Kate DiCamillo: The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane
This children's book is so much more than a child's story; from the moment when grandmother Pellegrina fixes her sharp black eyes at the rabbit and says, "I'm very disappointed in you, Edward", the story demands an examination of the reader's motives along with the scouring of Edward's selfish and vain behavior. I finished the book and sat back with a beautiful ache, knowing I had read something that was meant to be savoured, and would resonate far longer than perhaps I am comfortable with. Is that not the mark of a true story?
Charles Frazier: Thirteen Moons: A Novel
I had a really hard time getting into this one, but the writing was very well done. I did not find the characters sympathetic, but perhaps that's because I've read a lot of harsh stuff recently and was not moved by the plight of the idiots here. Kind of frustrating for me, I must say.
David Baldacci: The Camel Club
On a recommendation from a coworker, I'm trying out David Baldacci. This book falls squarely into the political thriller/mystery genre, but I really enjoyed the Bourne Identity, so I think I will be happy with this too. The writing is not bad, and the characters are already memorable - these are not just your token CIA agents and a few political advisors.
Jeannette Walls: The Glass Castle: A Memoir
I've only begun reading this, but it comes highly recommended. The story centers on the family of an alcoholic father and neglectful mother, as the author attempts to describe her childhood in all its glory and pain. I recognize some of the wild creativity and exploration.
Diane Ackerman: The Zookeeper's Wife: A War Story
Riveting story about the Resistance in Poland, told through the life of Antonina, the wife of the zookeeper in Warsaw. Both the third-person discussions and the first-person narratives were informative and creatively done - I walked away realizing I had known very little about the Polish role in fighting Nazi Germany, and I now feel compelled to learn more. A very good read.
Sara Gruen: Water for Elephants: A Novel
Way too much fun, with a twist at the end that will throw you completely off guard. It was lovely, but too graphic for kids.
Jeremy Byman: Madame Secretary: The Story of Madeleine Albright (Notable Americans)
This is why the U.N. is not a body with authority over world genocide or xenocide. Any group that continues to tolerate within its membership the very behavior that it is designed to prevent is an organization that deserves harsh criticism and censure. I applaud those present who walked out of this speech, and also those who boycotted the conference in the first place. What ridiculousness.
I've updated my recent reads list on the left to include several recent reads. Enjoy the mini-reviews!
Piracy is not dead! (And I'm not talking about the digital kind, either. This article took me by surprise...just thought I'd share.
My roommate and I just recently got back from a two week road trip from Seattle to Dallas and back, detouring slightly through the Grand Canyon, across Hoover Dam, through Las Vegas, and then on through Zion National Park, Capitol Reef National Park, Bryce Canyon, and western Colorado. I saw more amazing landscapes and rock formations than I could take in - most days we both sat slightly slackjawed at the dinner table due to sheer overstimulation.
I have some great pictures; here are just a few to whet your appetite.
1. As we left Texas after the wedding we attended, we saw our first decent sunset (it had been thunderstorming most of the time prior to being in the cities.)
2. Hoover Dam, from the Lake Mead angle.
3. The Grand Canyon - it was too big for words, pictures or descriptions. After a while your eyes start to glaze over because it's just too much to take in for more than a couple of hours at a time. We hiked about 3-4 miles along the south rim, passing the visitors' center and having lunch at Bright Angel Lodge. That was my call - after reading Brighty of the Grand Canyon as a kid, I couldn't pass it up. The photos are a little hazy; visibility was at 38 miles, about half the norm that day.
4. From the Grand Canyon, we went on to Las Vegas. I'll put those pics in a different post - this one is about the marvels of nature and engineering, not of glitz and uber-electricity. Here are a few photos of Zion National Park. Every single shot we got in this area was a postcard. 
Zion was actually my favorite. The Grand Canyon was so awe-inspiring, I still have trouble believing in its' existence. Being at Zion National Park was like being down inside the Grand Canyon looking up - it was very approachable and yet magnificent at the same time. We got out of the car at one point and hiked up in the sandstone just to experience a bit of the landscape...it was what I imagine its like being on Mars.
5. After Zion, we drove briefly through Bryce Canyon. Each of the places could be explored for weeks, but for Bryce we only had a matter of a few hours before we needed to move on. One of the best shots of the amphitheatre is below. 
6. A day or so later, we stayed at Mesa Verde and explored the cliff dwellings in the canyons there. The photo is of Cliff Palace, one of the largest and best preserved cliff dwelling sites in the world.
