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Showing posts from 2010

Not or Never

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A fascinating issue is playing out in the editorial pages of my local paper. Actually, just the fact that I still have a local newspaper is in no small way related to this issue. But that comes later. Here's the deal: The state Superintendent of Public Instruction recently ruled that it's Ok for students to use spell checks when taking tests on computers, or for any assignment. First of all, it's not that they could prevent this, but just the fact that a ruling came down from on high has sparked a huge disagreement. For some it's about the importance of knowing how to spell words. If we allow students to conveniently have their mistakes corrected for them then we are doing a huge disservice to them. On the other side is the view that using a spell check program actually teaches spelling. I see the merits of both sides. The traditionalists want students to learn spelling and grammar. The progressives feel that while important, it's more important to allow

Confirm Now

Today I had a real social network experience. A friend of mine posted an article from CNN about a new study of Baby Boomers. This study concluded that the majority of boomers (born between 1946 and 1964) were depressed. Among other things it suggested that "boomers" were dealing with depression because all their dreams of a better world were not realized. OK things are not going well these days. The economy is in the toilet, the cost of a college education is through the roof, people are seeing terrorists everywhere, while many of the real terrorists look like their next door neighbors. Hate abounds. Homelessness thrives, and it's difficult to have a conversation of substance lest you step on somebody's sensibilities. In my view, we boomers are not any more depressed than anyone of any generation. OK, so I've been having this ongoing online discussion with a Facebook friend of a friend all day. In the end, though we disagree on everything from the definit

Advice

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I'll be brief, I promise. No lecture. No diatribe. Just the facts. I saw it in the paper this morning. One of those advice columns, but not the famous ones. This guy writes in with a real concern about his wife. Sees as if she went out and bought an expensive bottle of perfume. Then she gives him specific instructions to wrap it up and give it to her for a Christmas present. That simple. His complaint was that he longed to get back to the way his family did holiday gift giving. He used the words joy and surprise. I'm not sure which got to me more, the initial scenario he presented or the "advice" he was given. The columnist missed the boat on this one. She told him to accept that his wife has clear expectations about how gifts should be given and wanted to adhere to her family's holiday traditions. She further urged this guy to find what he loved about his wife the most and focus on that. Imagine that, no mention of this distorted notion of hol

What Do You Know?

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"How many of you have heard of Nelson Mandela?" The class of 32 high school seniors barely moved until one hand went up. "Can you tell us something about Nelson Mandela," the student teacher asked. "Ah... he looks a lot like Morgan Freeman." In one of my observations the other day, I heard the aforementioned discussion. Yes, it's really true that many college bound high school seniors know very little about South Africa and Nelson Mandela. When this particular student teacher introduced his world affairs class to the topic, I was asked by the cooperating teacher (aka master teacher) to participate in the discussion. He was eager to have me tell the class about the day that Mandela was released, given that it was a most memorable day in my own classroom and something that these students knew very little about. If you do the math it's easy to see why. They were barely 2 years old at the time. The intro lessen for my student teacher went very

About the Money

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It's a vague recollection, but I remember it clearly. Is that a contradiction? Not really, I definitely recall an exchange in the main hallway of my old school. It was late afternoon, between 4:30 and 5:00p.m. As I remember, I was walking toward the main office probably turning in my attendance sheets. A student walked toward me and said hello. He called me by name. I reciprocated, calling him by name. He knew me though he was never in one of my classes. I knew him because I'd seen him play on our school's basketball team and many of my students were his friends. He had just signed a letter of intent to play basketball for the University of Kansas (KU) one the perennial powerhouses of college hoops. I followed his career through ESPN and was only mildly surprised when he only played two years of collegiate ball and turned pro after only two years. The money is too big to turn down, especially for a kid from Richmond, California. As with all NBA players, p

