No, you are not , Fay.

Well, it looks like tomorrow will be COOKIE BAKING DAY in our house. I have some recipes that worked well last year, but am looking for some new ones to try...any suggestions?

I have peanut butter kiss cookies, shortbread, gingerbread, and rum balls so far...though we may drop the rum balls.

RUM BALLS!

Checking in from the glamorous Holiday Inn Express in cosmopolitan downtown Vernon.

Jessica, I'm so sorry about your grandfather. I hope you got out OK to your family.

Jen, hope your friend is doing better.

The current rumors are that the possible bad things he was fired for: a) he used foul language in front of a student; b) he has a problem with alcohol; c) he made an inappropriate comment/gesture to a student or d) he's an alcoholic child molester.

The not bad rumors are: he is more popular than the Pastor so the Pastor is jealous; the Pastor is a dictator who's ruined the church and the school and has fired the Coach; the Coach was not tithing/attending church/praying enough and/or correctly; the former Coach is out of a job so the current coach was fired to bring him back.

There have also been rumors/allegations of that the Pastor has mismanaged the school/church including firing /forcing people out for petty reasons.

If there is some kind of child abuse or misconduct with the students then the police should be involved and there should be a statement of some kind.

Last year at another private school it was discovered that a teacher of 20 years had child porn. It was all over the news, he'd made a cd of pictures taken at a school event and gave it to students and staff, but it had one of the child porn images. It was handed over the the police and a statement was made. It was discovered he had hundreds of thousands of images and video at his house.

Unfortunately there have been a couple of other situations where a teacher was suspended/fired for allegations of inappropriate behavior with a student and in those cases it was the public school, which made public announcements.

Um. Am I the only person who instantly assumes child abuse?

From local reports it seems a different kind of abuse. Politics. Coach seems an all round good guy. Guesses that sound plausible are that a big contributor, perhaps parent of a benched kid could have pulled weight, or that he wasn't "Christian" enough for the school. Lots of uproar about it.

eta: waves to my upstate neighbor! It seems unlikely the truth will come out, but ya never know with this level of publicity

Am I the only person who instantly assumes child abuse?

Nope--though high school, I actually assume inapropriate sexual relationship with student....

Am wearing the red dress, headed to the holiday party. Of course, today we got news of drastic crazy budget cuts, so I'm not sure how much we'll be partying, and how much we'll be gossiping and drinking, but...

My pharmacy is on the list.

waves downstate

It does look like it's politics. The time line goes-- old Coach (who was tight with the Pastor) leaves for new job, new Coach is hired - takes football to the finals both seasons, the championship game is over, & the old coach is suddenly without a job, so new Coach is fired and old Coach is given his job back.

There were a couple hundred parents and students at a protest, and more students would have gone but they were threatened with disciplinary action. Some parents are talking about pulling their kids out of their school. Right now, there is so much unrest and I think that if the parents knew the reason it would be better.

God. I'm so depressed about the Dan Haren trade.

The A's are going to suck ass for the next two years.

::goes to cry on Raq and Suzi's capacious bosoms of comfort::

I'm so disgusted with what they are doing to my team. Might as well do the dirty deed and sign You-Know-Who and be done with it.

The current theory is that we are "rebuilding to be a FORCE when the team moves into Cisco Field, becoming the World Series Champ, Oakland A's of Fremont". Cough Which has broken ground - NOT.

Bitter? Me? I'm seriously considering boycotting next year, even though I'm having big baseball withdrawls.