Daily Blues & Views

Yesterday, I learned of the death of a friend and former colleague.  George Austin was a big man.  A social science teacher and football coach, he taught and mentored thousands of young people over a long career.  Although George was not elderly, he had recently retired, but never lived to enjoy the rest he deserved.  That often happens. He'd recently had knee surgery and to the best of my knowledge some of the complications of subsequent surgeries took his life.  George was the kind of teacher who could easily put his students needs first.  He took the time to do that.  His priorities were solidly in order. About 20 years ago, we were roommates for a week at a National Writing Project conference in Princeton, New Jersey.  I really got to know George that week.  Aside from the intensive work we participated in regarding teacher research, there was time for some relaxation free time. One morning, George asked me to accompany him on a sear...

When I drive around the Berkeley/Oakland area on one of my annual visits to the place that was home for 40 years, I can't help but notice the re-ordering of buildings, businesses, and neighborhoods.      To drive the streets and look for familiar haunts is a challenge as new configurations abound, and new incarnations of coffee houses, restaurants, and various businesses are the order of the day. I still see the old hardware store or the stationery store that used to be there.  An Italian Deli has sprung up two doors down from where one used to be.  A small bookstore holds on for dear life and even though the drug store with the soda fountain intact has somehow managed to be preserved, it's changed ownership a handful of times in recent years. I see the little Egg and Apple Press shop where I once dated that red-headed waitress with the smiling face and brilliant eyes.  It's been a Middle Eastern cant for a couple of decades now.  Of course the tr...

Been thinking about a conversation I had some years ago with a wonderful elder.  I's befriended him at a local coffee shop in Oakland and we became fast friends.  Maybe it was the Austrian accent, or the fact that he'd been a teacher.  Maybe just the fact that he was a warm, funny and vulnerable person who depended on me from time to time to accompany him on errands and getting around.  I knew he had a daughter, with issues that remained mostly estranged, but one day I asked if he had any other family.  "I have a son too," he told me.  Where is he, I asked.  "He disappeared," was his quick reply.  "What do you mean he disappeared," I countered.  "People disappear, you know." I left it t that but figured that they's lost contact somewhere along the way. Things disappear too.  Sometimes they turn out to be some of your favorite things.  Recently a funky little breakfast place I frequent changed its menu.  Gone were the wonde...

The current malaise that seems to be enveloping this country will react to the hearings being televised and Tweeted, consumed and considered.  We have a President that lies and who's lack of concern for protocol seems to be catching up with him.  As expected, he tries to run the country like he runs his businesses.  He cares little for ethics and makes moral calculations that are sadly lacking.  This is what happens when you try apply one model to another.  In business, you can step on people.  It's done all the time, because "business is business."  When you work with people and have the power to impact lives while seemingly advocating for the greater good, you can't quantify issues and boil them down to what is most expedient.  With people there is supposed to be a human factor.  Human beings are emotional and in the words of Aristotle we are "political animals." That does not mean we like politics, or that we are ever engaged in politics,...