Say Something

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I taught Arthur Miller's Pulitzer Prize winning play Death of a Salesman for over 20 years. Never got tired of listening to the lines either, though I must admit, I was always conscious of where I needed to be by the time a class period ended. That makes for hoping something I know will happen does happen before the bell rings. It means, too, that some discussions have to be revisited because getting back into the moment will take 24 hours. Still, it all got done and I can truthfully say that it was a rare student who didn't find something to relate to in the anguish of the Loman family. I thought about teaching the play this week because of a few discussions I've read and had lately about substance. In this tabloid Twitter technological trifecta that is media today, there is much that passes for journalism, that passes for drama, that passes for a good story that is featherweight. Sadly, that's just the way most folks like it. When I taught "Salesman"

Thanks, giving (Sic)

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A fantasy began in my head shortly after my high school graduation. I'd be flying in for the holidays with my family, small as it is, a wife and kids sometimes made their appearance in this internal mirror. Fireplaces, traditional recipes, fine Kentucky bourbon in the egg nog, mom's pies, and my ever unpredictable Aunt Dorothy all took their places on this set. This film was never made; could never be made. Not the early death of mom, nor the relationships that never evolved at their proper pace. Not the family home that would always be there, but the reality of flying in this age of scanning and screens, this worldview of instant terror, complex issues made painstakingly simple with the aid of a tabloid mind and a disdain for human kind. But this year was fun, in it's own way. 21 people focused on each other for an hour and then swirling about one house for three days. 21 people from 2-90 in age. Here's what remains: ant invasion thwarted before the real cooking b

Mom and Pop Psychology

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There is a little shop in Portland that is part retail sales, part art gallery. It has an outstanding collection of Dia de Los Muertos (day of the dead) objects and is particularly good for finding off beat holiday items for any major, and a few minor, holidays. But last week, none of that caught my eye. What did was a little volume shaped like a ruler and titled The Golden Rule. The book takes this culture's version of the Golden Rule-Do unto others as you would have them do unto you- and translated that axiom into various languages/meanings in many, many cultures. In other words, most cultures have that little saying in some form or another. If you like to think that you are a rational person, living in a rationale world, then you no doubt believe in this little ditty. Like me, you may have been taught to do unto others early and often. It's safe to say we need a book to remind us of this important principle these days, but that's not my message here, or is it alwa

Sometimes It's Just Tough

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A couple of weeks ago I was asked to take on supervision duties for another student teacher. All I knew was that for some reason, she was not able to complete the program last year and needed only one semester of teaching time along with a complete Work Sample, to receive her MAT. Guess I knew from the git-go that this association would be a short one. The anticipation, the body language, the lack of curiosity...all the signs were there. Yesterday, after only a couple of weeks, she made the decision not to pursue a career in teaching. "Do we want to same everyone?" was a question posed by the director of the program I work with. We all knew the answer. The conversation that led to this one particular student teacher not going on was surprisingly easy. Once the decision was made, the aura of relief was palatable. More than anything, this candidate had difficulty with how all consuming teaching can be. She didn't want to bring it home with her; I guess she thought it

Congratulations

I love to check out what other buy in the grocery store. If I happen to go to my local Fred Meyer store it's even more interesting because "Freddies," as most people in the Northwest say, is both a department store and a grocery store. When we place our items on the conveyer belt to be scanned, all manner of still live emerge. A woman in front of me today caught my attention because right there in the big middle of yogurt in various flavors, some cottage cheese, and various staples, stood a bottle of champagne. I couldn't help myself. "You must be celebrating something," I said. Long pause. Oh shit, I'm annoying her, I've overstepped...and then "Yes, we just finished a renovation, it is a little celebration." What followed was a wonderful 5 minute discussion about writing. Turns out she was impressed with my observation. Impressed enough to want to continue the conversation. "You must be an artist or something to notice t

