Daily Blues&Views

Respect Yourself

2012-01-29T11:49:00.000-08:00

George Reedy was a former press secretary and political writer who served under Lyndon Johnson. Probably more intellectual than most Presidential Press Secretaries, and sometimes thought of as a Johnson whipping boy, Reedy was nevertheless a keen observer of the White House and the institution of the Presidency.

In writing about the bitterly fought 1964 campaign between Johnson and Barry Goldwater, Reedy noted how the respect for the office of the Presidency was quickly restored after the heat of the campaign ended with the final results. You might recall that Johnson was running for his first elected term after finishing out JFK's term. This was the campaign that featured the infamous "Daisy" political add where a child's game of "loves me, loves me not" was superimposed over an exploding mushroom cloud. In the end, despite the taunts, insults, and fear mongering, Johnson won a landslide victory.
George Reedy once noted that the day after the election, when the President met with Congressional leaders, Goldwater, then Senator from Arizona, was there beaming with the rest of them. It was Mr. President this and Mr. President that. he concluded that despite the bitter campaign, the respect for the office of the President was intact. That the leaders in Congress, especially those in the losing opposition party, never lost respect for the President.
My how things have changed. As the nation debates the recent finger in the face of President Obama by the Governor of Arizona, we might do well to pause and ask where that respect for the office has gone. I'm not really all that surprised, are you? Culturally, we are more polarized than ever and many of the once taboo restrictions on language in thought and action are gone. I've real all manner of reactions to the finger pointing incident and I must say the best appears here:
http://phillisremastered.wordpress.com/2012/01/27/a-teachable-racial-moment-on-fingers-pointed-in-black-faces/
Yes, we have lost a good deal of civility. That fact stands in line with the overall malaise that sensitivity and appropriate behavior are slogging through right now. Listen to me, I sound like Ms. Manners here, but some things are painfully obvious.

Return to Sender

2012-01-23T13:19:00.000-08:00

It's such a simple phenomena. Been around since dirt. But it's oh so true. It has lots of names, some fancy, some academic, some right to the point. Let's see, predictable, indicators, and past performance all fit into the equation. Dr. Phil, in all his prime time glory is fond of saying, "We teach people how to treat us." Certainly do.
The great historian Mircea Eliade called it "The Myth of the Eternal Return." AKA...what goes around comes back. Native Americans built much of their culture on the cyclical nature of all experience. Four seasons, four directions, four quarters or quadrants. The Daily Racing Form and it's advocates swear by knowledge of the past. If it happened once, chances are it will happen again. It's true, often the best indicator of future behavior is past behavior.
I can't leave out police detectives from this discussion. For every one of those, "Gee, he or she was the last person I'd ever suspect of having a double life. Always so nice, never seemed to argue with family members, kept the house neat and tidy, I'm dumbfounded" statements you hear on the nightly news, there is a past history just waiting to glint in the sunlight.
If we apply this principle to the current political scene it explains much. Why wonder about the current use of unethical or racist sentiment when it's all laid out if one would only look over the shoulder and into the past. There is a very good likelihood that similar sentiments are just waiting to be re-discovered.
But people forget. They choose to forget, and when they avail themselves of denial in the process, they can have it their way every time.
I see this in my work as a teacher and now as a teacher of teachers. People lug their satchel of old worn out excuses and projections along for the ride. They re-run the narrative. I remember being on the brink of a new relationship once and having to listen to a phone conversation between my new interest and someone she was trying to let down easy. Even though I was hearing the words I longed to hear, it was most uncomfortable. I was old enough to know that the dialogue, the reasoning would probably apply to me some day. While not always exactly the same, the future is more often than not dictated by the past.
So what's the message? Don't ignore the past...absolutely, but more than that, learn it.

Artsy

2012-01-21T16:10:00.000-08:00

Recently, I was given the opportunity to make a small poster about my life as a teacher. As a fan of the medium of collage, I had no trouble deciding which way to go. Then the entire world of computer software opened up to me and I found myself fascinated with how easy it is to throw down a melange of meaningful images. See what I mean:

I'm still playing with all the possibilities of this software, but it appears it is well worth the expense. I'm supposed to sell myself, as it were, to a group of beginning teachers by making this poster so they can learn a bit about my academic and social self. Perhaps I should say selves. In doing this, it occurred to me that I can easily make a lesson out of this presentation...an inquiry lesson. What questions will the viewers ask? What will be assumed correctly and incorrectly from the images I've chosen?
If I were to replace each image here with a half a dozen other images, what conclusions might be drawn. Lastly, how difficult is it to accurately say something about yourself in a photo collage. For those reading this entry, any responses to these any any other questions would be appreciated.

