At the same time the Bush administration is proposing tax cuts for those making over one million dollars a year that will line their pockets with an additional thirty-two BILLION dollars, he comes out for a social security reform that shifts money toward the poorest retirees and says the rich will have to tighten their belts to pay for it. Guess who he considers rich in this case? The fine print shows a forty percent reduction in benefits for those rich retirees who were making sixty thousand dollars a year when they retired. You make sixty thousand and he proposes poverty for you. You make a million a year, you reap a windfall.

Well what did you expect? Can a leopard change its spots?

I don't know if you are watching the stock market, but it is in the tank again since the last election. I'm back down 15,000 dollars. The market is yet to recover from the economic policies of the first four years. Now in the fifth year we are headed down again. Donald Radaczak, the economic wizard emeritus from Georgia State University says the stock market is about six months ahead of the rest of the economy. Hello world. The market is going down. Again. Last go round they blamed it on 911 and Bill Clinton. Who's going to step up for the blame this time? I know that five years of stagflation is killing those of us who hoped to retire soon. Looks like the religious right would begin to have some interest in their own well being and start giving the president advice on something other than their support for back alley abortion. No wonder this president needs twice as much security as the last one. Oh yeah, I forgot . . . "I'm a war president." And the war in Iraq, now completely off the front page, even the 81 billion dollar emergency request for money for that quagmire. When will that millstone be off from around our neck? Probably about the same time that social security starts down in 2042. And while we're at it, why don't we stuff the ranks of judges with crazy man James Dobson's picks for federal courts, even if we have to set fire to the Senate of the United States of America.

I'm only 53, but I've never seen a power grab like the one currently going on. Bad times coming if we can't slow this train.

It doesn't seem like "middle school" and "musical" are terms that exactly fit together in the same sentence, but if you take one Broadway, Jr. musical production (Fiddler on the Roof this year) and mix it with Mrs. G and a cast of middle schoolers, and add lots of energy, you come out with a wonderful show everytime. Annie and Music Man were wonders, but they are definitely background now. Fiddler is on everyone's mind.

The location is bad this year and the lights and sound are makeshift, but the costumes, sets, acting and especially the singing is remarkable, creating a magical experience for the students and the audience. The kids will never forget it.

The individual soloists were all fine, ocassionally striking. The writing, is pared down to the essentials and still communicates the story. The choral numbers were powerful, filled the hall with sound and were sung delightfully well, especially the opening "Tradition," with the four groups, the papas, the mamas, the sons and daughters. Teachers in the audience were crying when it was over. They were amazed to see their students in in Anatevka. Wow.

Life is full of changes. Good byes are the hardest.

For 53 years I have been going to the old place and Uncle Neal has been there. Yesterday when I left he was sitting out in the yard, with sons and brothers-in-law sitting around. They had just come back from riding around the farm in the pick-up to look at the newly planted pecan trees. 50 are in the ground and 200 more are planned. The Old Place will be a pecan grove in a few years. But I won't ever go back to that place and see Uncle Neal there again. He's still his old self today, shaking my hand and calling me paaahdner, but he only has a few weeks longer to live with his lung cancer. He joked about not buying any green bananas. It was hard for me to drive away into the the sunny afternoon and come back to Atlanta. I'm sad about this coming change. I've had lots of aunts and uncles, but he and aunt Belle have always been my favorite.

We've lost some important people in the last year and a half. Mama, Uncle Hubert, my cousin Hugh, and now Uncle Neal. When a generation of giants begins to die, it seems that there is just continual loss. Good byes are hard.

It's amazing how teams win at home with such frequency. Even a bad team may have a winning record at home. But I can understand how they may be really comfortable at home. I am really comfortable in my new home. There are so many nice things. First it is beautiful to look at. The dining room furniture was really hidden away at our last house and now we can see it all the time. And there are tons of cabinets in the kitchen so we have put a lot of odds and ends of china into the kitchen cabinets making the china cabinets more of a place to display the beautiful dishware that we have. And you can just see it all the time. The living room/music room is everyone's favorite place, cozy and comfortable. The fireplaces are instantly on and off and if you are chilly, you just fire it up and sit there for a few minutes. The little back yard is a gem of plants and flowers and private. You can see out the great windows in the sun room from the sun room (or course) but also from the kitchen and dining room. The location is so nice. Being so close to work has added virtually an hour to my life each day. That is noticeable. And my car just stays in the garage. Need something for breakfast? I can get to Publix grocery and back with doughnuts in 7 minutes. The pharmacy? It's even closer. Zaxby's for chicken? 2 minute walk. This is a very nice place for us.