So Zen

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It's 6 a.m. or at least I think it is. I had to get up and move my truck because the city of Portland will be by with their annual, you get one shot, leaf clean-up and they need to get to the curb. I live on a street with historically large elm trees. In the summer they are strikingly beautiful. In the winter, they shed everything from leaves to seeds, to sap and an occasional large branch, not to mention the continual barrage of small twigs, bird droppings, and a mossy substance that occasionally pelts my windshield. I looked forward to getting up early. Had to make sure the clock was turned back, alarm set, and I was ready for the rain. My truck now sits about a half mile near home, close to a movie theater on a main drag. No leaf crew there. This is what I needed to sort out Zenyatta's performance yesterday. Notice I didn't say loss. Sometimes a win and a loss are the same thing. So Zen. Sure I've been numb since her head crossed the wire about a foot behi

On the Wall

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Social media continues to make it's presence felt in previously unimaginable ways. Bad enough there have been lives ruined, suicides, cyber-bullies, and unwanted advances of all manner and scope. Another fascinating new dilemma has emerged to add to this unpredictable mix. What about "friends" that you have collected who don't actually share many of your values. People with whom your politics, or concept of religion, or life experience, or taste in everything from reading material to food is 180 degrees the other way. Yet somehow, the two of you have shared something. A common thread has wrapped it's way around your lives and there you sit, face to face, literally. I have acquired a number of these contra indications on Facebook and I'm just now beginning to deal with the possibilities. Mostly the consequences take the form of wondering just how my page appears to them. Many of the people I know from the thoroughbred horse industry are religious and poli

Do You See What I See?

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Journalism as theater is what TV news is. -Thomas Griffith It's all blurry. Hard to see where we are going and difficult, for some, to see where we've been. We live in a land of illusion. Nothing is more reflective of this country losing it's way than the blurring of boundaries in TV journalism these days. We can no longer differentiate between public and private, personal and political, and authentic and artificial. TV ads look like TV news shows. TV commentators voice their opinions as if they were fact. Some, like Juan Williams, formerly of NPR and now securely of Fox News, get fired on the spot. Talk about culture wars; maybe subculture wars now. Seems to me it's fairly easy to separate the pretenders from the genuine article. The wannabe's yell, talk over everyone, spout and sprout venom, and my personal favorite, make a joke out of everything. Case in point: Once, just out of curiosity, I turned do

Song of Ourselves

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Last night I participated in a most satisfying event. At Pacific Northwest College of Art a staged reading of all 52 sections of Walt Whitman's Song of Myself from Leaves of Grass took place. The Whitman 150 Project – A Staged Public Reading of "Song of Myself" 20 October '10 at PNCA PNCA/ Pacific Northwest College of Art 1241 Northwest Johnson Street, Portland Reading starts at 6:30 in the Commons I was proud to read section 47. Some of my poet/writer friends here in Portland also contributed to the event by reading various sections. What a variety of readers and voices! Old and young, gay and straight, men and women. At one point a young mother with her child in her arms read a section. The little girl, about 4 years old, was frigidity and finally reached for the microphone contributing a well timed "mommy" to the proceedings. It took about two and a half hours to complete the poem. Many of the readers and those in attendance gave themselves

Patchen

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While talking to a good friend of mine the other day, I discovered that he was not familiar with the work of Kenneth Patchen. What an opportunity, I thought. My friend is a writer, musician, poet, and artist. A match for Patchen if ever there was one. With that in mind, I decided to review some of Patchen's books and collections of picture poems. Next thing I knew, I was thinking about writing a poem, sort of a homage to Patchen that I could read at my favorite open mic. In the collection entitled Poems of Humor and Protest, resides a most unusual piece. Using that a a model, I wrote the following: The Wounding and Ultimate Assassination of a Culture by an Unlikely President Wearing Crimson Colored Gloves (For Kenneth Patchen) Don’t Don’t Don’t, Don’t, Don’t Don’t Don