Still Waiting

2012-01-16T20:02:00.000-08:00

It is the Fall of 1964 and I am walking to my local shopping center deep in the heart of the San Fernando Valley. I'm a high school junior and I have 75cents in my pocket to finally purchase a paperback book that resides on a small revolving book rack near the front of the drug store that sells everything from make-up to first aid supplies, kitchen items to magazines and books. It takes me 2o minutes to walk home and I can't keep the book in brown paper bag because there is a center-set of black and white photos that comes with this edition. The Book is Why We Can't Wait by Martin Luther King. I want to read his thoughts on the Civil Right Movement as it is happening. Earlier in the year I did a paper for my American History class that changed my life. I'd heard on the evening news that voter education and registration was an important issue. In trying to find a topic I came across a Newsweek magazine with a small article on literacy tests still being used in Southern states. When I read the question "How many bubbles are there in a bar of soap?" I felt the pain in a new way. Coupled with events like the murder of 3 civil rights workers, I felt my perceptions of my beloved country slipping away. I needed to read what wasn't in any textbook I carried. I needed to learn a wider, deeper context that my environment couldn't provide. I've often wondered how that book got to the rack with other pulp fiction and sci-fi and true romances.
It's 1968 and I've been in my poetry seminar for three hours. The sun is setting over the UCLA campus as I walk down the hills that separate the older buildings from the student union and athletic fields. Only a few people are walking the paths to and from the libraries and lecture halls. When I begin the walk up the narrow road toward the parking lots near the dorms I notice a car careening up and down those narrow streets. Occasionally it stops and the windows roll down and the people inside speak to somebody walking along. When the car stops at a stop sign near me I notice that everyone inside is African-American. "What's going on?" I ask.
A woman with large natural tells me that Martin Luther King has been shot and killed in Memphis Tennessee. It is 3 days before my 21st birthday.

This year, 2012, the MLK holiday seems all about "spectacular sales" and three day weekends. The ad for Sears seems blind and deaf. Like everything else in this culture the celebration of the birth of one of the last great orators and leaders has become quantified by slashed prices and limited time only propositions. In so many ways, we're still waiting.

Our Kind of Town

2012-01-13T16:13:00.000-08:00

The second season of Portlandia has arrived. Too bad the IFC (International Film Channel) is carried by so few cable or satellite companies that the world can't share a good laugh every week about the contradictory nature of this special place called Portland, Oregon. But wait...this just in. There are at least three Portlands that I know of and possibly more.
Most of the country sees the politically correct, greener than green, foody food cart capital of the world. And it's there all right in all it's wonderful, paradoxical, deliciousness. But its only a small part of the real city on the Willamette River. There are four quadrants of the city Northwest Northeast, Southwest and Southeast, as well as NoPo (north Portland). The river divides more than just these sections, it functions the way railroad tracks often do in other cities. The demographics and socioeconomic realities of these areas are similar to any city in any state. The wealthy live near and in the foothills, the working class lives in the flatlands, and the poorest of the poor live, most often in areas of pollution or industrial decay. Throw in a bit of redevelopment or "gentrification" and you've got it covered.
So while the outside world laughs and imagines what it might be like to relocate to Portland, very little of the other city reaches their media. Case in point, we've had about half a dozen violent incidents on public transportation in the last two weeks. There are some very angry folks out there if yo happen to not hear what they are saying to you, or, as in one case, you suggest they pay their bus fare instead of trying to get over with an expired bus transfer. Many of these attacks are 3 on 1 or adult on minor, or minor on adult. Sure some are the result of the continuing Meth epidemic in the Northwest, but I suspect that a good deal more involve the economic state of the country. Are they racially charged? Afraid so. Hard to be specific, but both the media and the legal system are being very careful right now. Either way, it's a boiling pot that won't make any episode of Portlandia or Grimm or any other regularly filmed TV series or movie made in Stumptown.
Similarly, this is the week that the news of American Marines in Afghanistan defiling the bodies of their enemy by urinating on them and then having that tape show up on You Tube. In fact many of these incidents end up there, at least for a short time. Bitter pill to swallow. But something is happening hear and while it isn't exactly clear, it does make it much more difficult to laugh at yourself.

