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Please forgive me while I stand on my soap box for a bit today.

I never wear shoes like this but maybe I should :0)

It's that time of year again. Your kids have either already started back to school or they will be there shortly. Does your child's school still have an art program? More and more schools across the nation are eliminating arts and music programs. If they replace them with anything at all it is sometimes with pseudo art instruction performed by an unqualified classroom teacher.

That statement is not meant to disparage classroom teachers, it is just that they are not trained arts specialists.  The major justification for ending arts programs is almost always budget. School districts are constantly complaining that they don't have a enough money for basic programs, so first on the chopping block is usually what administrators and parents see as the most extraneous and unnecessary programs- art and music.


Here are some of the common myths and justifications for deeming art as unnecessary and thereby eliminating it.

Every child is not a talented artist
Every child is not going to be an artist
Training children in the arts has no application to real world (job) success
Art is meant to help children "express themselves"

Here is what arts education really gives to your kids:

The number one most valuable thing that art education provides to your child:

It teaches them to THINK critically and innovate. It teaches them to TAKE RISKS and to see the BIG PICTURE.



Making art is not just about making pretty things or providing some slapdash approach to "self expression" devoid of rules and structure. There are rules in art- Elements and Principals of Design- which provides a framework for making good art and once understood, provides a vehicle for creating good art while breaking those rules and learning to innovate.

Art history provides a cultural framework and point of reference for history and innovation throughout time. Children without skill in creating art are still given an understanding of the cultural heritage of art, get exposed to great thinkers and artistic creators (ex. Picasso, Matisse) who broke from the mold of realistic art making to devise a new way of SEEING and creating.

Art is not always about the end product. The value of art education is more in the processes of creating art and learning about it than in the outcome of making a pretty picture.


Most other disciplines only work on finding right or wrong answers. There is no room for thinking out of the box or for creating a new paradigm. Children who are only being educated in these limiting disciplines will grow to only seek the correct (predetermined) answer, never being able to consider another option and will accept as irrefutable that which is spoon fed to him as fact.

We need to keep raising generations of Picasso's, Da Vinci's, Van Gogh's, Louise Nevelsons and even more Andy Warhol's, whose art was not just pictures of Campbell Soup cans, but a shrewd commentary on our massed produced society as a whole, a concept seen through an artists ability to view "the big picture."

Louise Nevelson

Louise Nevelson- Royal Tide IV-Assemblage

The world needs both kinds of thinkers, both right brain and left. Here is a perfect example:

Steve Wozniak, a left brain tech head computer guy who, left on his own would probably have had his own small company or gone to work for IBM or Microsoft or Oracle or any other computer giant out there at the time.

Steve Jobs, a hippy dippy, right brain college drop out with an understanding of business,training in art and a devoted sense and love for beauty and good design.

It is the combination of these two very different types of talents that brought us all of the elegant and beautiful Apple computer products which many of us enjoy and other companies try to emulate.

The marriage of these two divergent genius brains resulted in something of a lightening strike which created (in my opinion) one of the greatest tech companies ever.

Steve Jobs (standing) and Steve Wozniak (at keyboard)

Is your kid going to be the next Steve Jobs or Picasso or Frida Kahlo? Maybe not. If given the benefit of a meaningful art education, what they can be is a well rounded human being who can think outside of the box, challenge the status quo, consider various answers to the same problem, create something from nothing, use the tools at hand in new ways and make cross cultural and historical connections.

Oh, and they may come home with a nice painting sometimes, too.

Frida and Me- © Karen O'Lone-Hahn

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By Megan O’Neill

It will not come as news to say that the public police are working under challenging conditions. Since the coalition government came to power in 2010, there have been wide-ranging and deep cuts to the funding of public services, the police included. This was the institution which once enjoyed a privileged position as the “go-to” service for political parties to improve themselves in the eyes of the electorate by being “tough on crime” through ever increasing police numbers. Numbers of police officers and staff rose year on year from 2000 to 2010, an increase of 13.7%. All that has now changed, and the most recent statistics show that the police service has now reduced in size by 11%, and is roughly equivalent to where it was in 2001. While police officers themselves cannot be made redundant, vacant positions are not being filled when officers leave or retire. Police and Community Support Officers (PCSOs) can be made redundant, and this has happened in a few areas, as well as vacancies not being filled. What does this mean for being “tough on crime”?

Well, to be honest, not much on face value. As any good first year Criminology student should be able to tell you, the overall crime rate has been falling more or less steadily since 1995. This drop in crime started before police numbers rose, and occurred in other countries as well where police numbers may not have changed to the degree they did in England and Wales. The cause for the drop in crime is the subject of much debate, and will not be pursued in depth here. However, what is clear is that the sheer number of police officers in a police force does not have a direct link with the amount of crime that area experiences. What is more important is what is done with those officers, and this is where my concern with the current state of policing lies.