Shadow and Wind

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I just finished reading a most satisfying novel: The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafron. Not usually my genre, but then I'm open to anything. Even the paperback version of this NY Times bestseller retains the appearance of an old leather bound volume. What Zafron has done here is bring a gothic quality to a multi-layered story set in Paris and Barcelona in the 1930s through the mid 1950s. The blurbs all refer to murder, madness and doomed love, but it's oh so much more. I think the parallel stories about lovers struggling to fight their attraction because mystery surrounds everything is what is most powerful. But all the character description and the precise detail of the cities involved are equally part of the fascination. Zafron has a real gift for the contradictions in meaningful relationships, whether they be intimate or casual, spontaneous or long-lasting. And any book with a called The Cemetery of Forgotten Books has got to be worth a look. Every now a

Covered

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Covered There is nothing like returning to a place that remains unchanged to find the ways in which you yourself have altered. -Nelson Mandela Mile 1 When leaves turn the color of summer squash, weightless, broken and brooding, like underground springs, take the log truck route, with weekday determination. Cover up; morning air is the best alarm clock. Remember that day, when all you could offer was integrity, when your eyes crossed the country, when Oregon pulled back, when that return promise was sealed. Savor these days, when time is no longer on trial, when even adults call you “sir.” After all, it has been 40 years since you’ve seen your mother’s face; Highway 19 narrows like the river, both tiptoe from the high country, where riffles sing, pocket water promises, and desire, like sunlight, gets filtered. Mile 20 First comes the covered bridge: a red cabin riddle, with side door and dubious origin. Fishermen

Wish I Were There

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When I look at the picture I begin to wonder. What would that life have been like? Who would I be and what would I care about had I been around then? When people ask me about my parents, some are still surprised to learn that they've been gone for 30 years. I always tell them that they were married for almost 15 years before they had children; 13 to be exact. What I seldom say, unless they ask, is that my folks lived in a couple of smaller towns back east. In Port Jervis, NY, near the New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania border, they owned and operated a small combination grocery store soda fountain. The Deer Park Store was their life. They lived and worked there in the 1930s and early 40s. Right in the big middle of the Great Depression. They had stories. Many stories. I suppose I'm the keeper of them now. This little mom and pop (literally, huh?) operation was in a town that had lots of road traffic. Pre interstate, the main highway, in those days went right throug

Leave It

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Sunday is not the best day for a yard sale. People are slow to rise on Sunday. But, it's all we had. So when we agreed to participate in a friend's yard sale on Sunday only, expectations were light. We sold a few small items very cheaply to a few folks who ambled by unaware that they couldn't get through the day without that Christmas ornament or piece of colorful material. Mostly we found some new homes for things we haven't used in a good while. Back in the 1980s I had about $600 invested in 35mm camera equipment for my "working journalist" days. That went to a 10 year old whose mom promised to help her learn the art of developing negatives and printing your own photos. They could afford $20. I liked the fact that a young girl would be learning that not all photos are available instantly and that photography is an art that can still be practiced. I also found a new home for my depression era candlesticks. They weren't getting the use they dese

Supply Side

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First day of school in my town. I still feel the pull. I have the dreams, the anxiety, the inspiration, the curiosity...it never leaves. Instead of 100-150 new students, I'll have a few student-teachers this year. First it was those "Back to School" commercials and ads that began in July. Then, lots of stories and solicitations for donating school supplies to kids that otherwise might not begin the year with what they need. Mostly it's local news stations that initiate these drives. Occasionally a commercial encourages consumers to collect "box tops" for school supplies and reminding prospective buyers that "you can make a difference." It's all well and good, right? Or is it? What does it say about a nation that has so many children that require the kindness of anonymous thousands to give it's students a proper sendoff to the new school year? I would never begrudge a donation for a public school student, classroom, program, teacher

