Literacy Night at HIMS last night. I got all the little anthologies produced for three classes - including the one which has two books in one, each upside down to the other, and not the same number of pages, and with COLOR photos of the kids reading their poems so that the stakes were frickin high at Kinkos when I pushed that copy button. I ended up having to purchase a long armed stapler for $32 bucks, but there's a scam everywhere to keep you coming back. At Kinko's there's the educators discount of 15% to lull me into spending $200 on spec, hoping for reimbursement (I know now IS coming,) and at Office Max by I-5 in Wallingford (pass Open Books and wave at John and Christine,) their come on is that if you, an educator, sign up on line for their program, you get money added to your account for next time. There will, I know, be a next time, so I'm in, but I much prefer the cleaner percentage discount rather than the buy more get more later American way idea.

Speaking of the American way, I have not heard Obama's entire speech on race, but what I've heard rang so calm-headedly honestly true I was elated. Nobody in politics has talked this seemingly frankly about race in forever. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. spoke in a different era and with different goals (and was a PREACHER.) David Horsey's political cartoon in this morning's PI hit the heart of the matter, Obama calling for whites to give up their security blankets of prejudice and racism and blacks to give up their security blankets of rage and resentment.