Category: gay teacher fired

Judy Blume/Lena Dunham; No E-books for 70%?Gay Fired Catholic

Judy Blume/Lena Dunham

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:JudyBlume2009(cropped).jpg

This looks fascinating. There’s a “mini” book coming out that focuses on a personal conversation with Judy Blume and Lena Dunham. (Dunham is the star of TV show “Girls” and I’ve posted about her here a few times. For the first time, gay characers are portrayed well on her show.)

Here’s more about the book: “What does surprise, though, in this 80-page book chronicling the pair’s first meeting and a conversation that touches on writing, celebrity, sex, censorship, and favorite breakfasts, is just how naturally the two get along. The generation gap doesn’t stand a chance—perhaps because Dunham and Blume have reading in common.”

From Galleycat.

I think the book is supposed to be about 8,000 words, but it’s only coming out in a limited run. I’m not certain if it will be launched in digital format (I really hope it is, and that the publisher “gets” digital). If it is, I’m buying it.

No E-books for 70%?

Speaking of digital format, this is one of those articles I just find hard to believe. And the main reason is that e-books sales rise in some articles, and then fall in others, and no one knows WTF to believe anymore. There’s been a long running small scale poll over at Nathan Bransford’s blog since (I think) 2007 where he polls his blog readers about whether or not they’ll switch to e-books. I’ve followed it each year, and each year the numbers reading e-books seem to rise. You can check that out here. He does a follow up post with links to other years. What’s been amazing to see is how some who stated they would NEVER switch to e-books have changed since 2007. I would consider his readership a mix of elite and mainstream. And with Bransford’s poll, there’s no hidden agenda, so I tend to believe it more than other things I read.

In any event:

The main reasons for preferring print are that these consumers like the look and feel of a real book, they don’t have to strain their eyes to read print and they like putting books on the bookshelf.

“The Evolution of the Book Industry: Implications for US Book Manufacturers and Printers” report also revealed that college students prefer print textbooks to digital textbooks, for reasons of concentration. According to the report, respondents reported that a digital display is too distracting.

Interesting. I have bad eyes, from years of working on a computer. I only read e-books because I can adjust the size of the print. Last study I heard in September many college students, in order to offset the cost of rising tuition and student loans, aren’t just reading e-books, they are downloading from sharing sites in digital in questionable ways.

From my post in September:

This morning on a local Philadelphia news channel, the morning anchor, Sheinelle Jones, mentioned the rising cost of a college text book, which she said is about $200.00. Then she started talking about social media messages she’d received on the topic from college students headed back to school this month, and carefully discussed how some students are getting around this by finding digital books in places where it’s not allowed.

So just by judging from what I see around me, and from what I see younger people doing, I find it hard to believe 70% absolutely refuse to read e-books. They even went so far as to say most e-books downloaded aren’t read. I think there’s a way for companies like Amazon to track that, and I find that statement hard to believe, too.

So take all information like this with that proverbial grain of salt. I only read e-books, and so do most of the people I know. And the ones I know who don’t are the types who can even figure out how to use the TV remote control.

You can read more here, because it’s interesting.

Gay Fired Catholic

I saw this on my local Philadelphia news earlier this past weekend, and Tony and I looked at each other in shock. A young (gay) Catholic school teacher in Philadelphia was fired because he filed for a marriage license in New Jersey. According to what I saw on TV, the teacher phoned in, said he would be late, and also said he was filing for a marriage license. The principal and some other priest in charge, called him into the office when he arrived for work and fired him on the spot. The underlying message seems to be you can be gay, but you can’t get married or let anyone know you’re gay.

Michael Griffin worked at the Holy Ghost Preparatory School for 12 years teaching French and Italian. He said that although administrators, including the principal, knew he was gay, he never had any major conflict with the Catholic administrators until Friday.

Griffin said he was fired on Friday after he had emailed administrators to tell them he was going to file for a marriage license and would be slightly late to work.
 
From what I’ve also heard, the teacher allegedly went to this same school himself.
 