Defect Reflect

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Yesterday was a defective day. It began with the discovery of a twenty dollar bill by the curb where I parked my truck that morning. On closer inspection, it was most of a twenty dollar bill. The top left portion, including one of the two serial numbers, was missing. No celebration; just a trip to the federal reserve for a ruling on the matter. Things deteriorated quickly. The buy 5 summer drinks get one free Peet's card(s) I'd been dutifully carrying in my wallet for weeks expired on Tuesday last. I had 4 of 5 stamps on one card and 3 on the other. Both got tossed; summer's gone. Next came an encounter with a parking cop. The coin machine was not accepting coins. Put in a quarter, watch it tumble back to the coin return. I was only stopping at a news stand for a few minutes in downtown Portland,but something told me to get back out there. Sure enough the Parking Nazi was there and very short tempered. I tried to explain, but he kept interrupting saying, "

Chilling

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Just when you thought it was safe to go back in the water...so goes the old JAWS promo. I thought the water for teachers would be a little safer when the Bush administration packed it in. First came Obama's "Race to the Top," (why must it always be a competition with winners and losers?) and then this bizarre notion of "value added" teachers from an article in the L. A. Times. Now you know by the sound of that phrase the business model applied to public education is alive and well. A small amount of research leads you to this wonderful paragraph from the Rand Corporation's study linking achievement tests to teacher "performance." (Hey, we're not trainin' seals heah!") What Is a Teacher Effect? Applications of VAM often model growth or gain scores as a means of measuring the effects of incremental inputs on incremental out- come—as the definition of value-added suggests (Hanushek, 1979).2 Appropriate interpretation of VAM results re

Grocery Store 2010

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I walk half a mile to my local the grocery store, I leave with one bag of popcorn and 38 words on a receipt; 4 inches of paper that includes the time and date, my cashier today's name, and reminders that if I click, they deliver, Today I returned to to the "friendliest store in town" to buy a paring knife. It came on a card shaped like a green apple and included a protective blade cover; Pictured were one lemon, one orange, one tomato, and one green apple because the knife comes in "Colors Inspired by Nature." The green apple nature inspired card also told me that my new paring knife is a Swiss innovation made from Japanese stainless steel It warns of sharp edges and to keep out of reach of children in English, Spanish, and French, The paring knife, like most everything I purchase was Made in China

Announcer Larry Collmus calls the 7th at Monmouth Park

Who says there is no magic in horse racing? This call will put Larry Collmus in the books...in the folklore...in the Hall of Fame.

Face the Music

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I suppose it's no surprise that Facebook has morphed into so many networking splinters. It seems like every time I go to a new food cart, it already has a Facebook page. A disgruntled airline flight attendant has a melt down and by that afternoon he has a few hundred followers on Facebook. This can't be good. And yet, there are some unpredictable side effects of posting a Facebook profile that are at once both fascinating and frightening. I guess we all have a few "friends" who aren't really. They have bored their way into our collection of people like small wild fish who enter any body of water that will have them. Irrigation ditches, farm ponds, isolated streams, creeks, lakes. Moved in like flood water, there they are and we really have no idea how they got there. Oh I know we could put the pieces together and probably figure it all out. Somebody's brother or sister, friend of a friend, follower of a follower, or even "accidents." People

Did The Bell Ring?

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The Back to School commercials couldn't even wait for August 1st this year. They slipped in before the last day in July. These are the days that mark the end of summer for teachers. It's the second week of August and already some are in their classrooms, attending meetings, adjusting schedules, making changes. Some are already teaching, so a former colleague told me last week. This 2010-11 school year will mark the 4th year now I won't be going back with them. My semi-retirement has been successful. My full-time days are over. I succeeded in securing a part-time position as Supervisor/Mentor for beginning teachers. STILL...I feel the pull. Of course, my "teacher dreams" continue, with new motifs. For awhile there, it was the I didn't really retire dream, I just did for a short while. I usually end up in these dreams in another school, often a MIddle School not high school, and always there is one class, the last in the day, that I somehow haven'

