Daily Blues & Views

A few years ago, if you asked someone to play a little word association game and mentioned the word Pluto, I'm sure the smallest planet or the Walt Disney cartoon dog would come up.  Now, I wouldn't be so sure. Pluto lost its status as a full-fledged planet a while back (though I doubt people will honor that) and Mickey Mouse's dog is seen far less than he used to be.  Not sure why this is the case, but the word Pluto is gaining a new respect with increased use of the term Plutocrat and the concept of Plutocracy. Defined as rule by the wealthy class, it's slowly becoming the reality here in North America.  Increasingly, we are in daily dispute about the loss of democracy in basic institutions like our schools. If we follow the money (operative word here is money) we find plutocrats behind the ill-informed school reform movement in large numbers.  The Koch brothers and Bill and Melinda Gates let their money inform their ideas about what ought to happen inside a clas...

Yesterday's final race at Hollywood Park brought up so many things in a surprising way.  OK, so an old racetrack closes.  What impact could that possibly have on millions of people?  It'll probably be forgotten in a few weeks.  That the 75 year old institution will be replaced by more apartments for the urban sprawl of Los Angeles is in itself a tragedy.  But Hollywood Park's demise clearly illustrates a dominant theme that's being repeated, without sufficient questioning, repeatedly in the early decades of this century. Is an expanding technology always a good thing?  When we lose tradition, the sense of a past history, do we always lose something irreplaceable?  I suggest that we do.  Horse racing will survive in some way or shape.  That's not the issue here.  I'm far too biased to discuss that question here, but what I worry about is what comprises the trade off when those with decision-making power vote to demolish icons of the past...

As a writer, I'm aware of tension in the pieces I write.  As a fairly sane, amiable person, I'm aware of how much I hate confrontation.  Thus, my task is to always provide enough tension.  That means I have to tweak characters from time to time.  It means I must do the same for how I remember experiences I want to write about and stories I need to tell. So it was with my most recent piece of memoir about how I balanced student groups, going against some of the strongest personalities in one particular class.  I've never been the kind of teacher who proudly and defiantly announces, "This is not a democracy."  I opt to agonize instead.  A fairly good piece resulted about a time I decided that the lessons of The Grapes of Wrath needed to apply to the inequitable groups my students made for a particular project. But that got me thinking.  First about the novel and then about teaching it this time of year.  It's a good December novel given t...

A real first yesterday.  With the latest school shooting came the distinction of a school shooting occurring on the anniversary of another school shooting.  So now we get the benefit of watching the latest grieving parents and then last year's, who, I might add, are still grieving. As commentator Bill Maher likes to say, "We're the gun country, that's all, that's how we're perceived by the rest of the world." True Dat! Where else can we begin to comprehend statistics like there were more people killed by guns in our country than in our military deployments throughout the past year. With some politicos fronting solutions like  arming teachers, it's only going to get worse. Another observation:  When the hand wringing stops and people begin authentic discussions of this phenomena we casually refer to as a school shooting, we easily seem to slide from gun laws to mental health issues.  A vicious circle of commentary. Why so many shootings in Colo...

As the world reacts to the death of Nelson Mandela, I keep harkening back to the days when it seemed there were very few teachers who made the struggle for human rights in South Africa part of their curriculum.  One of my former students reminded me the other day that I also had a poster in my classroom that raised the question Terrorist or Freedom Fighter? In recalling the history of Mandela's journey from prisoner to President, some of the news media (but far too few)  are reminding those who weren't alive or who have conveniently forgotten how as President, Ronald Reagan was on the wrong side of history with his policy of engagement toward South Africa.  Briefly, this policy was far too little too late and never really took a moral stance on Apartheid.  It wasn't until strong economic sanctions (not supported by Reagan) were enacted taht the tide began to turn.  But that's another story, but definitely one we can learn a good deal from in dealing with fut...

In the Fall of 1977 I went to a beautiful old church in South Berkeley, Ca. to see a film and presentation about Apartheid in South Africa.   The film concerned itself mainly with international investments in this openly racist country that just happened to be the world's largest producer of gold and diamonds. I had been teaching about South Africa for a few years; the same amount of time I had been teaching, actually.  I knew a bit about the political system of cruel and complete segregation.  I knew about Nelson Mandela and the ANC, but was just beginning to learn about recent uprising like Soweto.  That evening I learned about a burgeoning movement to disinvest in South Africa.  The film shown was available to teachers as a filmstrip that night.  I paid the $25.00 gladly as the funds were used to support similar showings.  "Banking on South Africa" served me well over the next15 years.  But it was something else I chanced to find for sale on t...