What’s up?
From the soap opera that is the Republican primary: Rick Santorum won the GOP primary in Louisiana this past Saturday. Any bets on who the winner will be? How about vice presidential picks?
The Department of Justice has started investigating the killing of unarmed Florida teenager Trayvon Martin. No one has been held accountable for this crime, nor even questioned by police. Outrageous.
Our Dana over at Mombian reported on the changing face of adoption, including how more adoptions are open and trans-racial.
Also, Education Week covered a study showing that student performance declines with high teacher turnover.
In entertainment news, I saw the Hunger Games this past weekend, which raked in $155 million. I saw it on IMAX and it was damn good. I am almost done with the second book and will probably have read the third by the end of the week. Can’t wait!
Last, but most certainly not least, an update on our move. We are hoping to move back to our home at http://www.mothertalkers.com tomorrow. You will all have to re-register to the site, which means you will have the opportunity to create new monikers if you’d like.
Thank you so much for your generosity at this point to pay Matt, our bakerbaker’s husband. I just mailed him the money that we raised: $500. I checked around with friends and did a little bit of research online, and the going rate for a programmer in Pittsburgh is around $36 an hour or $1,440 for 40 hours of work, which is what he is going to end up putting in. While he insists that this is not necessary, I would like to do one more round of fundraising to at least cut him another $500 check. Could you pitch in? I swear, this will be the last ask, for hopefully, months if not, years to come!
To chip in, paypal me at elisa at mothertalkers dot com. If you feel better snail-mailing me a check, just e-mail me at the same address and I will send you my addy. Many, many thanks all! And many thanks to Matt for helping us keep the site going.
And — okay, okay, this is the last open thread item, I promise! — let’s wish a happy, happy birthday to our Suzanne! Actually, her birthday was yesterday, but such a fabulous woman deserves many days of celebration. 🙂
What else is in the news? What’s up with you?
MotherTalkers 
Thanks for the update on the fund raising Elisa; that’s very helpful. I just paypalled a contribution. I’m looking forward to moving back to MT and will be interested to see what it looks like. Meanwhile, Many thanks to Matt for helping us out!
By: SwissClogs on March 26, 2012
at 5:28 AM
yes, yes! Thanks, Matt!
Hmmmm…..off to think about a new name for myself.
By: Lisa in Austin on March 26, 2012
at 5:45 AM
Gosh, would I want a new name?
I would like to keep my anonymous online activities separate from my real identity, but it’s too late for that. Partly because of Facebook, but partly also because when I was young and silly I just used one email address for everything, and the internet never forgets. Grah!
I don’t really have any reason to change anything, unlike at, say, DFA, where I had a location-specific username that’s now moot.
By: Lonespark on March 26, 2012
at 5:59 AM
I guess I could use this to Clogs, as the Swiss bit is outdated. I’m kind of attached to the moniker though, so I think I’ll just keep it.
By: SwissClogs on March 26, 2012
at 6:11 AM
…to change to Clogs…
I should be more careful about proofreading
By: SwissClogs on March 26, 2012
at 6:50 AM
Happy Birthday Suzanne!
By: ginabad on March 26, 2012
at 6:32 AM
Great news on the funding so far. I figured out what was going wrong with my PayPal account (you mean I can’t use an expired debit card as a funding source?), so my contribution will be coming in shortly!
Spring Break here, and it seems like our 2 weeks of gorgeous weather have disappeared just in time for my kids to be home all week. I’m planning to use this week as a jumping off point for getting back into a workout routine. Our gym has an awesome kiddie center, and so they’ll think it’s a treat, I get a 1-2 hour break from them and get back into a routine, so win-win-win!
By: Cornflake Girl on March 26, 2012
at 6:58 AM
Hmmmm…maybe that’s why I can’t get paypal to work for me?
By: Laura on March 26, 2012
at 8:58 AM
Co-worker is supposed to be back at work today. (He’s perpetually late, so he’s not here yet, but I’m going to resist the urge to panic for at least another 10-15 minutes.) Five days after a stroke. Like, holy cow. Between that and Expat’s dad’s miraculous recovery from his heart surgery (preceded by his miraculous survival of a condition that most people learn they have when it kills them in precisely that way), I think possibly I may have used up my lifetime supply of grace.
By: Sister Q on March 26, 2012
at 7:08 AM
… AND another co-worker just got back today from the international conference she was invited to speak at. In Mali. Yes, that would be the same Mali that had a military coup on Thursday morning. (She left Wednesday morning.) I might have to start believing in a God so I can pray.
By: Sister Q on March 26, 2012
at 7:50 AM
And I don’t know why my gravatar won’t post. It appears below the comment box, it appears when I look at my profile, but it doesn’t appear in the top right corner or when I actually post. Except once.
By: Sister Q on March 26, 2012
at 7:53 AM
I have noticed that when I come to the site and try to reply to something, e-mail address and name are automatically filled out. BUT somehow this does not mean the same thing as being logged in. For that, and to get my gravitar, I have to click on the little wordpress button and log in that way. Annoying.
By: sheri on March 26, 2012
at 1:13 PM
I have logged in that way. It shows below the comment box that I am logged in (and shows my gravatar). In the top right hand corner, it shows that I am logged in, with a blank gray box where the gravatar should be. If you hover over my name/quilt square, it should show my profile and the correct gravatar. But for some reason it won’t display when I post.
By: Sister Q on March 26, 2012
at 1:45 PM
Oh yeah, weird! Hopefully our new site won’t be such a pain with the logging in. I want to login and stay logged in as long as I’m on the same computer.
By: sheri on March 26, 2012
at 3:58 PM
Okay, I’m not going to log in on my phone, but I wanted to say that while my work computer shows the quilt square for every comment, the phone mostly shows the gravatar, with the quilt square only on the first comment. Gah.
By: Sister Q on March 26, 2012
at 5:23 PM
Gee, and I thought *I* was a champion fusser, but our 4th and final co-worker is putting me to shame. Twice this morning I put out a general call for help, twice the co-worker who had the stroke said he’d come, twice the final co-worker showed up instead. I just heard the co-worker-who-had-a-stroke doing the equivalent of “Come *on*, Moooom, let *me* do it, I *swear* I can do it” at final-co-worker over who’s covering our afternoon assignment.
By: Sister Q on March 26, 2012
at 11:04 AM
I’ve got a superintendent who is trying to get one of his admins to take our intellectual property and use it to train teachers without paying us for it. She called me looking for cover and now I’m trying to figure out how I’m going to deal with losing a $45,000 contract over it.
I hate my job sometimes.
By: Laura on March 26, 2012
at 9:00 AM
Is it possible the superintendent thought the $45k covered the use of your materials?
By: inifinite rothko on March 26, 2012
at 7:19 PM
Thank you all for your generosity. Once again we are overwhelmed. Matt’s been working many hours but please, if you can’t contribute, don’t worry. He’s not doing it for the money! Of course we do appreciate the compensation for his time but it really is a labor of love.
By: baker baker on March 26, 2012
at 10:49 AM