Take my advice and don't make any plans to go out and watch a bike race. The Tour de Georgia (isn't that a funny name?) made its way past our high school yesterday and all the students came out to line the roads and watch for Lance Armstrong. Only problem is, the bikers come by in a mob. It reminded me of a swarm of bees. They were that close together and moving about 45 miles an hour. Even though there were 100 or more bikers, it took only about 5 seconds for them all to pass a given point. We knew that Lance was number "1" and that he was wearing a blue and silver jersey and I didn't talk to a single student who thought they had seen him in the swarm as they came by. He certainly was not at the front. For this event we had roads closed for miles around. It was strictly a media event. As a spectator sport, nothing.

Oh well.

Well I know there aren't that many of you who are C-Span devotees . . . but if you happened to catch the senate committee meeting today that was considering the nomination of Mr. Bolton to be Ambassador to the U.N., it certainly was interesting. Senator Luger was determined to report the nomination to the Senate floor with a positive recommendation and he appeared to have the votes since there were 10 Republicans and only 8 Democrats on the committee. The Democrats were flummoxed. They were not expecting the move at this time because serious allegations had arisen against him and not a tremendous amount of consideration had taken place. The meeting was supposed to go until 5 o'clock, but by 3:50 Senator Luger was trying to bulldoze the meeting and bring it to an unexpected vote. Senator Biden, the ranking member of the minority made an impassioned case to vote against Mr. Bolton. He and others had many questions that seemed to need answers. It was clear that several of the Republicans were smugly giving only the slightest ear to the debate. And then things suddenly changed. Senator Voinovich took the floor briefly to say that because of the allegations raised in this meeting, he did not favor the nominee. Now Senator Voinovich is a Republican. It took awhile for the import of the statements he made to sink in to the whole committee. It was suddenly clear that to the Republicans that the motion to report favorably to the Senate the nomination of Mr. Bolton, if that motion were made, and it actually had been made but not acted on, was going to fail in a tie vote, 9 to 9. The Democrats were very gracious from that point, only asking for adequate time to consider the nomination, perhaps as much as a month more. They could have just said, "Hmpph. We don't care what you do, you don't have the votes, this nomination is dead. But they did not gloat, they were very gracious.

So one Republican had a concience. It was obvious that Bolton had no business being nominated to this position, that he is a loose cannon on the ship of state, another wild nomination by the thoughtless chief executive of this country. I'm certain the price he will pay for his bout of conscience will be large. But you have to salute Voinovich for that courage don't you? Perhaps some manner of bi-partisanship may return to government. There is hope as long as one Republican can be swayed by logical argument.

Moving is an overwhelming event. We are tired, but happy to be settling.

Will the Republican party change 200 years of history and make the approval of lifetime appointments to the federal bench simply a party line rubber stamp for which ever party is in power. The Democrats have held up 10 of Dubya's appointments while approving, do you know the number? 204. They are really holding up the process aren't they? The Republicans will not be satisfied until there is a complete tyranny of the majority over the minority. That was not the intention of the founders of the country. They believed in compromise and checks and balances. Not far behind totalitarian rule by one party with come acts of violence. I wonder if saying that on a blog will result in my investigation by the Homeland Security Department?

Carter has returned from Argentina and Uraguay. What an interesting adventure he had. The photos are amazing. Easily the most interesting thing to me was his encounter with Carlos Paez Vilaró, a rather famous Picasso pupil, who now in his 80's was still painting and entertained the boys in his studio and later in his home.

The drama department is doing a play in the chorus room this weekend and they have taken over the place today. We managed to carry on, but it was quite a change to have their set up in the room. Finally it is really warm. Today got up near 80 and I was warm outside. Of course that meant that we had to have mega air conditioning inside and so I was cold in the building. Why do we think that just because we can make air 55 degrees that it is a good idea to blow 55 degree air on people. Ridiculous.

I've gotten some cool display cases from Walmart that utilize little powerful magnets in order to display my old baseball cards. It is pretty neat to have them out where you can look at them. My favorites? 56 Micky Mantle, 54 Kaline, 56 Berra, 56 Eddie Mathews, 55 Warren Spahn, 55 Ted Williams, and many others, Snider, Koufax, Aaron, Killebrew, Whitey Ford, Mays, Rizzuto, Aparicio, Kubek, Richardson, Skowran, Bauer, Ernie Banks, and on and on.

