  It's like right wing paranoid fantasy porn.  Now, if you had actually read what I sent you, you would have seen that the case wasn't being made that because a single mentally unbalanced person happened to like glenn beck I was calling it a cult.  Try to once in a awhile actually read something and think (note, thinking does not mean cramming everything into your pre-formed view of the world handed to you by faux news).  The article was making the point that beck is intentionally trying to build up a culture (cult) around him by deliberately using marketing techniques (not necessarily a bad thing, just pointing out that he is doing it).  I had faith that even you would be able to read that list of techniques and easily see how beck is using it.  Thank you for ridding my being of yet another bit of useless faith.  I supposed if I had applied logic and reason to the situation I would have come to the correct conclusion that you are in deed far too brain washed and blinded by ideology to treat any type of criticisms of your false idols with anything more mature than closing your eyes, covering your ears and screaming "No, you are!" like some kind of slightly retarded five year old.

    To: Me
    From: Him
    Subject: Re: Re: the cult of al gore

    (My Name)-----  The Cult of Al Gore

   
    To: Him
    From: Me
    Subject: Re: Re: Re: the cult of al gore
   
    Does Jesus know you are cheating on him with Glenn Beck?

    http://www.huffingtonpost.com/bob-cesca/glenn-beck-the-faith-heal_b_702586.html

    To: Me
    From: Him
    Subject: Re: Re: Re: Re: The cult of Al Gore

    http://www.americanthinker.com/2010/09/al_gores_poison.html


    To: Him
    From: Me
    Subject: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: the cult of al gore
   
    I know facts and reality don't matter to you, but if you ever actually wonder why I tend to disregard anything glenn beck says (I know, you'd rather not think about it.  Just continue to tell yourself it's all because I disregard anything I don't want to agree with [not true, but look in the mirror sometime and ask who that does apply to]), it's because if we are playing the odds, it's a safe bet to not believe anything that comes out of Beck's mouth



http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/article/2010/aug/27/glenn-beck-faces-truth-o-meter/


    To: Me
    From: Him
    Subject: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: The cult of Al Gore

   
    (My Name)-----  The Cult of Al Gore


    To: Him
    From: Me
    Subject: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: the cult of al gore


    You're like a mentally challenged monkey that just learned how to pleasure itself.

This one came right after the dismissal bell:

    To: Me
    From: Him
    Subject: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: The cult of Al Gore


    the cult of Al Gore

This was on day 3.  177 school days to go.  If we can extrapolate from our limited data, that means about 10,620 more ounces of coffee and more than likely enough political email exchanges to get both of us fired.  I'm not going to lie, writing this out right now, I'm kind of looking forward to the midterm elections.  Maybe I am a bit of a masochist.  Maybe I do enjoy wallowing in my own misery.  Or maybe, no matter how mad my right-wing friend sometimes makes me, it's a nice distraction from everything else.  Despite the great things about teaching, and all the times students make me laugh, there are some things I need to be distracted from.