There Was a Time

2012-01-09T16:14:00.000-08:00

I've been thinking about our lives "BC" and "AD." Oh, not that use of these letters. I'm referring to Before Computers and After Deluge. Like many people, I probably spend too much time online. That's because much of the work I do supervising student teachers or participating in an active, rigorous, writing group demands it. If you add in a little Facebook, checking sports scores or streaming events I can't get otherwise...you get the picture. But that's not to say it has consumed my life. On the contrary, I just learned that since my retirement from full-time teaching, I've read 40 books. That averages to about 8 a year, or one every few weeks. Some were quick 175-250 page novels, but others were longer works of fiction in the 600 pg. league. Some were memoirs, history, biography, autobiography and of course, all manner of fly fishing literature from articles to fly tying recipes to books of maps, and collections of Pacific Northwest rivers and lakes by state.
I find time to write too. This blog is my exercise so that I don't get lazy. But aside from working out ideas or venting about something currently on my mind here, I occasionally use it to preserve a poem or character sketch or story starter I've scratched somewhere.
But there has been a deluge of online opportunities. Before computers, it was rather difficult to do the kind of research that Google enables us to do so easily. Even our first drafts come out looking more presentable than they used to. But that's a two way street because there is a lot of garbage in that deluge as well. Good looking garbage is still garbage.
AD allows me to stay in touch with former students mostly through Facebook. Just this past week I was able to participate in discussions about Teach For America, the ideas of Erich Fromm, and The Catcher in the Rye. Of course I'm overjoyed that young people who were in my English and Psych classes in high school still choose to ask me questions, wonder about my opinions, remind me about things I said years ago, and take the time to validate some of the many questions I still have about what and how I taught. Most of them are college graduates now and see the world a little differently. Still, they have a new appreciation for those years, those limitations, and those conditions.
I have ongoing "friendships" with students who will probably never go to college, much less graduate. Some in the military, some working two or three entry level jobs, some still at home. With all, there remains the recognition that we all were part of a wider community at a crucial time in our lives. That's important to me and keeps part of my identity alive. To most of them I will forever be "Mr. Greene." A few have made the transition with me and are comfortable to be on a first name basis. I don't require or even ask for either.
Can't help but wonder though, if not for this little keyboard and screen I visit daily, would we just remain a dim memory? What's lost and gained there?
Sometimes I want to go back to writing in journals or notebooks, writing letters, and just wondering what ever happened to (insert name here)? When I see beginning teachers take two minutes and download a film or historical video from You Tube, I can't help thinking about how much effort, time, and money it took to do that BC. But like everything else that is changing so quickly before our eyes and minds, I know it's an irrelevant question. So I have chosen to enjoy the possibilities and keep connected.

In The Zone

2012-01-02T12:19:00.000-08:00

This is the time of list making. Resolutions, changes, best films, restaurants, underrated athletes, politicians, top tens of all sorts. In that mix comes some fascinating information about books and the American psyche.
Recently the New York Times included the top bestseller in non-fiction over the last 35 years.
Seems as if 35 years ago the list was topped by Alex Haley's Roots. This year it was Steve Jobs. But what falls in between really says something. A year ago G.W. Bush held the spot with his version of events called Decision Points. The previous year was Sarah Palin's Going Rogue. 5 years ago saw Obama's Audacity of Hope #1. In 2002, 10 years ago, it was Bill O'Reilly's No Spin Zone. You see where this is going. If we look at 15 years back we find A Reporter's Life by Walter Cronkite. 20 years ago Me: Stories of My Life by Kathryn Hepburn held the spot. 25 years ago it was Bill Cosby's Fatherhood and 30 years down the road it was Shel Silverstein's A light in the Attic. That will bring us back to Roots. My question: Is there a statement about our culture here? Please fill in the blank________________________.
Another list of books has caught my eye this time of year too. It comes from the American Library Association. Using some data collected over the last couple of years, the ALA has released what it calls the most frequently challenged books. Not banned books, mind you, but books that some folks would love to see banned. So they challenge.
The list, which appears below, also makes an intriguing cultural commentary.

