Lady Liberty's Closet

The first grade classes at E's school do a monthly special share. It varies from writing a few sentences to making a how to video. This month we had to make something that involved the Statue of Liberty. E could choose to write a story, a poem, make a poster or build something.

Naturally he wanted to build something. I have to say my building talents are not the strongest and H was slated for a lot of traveling. E and I kicked around Lego creations, foam sculpture and paper mache and chicken wire.

L kept reminding us that we only had a week and that all of those ideas sounded great until you actually got started. She was lucky, in 1st grade her classroom got to do the Flag and we wrote a story and drew a picture.

Then while watching reruns of Bravo's Top Chef, it hit me. We could do a deconstructed Lady Liberty. It is all the rage in food, why not in national symbols?

While we are used to seeing Lady Liberty looking a bit like this:

E and I have transformed her and we proudly present Lady Liberty's Closet:

 

and inside her closet:

She really is very one note when it comes to color. I think she may need a fashion intervention.

E and I crafted all of her items using stuff we found around the house. The box we got from a neighbor's trash pile. It was exactly deep enough and in very good shape. E and I covered the "doors" in duck tape. JoAnn's has piles and piles of colorful duck tape. The door nobs are drawer pulls from a table I got from my mom but immediately changed the drawer pulls out.

For the closet bar, E and I measured and cut some old pvc pipe we found in the basement. I used a hack saw. H was in the kitchen and yelled down, "Are you cutting PVC pipe." I yelled back, "Like a pro."

For the sandals, we traced E's feet and then cut a top strip. The tablet was easy, just free hand a gravestone shape and cut.

For the torch we used a plastic cup and part of a paper towel roll and duck tape. (on the day of the presentation, we have gold tissue paper all prepared to act as the flames.)

While the building was fun, I think E enjoyed dying a length of old white sheet, using hot water and Rit Dye. He got to pour and stir.

The only part of Lady Liberty's outfit, which we bought was her crown. It was a 99 cents foam crown, which came in grey sparkly. The down side is it only has five points and the real one has seven points, but we are working with what we have and seriously, the crown is sparkly. (Even after we painted it.)

While many people thought me using a hack saw was the scariest part of this project; it wasn't. The scariest part of this project was allowing E to spray paint the props. We found, at JoAnn's, blue spray paint that is pretty close to the correct color.

So last Saturday and again on Sunday for touch ups, I placed the sandals, torch, crown, and tablet on newspaper and shook the can of paint and handed it to my six year old. Crazy I know. It was not lost on me, as he began spraying, that this was a spectacularly poor idea.

Although with some coaching, he actually did a pretty good job.

So for about $15, E and I have built something for his project and he is excited to share his creation and the fun facts he has learned about the Statue of Liberty. He has note cards all set, with each clothing item on it in big letters and 1-3 sentences about that item on the back.

I hate to be cliche, but sometimes you just have to think outside the box.

Bench 'em All, Sack 'em All - Their season is over

I will be the first admit, I am not a sports nut. I like the occasional baseball game, I love Wimbledon, most especially the cut outs to the little British cultural bits and the fashion. Venus and Serena Williams have made women's tennis wear fun and high fashion.

I loathed youth soccer, but the little boys loved it. In fact I think sports are healthy for kids in moderation. Being a part of something larger than yourself, learning discipline, team work, driving hard towards a common goal. Those are all very important and impactful lessons.

Over the last few days my Twitter stream (which by the way is my source for news. If the tweeps are talking about it, it is probably something I so at least take a gander at. I also follow the AP news wire.) At first I ignored the Penn State news. Football, coaches, blah, blah, blah - just not on my radar. I blame the Buckeyes, no really I do. One cannot move around this city and not get blasted with some flavor of Buckeye Fever and so I have developed a finely honed protective anti-football talk filter.

This is until the posts in my timeline made it clear that this was sexual abuse or the attempted sexual abuse of children, young boys. Um, what? For years. With witnesses. What? On what planet does someone see a child being assaulted by an adult and does not call the police, scream stop, break it up, jump up and down, yell, all of the above or something equally impactful. Run over and grab the child out of the abusers clutches? There are dozens and dozens of better responses than the doing nothing...

What is wrong with people? I mean we are talking about possible life long physiological scars, which sex abuse and attempted sex abuse leave, verses possibly offending a coach of a football team.

If the graduate student saw a coach, in a locker room, with a 10 year boy and the adult's mouth is on the child's genitals, or worse yet there is the adults fingers, mouth or genitals are in or near the child's anus,  I think some immediate action to stop that is in order.  Do not pass go, do not go for coffee, do not even take 5 minutes to pee, stop the behavior, yell - scream - do something for the love of mike. That behavior is illegal. Period. Beyond that the sexual abuse of a child is immoral. There are somethings which just are not allowed to happen, under any circumstances and the sexual abuse of a child is one of them. Period.  If the kid had his pants down and there was some question, is the coach looking at a possible injury, well then, I think the witnesses should have made themselves known and at least asked a question, "Um, what's the issue? Should we get the team trainer or doctor?"

(UPDATE: After rereading the grand jury indictment a janitor saw something similar two years prior and reported it to his supervisor. Nothing was done. Seriously people, did it not occur to you to intervene and aid the child?)

Instead they go to the head football coach's house to discuss this. What is there to discuss? This is illegal. If you saw it in a mall bathroom, you call security and or the police. In a public park, you call the police, in a train station, you call the police. Is anyone seeing a pattern here?

My eyes about popped out of my head as I read multiple news reports where the lawyers are playing legal semantics. The statute of limitations, the burden of this, the burden of that, the following of internal protocol. We have a strong defense.

Newsflash - you have no defense. You are morally bankrupt. Every single person, who knew what was happening and DID NOTHING has no defense.

Now hear this the lot of you. You are horrible, vile excuses for human beings. Anything short of benching and sacking and throwing the book at everyone and anyone who knew about the abuse of children is unconscionable and speaks to how devoid of common decency we as a society have become. They should all be hung in public stocks and pelted with rotten fruit for days for starters.

These 8 to 10 children had something very important and sacred stolen from them and then they were violated again when other influential people, who were in a position to help them and furthermore prevent the possible abuse of another child, decided that protocol, chain of command, and unbelievably FOOTBALL was more important.

What play book are we working from? What has happened to our society that this was even allowed to become such an issue? Is a National Title really worth that???