def get_element_text(element_node):
    """Extract and concatenate all text from an element node (but not its descendants).
    @param element_node: the XML element containing the text
    @returns: all of the text from the node, concatenated into a single string.
    """
    return ''.join(node.nodeValue for node in element_node.childNodes if node.nodeType == node.TEXT_NODE)