While the last Labour government regularly pumped up the number of officers to redress their image of being soft on crime, they also made two significant changes to policing practice. One was the introduction of PCSOs in 2002 and the other was the national roll-out of Neighbourhood Policing in 2008. While both may have been derided in the beginning as being more for show than of any real substance, I feel both have made significant changes in the relationship of the police to many local areas and with this has come a reorientation to the police occupational culture itself. Research I have conducted on partnership work and PCSOs suggests that these changes have made some sections of the police more open to working with those outside of their organisation, has enhanced the commitment the police have to crime prevention and long-term problem solving, and has led to better information sharing and relationships between the police and local residents.

To be clear – I am not arguing that all is fine and well in policing. However, the situation we have now is far better than what was the case in the 1980s and 1990s. Rather than “community policing” referring to police officers in panda cars whizzing through residential areas, going from job to job, we now have officers and staff who walk their beats, get to know many of the people and places within it and have the time to attend to the “small stuff”. By this I mean the anti-social, low-level crimes and incivilities which may not set performance targets on fire, but which mean a great deal to the daily lives of thousands of people. Officers, usually PCSOs, can take the time to find out about these concerns and either address the matter themselves or find the most appropriate partner agency to do so (the staff of which they know by name and often have their numbers programmed into their mobile phones). In return, residents start to build trust in their local neighbourhood team, which may develop over time into information sharing of interest to constables and detectives.

However, all this is now in danger of being eroded. The budget cuts mean that the officers and staff who remain in neighbourhood teams have much heavier workloads, including the PCSOs. It is far more difficult now to attend to the “small stuff” and to conduct visible patrols. Partner agencies are also facing severe budget cuts and this will impact on their ability to work collaboratively with the police as they have fewer resources to share. This means that the police lose opportunities to make connections in their local communities and build valuable social capital. Residents are not getting the attention they desire from their local police and so will have fewer reasons to trust them. In addition to these losses to police practice and community relationships is a much less visible but no less significant loss – the reorientation of the police occupational culture. Police officers became more open to working with partners, PCSOs, residents and to consider long-term problem solving once they had experienced the benefits of doing so. Many of the traditional hostilities towards the “other” were reducing noticeably among the neighbourhood officers with whom I have conducted research. This widening of the police world view will, I fear, also be lost in the current budget structures. This is not a savings for policing – it is a very high cost indeed.

Dr Megan O’Neill is the Chair of the British Society of Criminology Policing Network, and a lecturer at the Scottish Institute of Policing Research, University of Dundee. She is the author of “Ripe for the Chop or the Public Face of Policing? PCSOs and Neighbourhood Policing in Austerity” (available to read for free for a limited time) in Policing.

The full article will be available this June in Policing, A Journal of Policy and Practice, volume 8.3. This peer-reviewed journal contains critical analysis and commentary on a wide range of topics including current law enforcement policies, police reform, political and legal developments, training and education, patrol and investigative operations, accountability, comparative police practices, and human and civil rights

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Image credit: UK police vehicles at the scene of a public disturbance. © jeffdalt via iStockphoto.

The post The unseen cost of policing in austerity appeared first on OUPblog.

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…………………… Today, Kid Lit Reviews would like to welcome Andy Ohman, from Animal Andy by Kathy Sattem Rygg.  Andy is the main character in this crazy zoological story about the Aksarben City Zoo. The Zoo is facing budget cuts and must quickly find a way to make up the difference. If they do not, the [...]

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In a cost-cutting measure, 62 branches of Queens libraries in New York City stopped adding new books in December 2010. According to The New York Daily News, Queens libraries annually purchase 8,500 new books.

This means Queens patrons do not have access to the latest titles or new copies of old favorites. With mayor Michael Bloomberg‘s  looming “Agency Gap Closing Programs” proposal, things look worse than ever for New York City library services.

Here’s more from the article: “Overall, city libraries are facing nearly $100 million in budget cuts, which they say would lead to an estimated 1,500 layoffs…Without restored funding, city libraries would be forced to shorten hours and close dozens of branches, library officials testified.” (via Ron Hogan)

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

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This is a call to all old, ex, present and future Denver Westsiders, or anyone whose heart still rings from the Westside's history and culture. You know who you are.

The Alma Rec Center, located in Lincoln Park, not far across from Speer Boulevard from Downtown Denver, sits on the sight of the oldest Chicano neighborhood predating Denver as a city. The neighborhood had much of its vitality cut out when the state chose it as the site for construction of the Auraria Higher Education Center. But the Westside did not die.

