Category Archives: politics

(Some) Teachers are Disrespectful Lazy Whiners

politics, teaching, work 2011.02.17 Sean Shannon Leave a comment

Pa. teacher strikes nerve with ‘lazy whiners’ blog (AP via Bloomberg BusinessWeek) I haven’t been paying much attention to news and politics lately, in part because I’m so busy with writing projects right now, and in part because I’m just getting so frustrated with it all. For a while I seemed to have much more patience with those who disagreed with me, no matter how illogical or inhumane I considered their views, but over the past year it’s gotten a lot harder to do that. …

Gaga Over the War on Christmas

family, freespeech, politics, rhetoric, shopping 2010.12.23 Sean Shannon Leave a comment

[For those of you who don’t follow my Twitter or Facebook, Mom’s been in the emergency room twice in the past forty-eight hours, first for a slipped disc and painful kidney stone and urinary tract infection, then again because the antibiotic they gave her for her UTI caused her heart to palpitate. She appears to be doing better now, but I’m taking nothing for granted at this point, and needless to say this has me kind of rattled. Not that losing Mom would ever be…

Double Time

greenparty, politics 2010.12.09 Sean Shannon 2 Comments

Say what you will about Bill Clinton — I’ve certainly made my displeasure towards him and his presidency known on multiple occasions — but at the very least Democrats had some ideas of what they were getting into when he ran for President and then later when he held the office for eight years. That he was a more conservative Southern-style Democrat was no surprise, and when he lashed out so suddenly, so unexpectedly, and so stupidly at Sister Souljah, he pretty much fired a…

The End of Reality

greenparty, politics, rhetoric, teaching, television, writing 2010.11.05 Sean Shannon Leave a comment

I often talk to my students about the ways in which arguments are framed. Anyone, with enough time and research skills, can find a way to set up an argument that, on its surface, will seem devastating, if not scary. Take, for example, Republican claims in 2004 that Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry was the most liberal member of the Senate — even more liberal than his Massachusetts counterpart, Ted Kennedy — and was thus too radical to become President. Technically Kerry was judged to…

Grounding Myself

personal, politics, sports, teaching, work, writing 2010.09.02 Sean Shannon Leave a comment

Apologies for not blogging for such a long period of time. As I’ve mentioned before, I finished the rough draft of my first novel this past May, and after “letting it rest” for three months — basically letting myself forget about it completely so I could come back to it with fresh eyes and really see what did and didn’t work in it (the story is great but my language is too bare) — I began editing the rough draft a couple of weeks ago. …