7. Driving back towards Idaho, we snaked our way through western Colorado from Durango to Ouray and beyond using the San Juan Skyway. A few of the best shots from that day are included here. The brilliant orange on the mountains is iron oxide deposits; when the meltwater comes down in the summer, the streams and rivers turn orange and whole streambeds are coated with it. You can tell flood levels by the coating of rust on the plants near the water.
A day or two after this, we managed to arrive in Coeur d'Alene, where my roommate's family own a cabin on Hayden Lake. After more than 15 days on the road, it was a welcome relief to be someplace familiar. I was able to stay for two days before driving back to Seattle so that I could be at work the next day. My roommate stayed for a bit to extend her vacation - it's nice to be a teacher. :)
I'm hoping to post more about the trip and some of the things I learned, but I'll start with this and see where my good intentions get me. Enjoy!
Okay, so that was weird. I opened a post, brainstormed a bit, put in a fake (rather joke-y) title, and hit enter by mistake...and it published! So for anyone out there who saw an entry titled "Ain't Misbehavin'" - you weren't hallucinating. Much. :-)
Isn't that a great title though? Implies all sorts of rather racy things while at the same time being completely innocuous.
I don't really have much to say today; just getting back into the swing of things. It's Holy Week, which I should probably reflect on. But it's also Thursday, which means I have come to the near-end of the week without falling off the world. My brain is becoming free, but slowly.
Happy Thursday, everyone!
Or...not so much.
I just thought this was funny, so I thought I'd share it.
Okay, this is just an annoyance, and I'm throwing it out there just because.
Probably two years ago, I signed up with the Star Tribune in Lileks' home city so I could read his tri-weekly column online. The login information they sent me never worked, and I gave up, because I wasn't willing to waste my time dealing with the Trib (in another city, no less).
Since then, I have received an average of three spam messages a week from the Star Tribune. I too could get coupons to use at the Mall of America; I too could subscribe to the Minneapolis Sunday paper (it only costs your left big toe and a small piece of your soul - not including shipping); I too could get advance notice of the state fair. Never mind the fact that I live in Seattle, have no interest in the Mall of America other than their rather amazing Lego store, and am rather fond of my soul.
Like all born suckers, I tried to "unsubscribe" - this is where they walk you through a long and incredibly involved process in which you have to try to use the login information that never worked in the first place in order to ask them to remove an email address they shouldn't be using anyway.
And I still get their emails. Grrr.
(You'll notice I am not including a link to the Trib's website - trust me, this is for your own protection...you could get sucked in!)
I have created a new page to add to my site that includes links to all three BCTI posts below. I will post a link of this page to my sidebar, and I've also included it below. I will not be writing further on BCTI, as I have no other information besides what was already posted by me or by commenters.
Here is the page. Good luck to you all!
I've pulled my posts on BCTI up to the top of the website, since the vast majority of my traffic is on these two posts. I still get comments and emails regarding the situation, so hopefully it's a little easier to find now that it's not stuck in the archives somewhere.
For everyone who has looked here for information, for help, or for support, the class action lawsuit against BCTI was settled as of May 12th for $9 million. Comments on the previous post contain the contact information for the law offices that handled the suit in the different states that were affected, and their website is www.gth-law.com if you still have questions. You are more than welcome to continue to add comments here as well.
I posted on the BCTI school closure back in March and again in April, but haven't had a chance to get much more information since then...until now. :-)
The lawsuit against BCTI, brought for breach of contract and violation of consumer protection laws, currently includes 49 former students of the school. The judge for the case has ordered that $300,000 in assets be seized from the owners of the school to be held for possible judgements should the lawsuit be successful, apparently stating that he found it likely that they should prevail in at least some of their claims.
This article by David Wickert in the Tacoma News Tribune is noteworthy in actually detailing claims and providing information regarding the problems behind the closure at the school. As I said originally, schools in Washington and Oregon are required to give notice of closure and provide training for current students until graduation. More serious problems come to light in the article:
In February, an Oregon Department of Education investigation concluded that BCTI misled students about its program, admitted students who could not benefit from the training and submitted inaccurate graduation and job-placement statistics to the state. The agency put BCTI on probation.
Washington investigators found evidence of falsified admission tests that allowed unqualified students to receive financial aid. They also found BCTI representatives illegally recruited too close to an unemployment office in Olympia.
And in April, the nonprofit agency that accredits BCTI barred Jonez and Pigott [the owners of the school - ed.] from operating accredited schools, citing substandard graduation and job placement rates, reporting violations and questionable recruiting practices.