Finally we are on DSL at the new house.

Let's see Sarah, 10,000 was a bit of hyperbole. There are actually only 1850 in my collection. 37 years worth. Rachel actually does have 10,000 Barbies however.

DSL is fast. And expensive. Carter is in South America while our teams settle at the bottom of the league. I've been making moves like crazy and that's what they'll probably turn out to be, crazy. But desperate times call for . . .

I walked to work today. I'm wondering how much the Arabs will like eating that oil if everyone could do the same. They are an ancient tribal society, stuck in quicksand of a culture from 2000 years ago, sheilded from cultural evolution by a fanatical religious/political system, and filthy rich because they are sitting on oil. Mother nature has a wicked sense of humor.

Did you hear what I said? I walked to work today. Took 8 minutes.

It's moving day.

What a magnificent spring this is for flowering trees. Peachtree City looks like "the Avenue" from Anne of Green Gables, with cherry trees in full blossom on both sides of Hwy. 54. Perhaps they should rename the street "The Avenue." Or perhaps the "white way to delight," as I think Anne called it. The red buds are also going strong and the dogwoods and azaleas are coming out. They'll take over in a few days. Unfortunately the pollen is also blowing like crazy. My eyes are itchy.

I'm really tired from moving boxes. We have a lot of junk. But I have discovered that if I had not collected 10,000 sports illustrated magazines, nor had I boxes of stuff that belong to Rachel and Carter. I'd have very little junk at all. Just a few of my own boyhood toys, model cars and such. Since I'm planning to sell the SI's on ebay, maybe I can reduce my holdings of extra stuff.

Going to be a busy day. Movers in a few minutes.

On the last day before Spring Break each year, I post the audition results from this year, placing students in their chorus classes for next year. We have a big program and the students are very competitive about moving into the top choirs. When they view the list at the end of the day, there is joy that brings them to tears and sadness too. And then others cry because their friends are crying. There is a lot of crying. Non-chorus students who are walking by are totally mystified. If students make it into an "A" choir, they remember the moment for years. I've asked them about it and they can recall every detail of the revelation. "I kept looking at my name and then up and the name of the choir and back at my name. I was sure there was some mistake." Another told me, "I couldn't get close enough to the list see it so I was just standing on the side when I heard someone shouting, "Katie made Chamber! My heart was pounding and I wondered, "Can that be me?" It changes their life in a small way. They feel as though it is a promotion, but actually it is only a recognition of what they have already accomplished. I don't promote them because I hope they can do the work at the next level. Rather, I place them in choirs based on what they already have shown that they can do. If I have a question about it, I don't move them up. It is a long process overall. Each student has spent 15 minutes with me going through a musical obstacle course. I've done 200 auditions spread over every school day in the past two months. Each student has been through the process and is full of self doubt about how they performed. They are terrible judges of their ability. The best ones sieze on every slight error that they heard themselves make. The worst ones know they are terrible singers but really have no clue as to how they did on tonal memory or sight singing because they just can't do those things at all. So they are all pretty much in the dark. The realistic appraisals come from a few students. I'll hear some say to a friend. "I'm was terrible in the audition, but I don't care. I just like to sing." Another when asked how she did said in a quiet voice, "I think I did pretty good. We'll just see how many people beat me." That's a terrific way to look at it. That last student had the fourth best score overall this year.

There are some unexplained anomolies to me. Some students don't check the lists for days. It makes so little difference to them what choir they are in that they just don't look at it. There is a reality in that. It is a notch in your belt to move into a top choir, but you don't really need notches in a belt. If you don't need an ego boost then it just doesn't make that much difference.

There is a ripple effect that is interesting too. In our cell phone age, they girls phone home standing there looking at the list. "Mom, I made Singers! Yes, I'm sure. I'm standing here looking at the list." Then she looks are her friend and says "My mom is crying."

As for me, it is a tough day. I'm elated for the happy ones and moved to tears for the sad ones. I am the object of anger for some. The joy of a tenth grader, leaping up and down with her friends saying "I made Singers, I made Singers!" is the image I like to keep in my mind. There are 20 new McIntosh Singers today.