Tony and I live in the northern suburbs of Philadelphia in New Hope where there are gay bars and restaurants. One night we were at a gay bar with friends and a group of priests from a school just like the one mentioned in the article above came into the gay bar, in street clothes, and they had a blast. And I’m going to be writing a long personal post in the near future about two gay priests Tony and I both knew very well for many years. We celebrated holidays with them, and birthdays. But in all the years we knew them we had no idea they were living double lives as Catholic priests. We didn’t have a clue. And that’s not hearsay or third party information. It happened and I was there. It creeped me out for a long time. But I don’t mind posting about this after I read things like the piece about the school teacher above.
 
The Catholic church needs to look deeper into its own gay roots. (Side note: I went to 12 years of Catholic school and I’m more than familiar with the practices.)
 

Book Reviewer Attacked by Anne Rice Fans; Catholic School Fires Gay Teacher

A small blogger recently wrote a less than stellar book review for Anne Rice’s Pandora, and when Rice found out about this review she mentioned it on social media and Anne Rice fans ran to her defense creating the kind of firestorm that has caused many bloggers to rethink their comment policy. There’s even a familiar voice to the m/m romance community on the comment thread.

When the blogger/reviewer compared Rice to Stephanie Meyer in the review, one person lashed out with such a vituperative (I love that word) attack, wishing the blogger would get herpes, even I held my breath. And I’ve seen a lot, but I think that’s the first time I’ve ever seen anyone wish an STD on a book reviewer.

What makes this review even more interesting is that the reviewer literally chopped the book up, which created yet another topic to discuss on the comment thread.

Last night, I took a craft knife to Anne Rice’s Pandora and I took out every page. I was left with the gutted remains of the cover itself and threw that away. It’s the first time I have ever desecrated a book in such a way and I can’t deny that it wasn’t made all the more enjoyable by how much I really and truly loathed that book.

In an interesting twist, the blogger was remiss in mentioning that she’d already planned to do a craft project with a book, and she rectified this in an update to the post after Rice posted all this on social media and her fans went berserk. In other words, the blogger didn’t start out with the intention of hacking up an Anne Rice book. It just wound up that way, and she posted photos, too…before and after!!

It’s a shame people don’t know that publishers recycle print books all the time. And publishers don’t make pretty boxes out of them like the blogger did. One person pointed this out on the thread, but it didn’t seem to get much attention.

This all reminds me of the third grade. We had a teacher…Miss Clifford…who was the consummate small town spinster of her day. She wore her hair in a bun at the back of her head, half glasses on the end of her nose, and pencil skirts that kept her knees locked together at all times. Miss Clifford was the crafty type. We made Christmas trees out of cardboard and Ivory Snow, Santas out of poster board and velour paper, and what she could do with macaroni and Elmer’s glue would make you scream. And once, we even made a Christmas bell out of used copies of the Reader’s Digest through a primitive form of origami. Photo above to prove it. This is the actual bell and why I saved it I don’t have a clue.

You can read the blog post I’m talking about in full, here.

Catholic School Fires Gay Teacher

When I read things like this about a gay teacher in a Catholic school who was fired because someone read she was a lesbian in her mom’s obituary, the post about Anne Rice and the reviewer above don’t seem quite as important. Frankly, after reading this about the school teacher, I don’t really care if the blogger wiped her behind with Rice’s book, Pandora.

From what I’ve gathered so far, this is not a gay teacher who walked around carrying rainbow flags and equal rights signs. She taught there for years and no one ever questioned her until her mother died and the obit was published.

Physical education teacher Carla Hale, 57, was fired in March after her name appeared in her mother’s obituary, which also noted Hale’s longtime lesbian partner.

You see what I mean. And this isn’t something new. For those who don’t take what it is like for gay people this far, obituaries have been a long standing issue with gay people, and it’s only recently where gay people have been mentioning their partners in public. Just think about the magnitude of that for a moment. Someone in your family passes away, and you can’t even name your partner/spouse in the obit for fear of backlash like what this teacher is now dealing with.

The main reason Hale was fired, after this obit came out, is astounding, especially coming from the Catholic church.

Hale was subsequently dismissed from Bishop Watterson Catholic High School after 19 years of service, with the school citing a morality provision in the contract between teachers and the diocese.

You can read more here.