Rolling Along

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With so many people going to electronic reading devices, is it any wonder that Amazon reports that more "book"s were downloaded last year that actually purchased as hard copies. The funny think about being in the middle of a revolution is it's often too slight to notice. Real change often moves even slower than we think. So many people my age proudly declare that they'll never give up books. Perhaps. I think that eventually many of those resistant to the inevitable will make the switch. Consider some of the things most of us no longer do. Writing a check is a long-gone necessity any more for most things. Little by little, we'll all be transferring numbers electronically. Even now, I swear there are some folks who never touch cold cash any more. What's next? This got me thinking about the choice to swim ahead or go against the current. Imagine a sub culture where, not unlike the Amish, people consciously choose to eschew man of the electronic replace

Covered

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The state of Oregon contains more covered bridges than most other states. Like everything else from the past couple of centuries, they are endangered. Fortunately, most if not all of them are on smaller, less used roadways and valued by both the local population and just about everybody else who finds these wonderful structures. With all the hoopla surrounding the 100th anniversary of some of Portland's best know bridges, there has been much talk of bridges in Oregon lately. Closures, celebrations, new design competitions and the like. Fortunately, some of the musing has filtered down to covered bridges. On a local radio program a Lane County expert shared some of the folklore about covered bridges. The key question, of course, is why are they covered. Answers and theories abound. Three ideas are most popular. One school of thought goes back t the days of horse transportation. Since most of these structures are over or close to a hundred years old, the original vehic

So Close

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I spent a few hours at Trillium lake yesterday. This small gem in the shadow of Mt. Hood is very popular because it is only a little more than an hour from Portland, but it is still possible to have something akin to a wilderness experience there. Most of the people who fish at Trillium are either bait dunkers who hurl their offerings off a small pier, or an occasional kayak, canoe or row boat. I was the only float tuber there yesterday. The lake is usually stocked with "catch able size rainbow trout" and a few trophy size fish and there are holdovers from previous years along with a small population of self-sustaining brook trout. I caught a few rainbows yesterday, but they were the cookie-cutter rainbows they put in there. Only a few other fly fishers visible but nobody seemed to be catching much...except for a pair of osprey who continued to entertain me the entire four hours I kicked around the lake. One of the skillful predators even got one of the rainbows I rel

Bread and Chocolate

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He wants money. Trouble is, you'd never know it because he's got an original scam. He operates with the element of surprise. You are minding your own business or lost in a newspaper, or simply walking down the street lost in thought. A sudden glance, your eyes meet his and he smiles and charges toward you first waving and then extending his hand to shake. He's Southeast Asian. His accent, appearance, say Laos or Cambodia. Maybe Vietnam or Thailand. "Heeey, How you dong? If you talk to him for any length of time he'll ask for a dollar. In the time it takes to realize you don't know him at all, he runs his scam. And then he's gone. Sometimes, if you keep him in eyesight, you can see him walking down the other side of the street and then like a bull that suddenly realizes the fight is on, he'll charge. His smile flashes, he waves, his arm extends like a boom and in the distance, "Heeeeey" II Last Wednesday I went to the Carolina Choc

Being There

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After watching all the bad news from the gulf for a month now, I was wondering what it is that people who want to help can do aside from actually cleaning up the oil. Then it hit me. Go there. This holiday weekend, all the big news outlets did stories on how the business of hotels, motels, restaurants, and resorts is down. In fact, it's next to nothing. NBC news did another story on the wave of depression moving in with the tide also. For folks who were just beginning to get out from under Katrina, this tragedy is the knockout blow. What if various organizations planned to have their conventions there. OK maybe a little too late for that. What if families looking for reunion sites, or groups, organizations, clubs, couples, individuals all made a point of going to the gulf to support these failing businesses? True, no swimming, but the beach is still there. The climate remains the same. The facilities are in good order. By going there, helping these small business folk