Putting a school on probation is usually extremely effective in either making or breaking that school. Schools on probation are generally given a set time period to comply with certain standards or recommendations, and if they do not, the next step is being denied accreditation, which results in ineligibility for government financial aid, as well as losing credibility as a valid educational option. I would guess that the February probation was a major factor in the school's closure in March if the operators knew they would be unable to comply with accreditation demands from either the state or their non-profit accrediting agency.
Normally, I would chastise the non-profit accrediting agency for not barring Jonez and Pigott earlier, as the information they cited had to have been available to them earlier than the school's closure date. I don't blame them, however, as there are currently lawsuits against a Southern regional accreditation agency regarding denial of accreditation to an unqualified school. Until those cases are decided, waiting until the state board moves against a school is simply self-preservation.
While I am in agreement regarding the seriousness of the charges quoted above and contained in the rest of the article, I have to say I'm not too impressed with this type of thing:
They [students - ed.] say the program provided the kind of basic computer training they could get from a book. They say BCTI officials promised a program leading to high-paying jobs, though some wound up working in retail stores and fast-food restaurants after graduation. And they say BCTI recruiters preyed on welfare recipients, the homeless and other vulnerable targets.
If the students could get the training from a book, why didn't they? If the value offered by the school was that bad, why did they pay thousands of dollars for it? And since when does one blame a recruiter from school for one's inability to get a certain type of job? That's like going to Weight Watchers and then suing them because you only lost 35 lbs. instead of as much as the lady on the TV commercials did. On the other hand, if the recruiters promised that the education would make you qualified for a certain type of job, and when you finished, you discovered that you were NOT qualified, and not through lack of effort on your own part, then I would agree with the students.
[Originally posted August 2005]
I've been looking for more information on the closure of the Business Career Training Institute, but all I came up with was this article from March 22, 2005 discussing the closure but not providing further relevant info. I'll let you know if I'm able to find more, and hopefully in the next week or so I'll have some comments from a few accreditation professionals regarding this type of situation.
[Originally Posted April 2005]
I'm going to take a leaf from The Colossus's page here, and point out that death threats are not the best way to get people to respect your opinion.
To my Danish relatives and friends: Don't give up.
To the nation of Denmark, and Jyllands-Posten in particular: Well done for standing firm.
Ed. Note: In order to "get" part of this story, it helps to know that my Aunt Donut is diabetic.
I have been trying for quite a few weeks to find a place to volunteer at working with cats or dogs. I finally hooked up with FOCAS (friends of county animal shelters), agreeing to work at one of the Luv-A-Pet cat centers located inside a PetSmart. My first day was yesterday. I arrived at 10:00 a.m. to begin training with Karen. She told me that the morning shift cleans all the cat cages, and it usually takes the full morning shift (4 hours). Okay by me, hate sitting around anyway. The routine is, let all the cats out to romp (we're in a tiny room holding 10 cages and a long narrow area to walk in, also some storage area and a sink), change water, dump litter box in the trash, remove towels, newspapers, bed and toys, spray metal cage down with disinfectant and put in new newspapers, new towels if they're dirty, bed, toys and clean litter box. My trainer was quite a tiny woman, so I ended up cleaning 5 cages and she cleaned 3.
When I'd started I asked if they provided rubber gloves (the kind used in hospitals) and she said no. Mental note to self: I don't mind cleaning, but I'd just as soon have on the rubber gloves. After cleaning 5 cages it was getting close to 12:00 and with all the exertion my blood sugar was taking a dive. I asked if PetSmart sold any candy (Alpo treats are lousy for blood sugar, I'm sure) and she told me there was a vending machine. I went over to the sink to wash my hands and looked around for the roll of paper towels we'd been using while cleaning the cages. When I asked for the paper towels, Karen said, "Just use the hand towel hanging up there." Not wanting to argue on my first day (and also because low blood sugar makes me very very cranky and I'm not sure how I'd sound), I dried my hands off and went in search of the vending machine.
After gobbling down a small package of M & Ms and cooling my jets while my blood sugar climbed back into the normal range, I went back to find out what was next on the schedule. Karen said it was time to wash and dry off the old litter boxes. Yuck. Okay, since she offered to wash and I could dry. She filled the sink with water and soap and dumped in the litter boxes. Pretty soon the first litter box came out of the sink and I asked what they used to dry them with. "Oh" she said, pointing to the hand towel I'd just dried my hands with 10 minutes before. "We just use this hand towel."
NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I spent the rest of the day fighting the urge to fix myself a Lysol cocktail followed by a bleach chaser.