The ALA's top 10 most frequently challenged books of 2010-11

1. And Tango Makes Three by Peter Parnell and Justin Richardson

Reasons: Homosexuality, religious viewpoint, unsuited to age group

2. The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie

Reasons: Offensive language, racism, sex education, sexually explicit, unsuited to age group, violence

3. Brave New World by Aldous Huxley

Reasons: Insensitivity, offensive language, racism, sexually explicit

4. Crank by Ellen Hopkins

Reasons: Drugs, offensive language, sexually explicit

5. The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins

Reasons: Sexually explicit, unsuited to age group, violence

6. Lush by Natasha Friend

Reasons: Drugs, offensive language, sexually explicit, unsuited to age group

7. What My Mother Doesn't Know by Sonya Sones

Reasons: Sexism, sexually explicit, unsuited to age group

8. Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By In America by Barbara Ehrenreich

Reasons: Drugs, inaccurate, offensive language, political viewpoint, religious viewpoint

9. Revolutionary Voices: A Multicultural Queer Youth Anthology edited by Amy Sonnie

Reasons: Homosexuality, sexually explicit

10. Twilight by Stephenie Meyer

Reasons: Religious viewpoint, violence

I would expect to see some of these titles, but what I find even more fascinating is the inclusion of Huxley's Brave New World. Perhaps the reason is that it is still read in schools. That could threaten some but one has only to look at some of the current TV programming in prime time to see things far more explicit. Must be something else. I love the work "insensitivity" here. I'm going to think about that a little more.
A final note: In the past few days I caught a bit of the "Twilight Zone" marathon presented by the Sy Fy Channel on holidays. To watch these original episodes again and again is equal parts nostalgia, entertainment, and curiosity about how they stand the test of time. Of course, some do not. Advancements in make-up and special effects put them to shame. But when you consider the thematic content, they do quite well. People are often trapped in an existential dilemma with no escape. No Exit, as Sartre called it. They are often Waiting for Godot, as Beckett said. There are many episodes of braver, newer worlds as they were conceived in the early 1960s. And you know what? The same issues of personal identity, personal appearance, the same ethical dilemmas with technology, with intolerance, with materialism shine through in black and white. Wonder if any of those shows will be challenged?

Hazardous to Your Health

2011-12-28T11:10:00.000-08:00

By chance the other day, I got word of a fairly new book with fascinating, if not stunning conclusions. Put simply, the rate of violence, especially in the form of homicides and suicides, rises dramatically when Republicans are in the White House.
Can't say I'm surprised, are you? But it's really no so much about war and the continuation of bankrupt policies, or outsourcing war, it's more in the area of socioeconomic stress that the data points

convincingly.
James Gilligan, in the book Why Some Politicians Are More Dangerous than Others states his case. Not really looking to prove this thesis out the outset, Gilligan, a professor of psychology at NYU, says that the data surfaced rather by chance and he could not leave it alone. Apparently he was originally looking at other non-specific causes of violent behavior but the occupant of 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.kept getting into the equation.
Of course there must be exceptions to these findings. Republicans have no monopoly on stressing out the populace. Certainly to my generation, the irony of Lyndon Johnson's presidency jumps out. I clearly recall people in 1966 saying, "We voted for Johnson and got Goldwater." At least Johnson had the foresight not to run for office again after his hands got so bloodied with the Vietnam debacle. The sad thing was always that Johnson fancied himself the incarnation of FDR and he was well on his way to getting there. He wasted no time getting JFK's Civil Rights legislation passed and actually did declare a war on poverty. I became a Vista Volunteer because of his efforts. It's those undeclared wars that do it every time.
So let's say that Mr. Galligan's thesis is right on the money. What could that possibly mean for the future? If Obama wins re-election, maybe the numbers will again tell their story. Already troops are on the way home from Iraq. That means fewer cases of PTSD as well as all the psychological consequences that come with the stress and anxiety of deployment, maintaining relationships, and dealing with uncertain futures. But what about overall health care? What about education? Not sure how that ties in, but it must. I keep thinking of all my former students in their mid to late 20s and early 30s with stellar degrees and no career prospects. Moving back in with your parents after college has go to be stressful.
That begs the question of demographics. Will Republican presidents become a thing of the past when more and more Latino voters join the pool? By 2050 what will this country look like and what will that say about who we elect? Third party movements usually fall as fast as they rise, but maybe now the time is right. Think of the possibilities of a political party based on principles of mental health. All quite fascinating.
There is one other elephant in the room. (Pun intended) That is, why don't more people know about this book? What is preventing other politicians from using this data to their best advantage? Certainly I don't expect James Gilligan to be a guest on Fox News anytime soon. Now, I haven't read the book, but I intend to. With a thesis like that, I'd surely like to know more.