Now, Denver's Mayor John W. Hickenlooper has submitted his 2010 budget with all manner of budget cuts and reorganization, but his plans for La Alma Rec Center amount to shutting it down, and possibly privatizing it to the Boys Club, or some other entity with political ties to Denver's good-old-boy club.

Rather than finding sufficient money to keep La Alma open, Hickenlooper is attempting "to transition four recreation centers that serve few residents (including Globeville and La Alma recreation centers) to organizations who can offer more valued services to the community." Once that step is taken, it's unlikely it will ever be reversed. The community rec center will become a business where the bottom line, not community service, will prevail.

The entire rec center: Gym, Meeting Room, Pool (Outdoor), Showers, Weight Room, Playground, Amphitheater, Outdoor Pool, Horseshoe Pits, Multi-purpose Field (Lacrosse, Rugby, Soccer), Tennis Court, Volleyball Court; all the programs offered: Senior Art Class, Thanksgiving Senior Luncheon, Su Teatro Live Theatre Program and Performance, Bridge Project Art Class, Art Museum Tour and Lunch, Mural Art Class, Denver Zoo Educational trip, Botanic Gardens Visit Day, Frontline Nutrition Program, Fitness, Health and Wellness Programs, like the Adult Yoga/Aerobics (6 weeks), Senior Low Impact Aerobics, Summit Cancer Solutions, Senior Coffee & Card Games, After School Snack Program, Idaho Springs Cave Pool Day Trip, Community Meeting for La Alma, Halloween Community Party, Pre-Season Basketball Clinic--all of this and more could become things of the past. They are excluded from the Mayor's "core services that are most critical to our citizens."

This is more than a Chicano issue, as it will detrimentally affect all age groups, nationalities, income levels, though of course, those least able to afford a privatized service, will be denied the most. Please forward this to anyone you know who has their roots, hearts or at least minds in helping to prevent the loss of a center that has served to make life more livable and meaningful since before the founding of Denver.

Below is the informational flyer being circulated by Westside residents:

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According to this post in BoingBoing, the Philadelphia Free Library System is shutting down. How can this be possible? From the library website:

Specifically, the following will take effect after the close of business, October 2, 2009:

• All branch and regional library programs, including programs for children and teens, after school programs, computer classes, and programs for adults, will be cancelled
• All Parkway Central Library programs, including children programs, programs to support small businesses and job seekers, computer classes and after school programs, will be cancelled. We are exploring the possibility of relocating the Philadelphia Author Series programs to other non-library facilities.
• All library visits to schools, day care centers, senior centers and other community centers will cease.
• All community meetings at our branch and regional libraries, and the Parkway Central Library, will be cancelled.
• All GED, ABE and ESL programs held at Free Library branches will be discontinued, students should contact their teacher to see if other arrangements are being made.

In addition, all library materials will be due on October 1, 2009. This will result in a diminishing borrowing period for books and other library materials, beginning September 11, 2009. No library materials will be able to be borrowed after September 30, 2009.

Even as we remain hopeful that the State Legislature will act and pass the enabling funding legislation, we wanted to notify all of our customers of this very possible outcome.

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Ars Technica has an interesting story on “Open source, digital textbooks coming to California schools“.

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The 30 Second scary story will be broadcast on the 27th of October on Weekend America. If you don't get NPR you should be able to listen to it -- and many other things -- at http://weekendamerica.publicradio.org/.

I finished the first typed draft of Odd and the Frost Giants tonight. It's 14,000 words long, more or less, which makes it (I think) a novelette. I've sent it to a few people to read, and tomorrow I'll read it myself, and scribble on the printouts and change things, and wonder if it works or not, and try and make it work better.

Here's a link to Guillermo Del Tor and the lovely Selma Blair talking about Death: http://www.superherohype.com/news/topnews.php?id=6447

The just-as-lovely-as-Selma-Blair Colleen Doran has re-inked her chapter of A Game of You in Absolute Sandman Volume 2, and you can see what the same page looks like in the two different versions over at http://community.livejournal.com/scans_daily/4192671.html. Also Colleen put up a couple of pages of Sandman #20 pencils at http://community.livejournal.com/scans_daily/4192671.html.

Someone sent me a link to a film that was meant to be H.P. Lovecraft talking in 1933, which just made me want to take everyone involved in creating it aside and show them interview films from that period, and make them really listen to the kind of questions that were asked back then and the way that they were answered. You can date interviews in seconds, in the same way you can date old commercials, or old TV shows. (I watched the first couple of episodes of The Tomorrow People with Maddy recently. We were a couple of minutes in when she said "This is the Seventies, right?") It was a good idea, but the joy of faking period stuff has to be getting the tone of voice and the tiny details right, because they make everything else work.

I clicked on the next YouTube link along, which turned out to be me talking about the Necronomicon, and why I want mine to have been signed by the author...



Right. Bed now.

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