Elf Sternberg

Iron Sky, the "Nazis on the Moon" farce currently in theaters, is not for children. It has no nudity, and while there is significant violence, much of it is absurdly over the top or otherwise ridiculous. Still, there are scenes of bloodshed, and there is language and issues that I would never have exposed my 12-year-old to.

There were two women in the rows ahead of Omaha and I, and they had brought, between them, four children: a boy and three girls, seven years old through ten years old.

The women were wearing the unpatterned dark-brown hijab of sub-Saharan Islamic cultures, and both their accents and command of the language led me to conclude they were probably Sudanese immigrants-- Seattle's had quite a few of those recently. For all the supposed "immigrants are more pro-family than locals" memage, those two women were clearly either badly misinformed about what kind of movie they were taking their kids to (it was a late night showing, too!), or their sense of what's appropriate for their kids is way different from mine.

Probably a little bit of both.

Okay, so let me get this straight. The Transformers is rated PG-13 by the Motion Picture Association of America. In theory, this means that parents with children under the age of 13 are "strongly advised" not to take their kids to see this film.

So why, oh why, is there an "I Can Read" Level 2 (Reading With Help: "For readers who are increasingly confident but still need some help") book entitled Meet The Autobots with a big banner on it, Based on the hit movie?

Or am I just spoiled with two girls for whom the Level 2 books were most appropriate somewhere around, oh, five years of age?

Last night I went to the PTSA meeting at Yamaarashi-chan's elementary school. I found a school that was terribly underfunded, a PTSA staff that cannot spell, and and school district that was too worried about reaching down to those students who aren't achieving that it does not have (and admits it does not have) the time, resources or interest in boosting those students who are exceeding expectations.

For all that, I found the volunteers there to be reasonable, open-minded people who are working hard to provide the best for all of the children in the school system and who do have their act together.

Yes, the president of the PTSA doesn't understand that "et. al." isn't spelled "et all" (and Strunk & White tells us to "always abbreviate" that phrase), and the treasurer notes "discressionary" spending, but they really do have a working pattern of fund raising and plans to put together a total annual income of nearly $70,000 throughout the school year. I was pleasantly surprised with the effective quality of their work.

The school is hip-deep into the box tops and soup labels programs that General Mills, Kraft, Campbell's, and other corporations run in the hopes of generating brand name penetration and consumer loyalty. But Omaha and I simply don't buy any of the brands with the boxtops they want: we don't eat much General Mills cereals, and we make our own soups most of the time. I felt a moment of guilt at not being part of the herd until I realized that that's what those corporations want me to feel. I will not be fnorded into buying crap.

I noticed that part of the budget contains a faint whiff of social promotion: The school buys the most popular children's books in audiobook format as well as on paper, so those students who can't read won't feel left out because they haven't had a chance to get the story.

(As a side note, the page on the web where I found the "et. al." reference is from a public high school which has its own quality control problems: one glossary entry reads "see parenthetical reference". There is no such entry: there is one labeled "parenthetical citation".)