Burning Woods

2011-12-23T08:08:00.000-08:00

Christmas nears. The Fox network continues to predictably defend it and it's traditions while it repeatedly airs commercials that re-write traditional songs with messages and tidings of greed. I even saw one this year which flips and twists the notion that receiving is better than giving. Surprised? Not really. More evidence of this over the top culture, pushing boundaries of commercialism to new heights. Gatsby's green light shines...glistens...blinds.
But this year we have a new phenomena, the Layaway angel. People are coming forward and paying off items that the less fortunate (read less wealthy) are trying to purchase for the big day. I'm so tainted, I'm not sure I even believe these folks are on the square, as the old union organizers used to say. Likewise, the major news outlets and the local happy-talk teams are running stories about Secret Santas and first time food bank users. Where is the forest? Is everyone so focused on the trees that they don't see the glaring forest fire in front of them?
Yes, it's important to help those less fortunate; but ask why do they continue to be less fortunate? How can I help there? Why are there more folks living from month to month, depending on food banks or food stamps, or waiting for big box angels than ever?
Maybe it just comes with what's been called the "Season of Sharing." But does that mean we don't share the rest of the time?
Even those more informed or democratic institutions have joined the holiday chorus. I've noticed that most everybody wants to get a piece of the holiday dollar. Education organizations and publishing houses I support are urging me not to forget their products as Christmas gift-giving ideas this year. Hey, it's tough out there and the holidays represent one last opportunity to get in the black.
I'm thinking about this a good deal these days. The trick, of course, is not to raise the issue as a naysayer. Give from the heart, encourage others to do the same, but also figure out a way they can look for the forest. We nee to get in those woods before we can get out of them.

For Love of Robert Creeley

2011-12-21T16:10:00.000-08:00

I've been reading and listening to the poetry of Robert Creeley all afternoon. Relieved to find I still have an important little volume of his work, I found his voice all over the internet and You Tube.
He'd like that. I do.

Robert Creeley - A Form Of Women.mp3

Download at rapidlibrary mp3 music

Twice As Deep

2011-12-19T12:37:00.000-08:00

As often happens, two figures in the world arena have died within days. I don't know if these passings come in triplicate, only the next week will tell. For now the death of Vaclav Havel and now North Korean president Kim Jong Il represent a most fascinating juxtaposition. I think I'm correct in assuming Kim was the more widely known. It's fairly difficult to repress and oppress an entire nation without being recognized these days. But Havel, the former playwright turned politico may leave a more lasting legacy.

In the days to come North Korea may not even change as the son will take up where the father left off. But for how long? Even the most evil despots, the most pathological plutocrats all have a bit of a say in their own undoing. Perhaps in North Korea's case, the encroaching technology will open that country wide as a treasure chest as it appears to have done in China. But one person's treasure is certainly not always another's. I'm sure horror stories will follow. Hard to believe the power one person can have over an entire nation, but then even a cursory study of history reinforces that notion. Let's hope the son rebels. Let's hope he wants to travel. Let's hope he is well read.
As for Vaclav Havel, his words will live on. His experience and his ability to articulate it are already beginning to open eyes. In a speech given back in 1994, on the occasion of winning The Liberty Medal, Vaclav Havel noted:
By day, we work with statistics; in the evening, we consult astrologers and frighten ourselves with thrillers about vampires. The abyss between the rational and the spiritual, the external and the internal, the objective and the subjective, the technical and the moral, the universal and the unique constantly grows deeper.
It's difficult to imagine many national leaders putting a couple of sentences like those together. It begs the question: what if more world leaders were writers?
Speaking today on NPR writer Ariel Dorfman noted that Havel was more concerned about moral authority than anything else. Makes him the direct opposite of Kim. Maybe the abyss, in some ways can be filled with some of Havel's ideas, his caveats, his wisdom.
Hard not to think about Fidel Castro as the third leg of this trifecta. We are just about 1/5 into the second decade of the 21st century. Let's hope the universal moves in tandem with the unique.

Over and Out?

2011-12-15T17:38:00.000-08:00

I like a hero as much as the next person. The U.S. intervention in Iraq, which apparently ended today, certainly produced it's share of heroes. As the late Andy Rooney once wrote, "If war brings out the worst in people, It also brings out the best."
Lots of stories from Iraq about the best coming out. But then, that's human nature. While the media focuses on those heroic stories, the ones that feature dogs, kids, the maimed and psychologically damaged, they rarely look at the big picture. With this rather low ceremonious exit, especially during the height of the holiday season, I'm looking for more on the big picture.
Haven't seen it yet, but I will give it some time. Those of us who learned many lessons from the Vietnam War probably never expected to see U.S. troops involved in an unwinable war again. Too bad those lessons were altered and ultimately trashed. When Dwight Eisenhower coined the term "Military-Industrial Complex" I wonder if he had any idea that a foreign invasion, an undeclared war, could be outsourced. I wonder if he had any inkling that the industrial part of the equation could so heavily involve the private sector?
As writer Chris Hedges has so eloquently stated, "war is a force that gives us meaning." I guess that's why these little international interventions have their defenders. Why they continue to think that all the sacrifices of life and limb really do have a direct connection to their personal freedom. All this while they go to Ikea and buy cheap rugs and home decorations made in Vietnam, our highly rated trading partner. Do they realize that the factories that employ the young workers are built over the bodies of so many of their countrymen that had those same beliefs. Do they see the relationship between their decreased quality of life and the billions spent monthly on this immoral adventure.
The ability to sell war along with $300. sneakers is truly remarkable.
Got to admit, tying Iraq to the shock an awe of the 9/11 attacks was a handy piece of work.
So, 4500 Americans die, 30,00 are wounded, how many more psychologically destroyed forever? How many thousand Iraqis? How many lives knew nothing else but this war. Nine years. What happens now? Well, what do we know? Where do we look to begin to conceive an answer? And...of course, when do we go "over there" again for some vague objective that makes a few very wealthy.
A final question: Who will write this history?

Holiday Card

2011-12-12T17:52:00.000-08:00

Found object...found art.

Sometimes the best "Christmas Cards" are right outside your front door. I've had my eye on this neighbor's display for a few days now, and when the sun came out today, I knew I had to grab the camera and get this photo.
My favorite things: the juxtaposition between two seemingly unrelated things. Here we have greed, love, forgiveness, intolerance, eternal war, heavenly peace.
I wonder how many people drive by this striking image everyday and simply just don't see it?

Yes Worries

2011-12-12T14:41:00.000-08:00

What follows is an updated/edited version of an older post. Two additions here: first of all, I did hear from my "friend" and ultimately from my older friend, her father. All is well there. What wasn't so well is that the original illustration shown here needed to be removed because of potential copyright infringement. My bad. It was a wonderful rendering of a rather intense, pensive individual. Looked good here but apparently not for public consumption. No worries mate, it's gone.

I really haven't heard it anywhere else. I'm sure people say "No Worries" in other parts of the country, but I never heard it when I lived in California. In Portland, I hear it every day. Yesterday, I heard a young man say the phrase three times in about a minute. I usually say "No Problem." But worries, for me are not problems. I'm a worrier.
Most of my worry time is either early in the morning when I awake, or at the end of the day, if I can't get to sleep in a reasonable amount of time.
So what's on my worry list these days? A few things. I worry, of course about the situation right now in Egypt. My sense of history tells me that we haven't seen much yet. Today the revolution will be televised. It's a heady thing to see thousands of people in the street. Some ideas cannot be stopped when their time has come. Ask Frederick Douglass, ask French, Chinese, Russian peasants, among others. Ask Nelson Mandela.
I worry about health care in this country. And I have coverage. I can't figure out why we can't take care of our own people. Same goes for education budgets. Lots to worry about there. I even worry about seemingly unimportant things. Case in point, an email I sent the other day to the daughter of a couple I knew about 25 years ago.
I was playing around on Facebook and actually found this young woman while searching for her parents. They divorced some years ago, and their daughter is now in her 20s and living on the East Coast. I only met her once. She was about a week old and in her mothers arms. I got a quick peek and then thee friends moved to the Southwest. I know her mom is still there, but I lost track of her father. He was a wonderful writer, and I see that his daughter has aspirations of following in that path as well. So I sent her a message at the risk of being taken for everything from an internet predator to an "unwelcome" friend. I simply wat to know if her father is alive and well, or if not, what and when? Haven't heard back. I'm worried.

It's All There

2011-12-09T15:43:00.000-08:00

This is the time of the year I look for an old cassette tape of "alternative" Christmas music. I made the tape one Christmas Eve from a listener sponsored radio station in the Bay Area about 30 years ago. It's a wonder that the tape still plays, but it does if you stretch it out a bit by fast forwarding it up and back a few times. A good metaphor for me right now!
This year, I decided to forego my search for the cassette and went straight to the net. The tape contains all kinds of Christmas blues, gospel, country, bluegrass, music and a few things that defy categorization. So far my internet search has enabled me to find much of what's on that lost tape. There are all the great Charles Brown holiday classics, Elvis Presley's version of Christmastime in the City (pretty baby) Bill Monroe's Christmastime's a Comin' and wonderful spirituals by the Blind Boys of Alabama and Clara Ward. I found some Conjunto music with Flaco Jiminez and Freddie Fender as well. MyI top 10 alternative holiday music countdown can be found on my Facebook page if anyone wants to give a listen.
It still amazes me how easy it is to locate music, film and video on the internet. Time was when most folks, especially teachers, spent hours trying to find material for their classes. Used to be that you'd have to track down video material at libraries, through catalogs, word of mouth, or actually doing the legwork. If you wanted something rare or out of the ordinary, you paid. Being a fan of pop culture, I used to rent, buy or borrow short films, advertising clips, records, tapes, or other recordings to bring in the likes of blues artists, the voices of poets, films that were either labeled or thought to be dicey for use in high school classroom. So easy now. What used to be just another annoying ad is now a historical document:

Like everyone, I enjoy the technology. The beginning teachers I work with aren't particularly fond of my stories of how easy they have it when it comes to accessing supplementary material. I just hope they realize how difficult it is to type up a short story yo want to use, or how long it took to track down that out of print film clip, or an old TV ad that would really make the point you were driving at so vigorously.
Seems like not too long ago I marveled at having a recording of Woody Guthrie's "Jesus Christ" Today, when I looked on You Tube, I found three, not to mention a few cover versions.
I'd like to think that with all this exposure to previously difficult to find material we, as a culture, are going up the learning curve. Care to comment?

33 Percent

2011-12-03T20:56:00.000-08:00

In this difficult time, I'm constantly looking for things to feel better about, or at least feel some optimism. I'm a firm believer that when things look the most bleak, you've got to dig down a bit further. You know: if you fall off the horse, get back up right away. It's too easy to lose perspective on your own situation when it doesn't take too much to realize that many other folks have it a lot worse than you do.
I worry that so many of my former students must have placed their dreams and hopes on hold. Every now and then I see another college graduate, with increasing debt, and a new job at a temp agency. If I were in the classroom full time these days, I wonder just how difficult it would be to motivate kids given that the goal of a college education, and it's benefits, just might look a little hollow right now. And then this: From a recent Harper's Index comes this little statistic:
• Chance that an American who earned a bachelor's degree in 2008 will be paying off student loans in 2028: 1 in 3
I started thinking about my own history of student loans. After all, I paid for my entire college education myself. Through a couple of part time jobs I financed my undergraduate years. Of course, even as a commuter student at UCLA, the price of gas was a fraction of what it is today. But then minimum wage was under $2.00. I think I made about $2.25 at best in those days. Tuition at the UC system was unbelievingly low compared to today's figures.
When I secured a couple of loans and grants so that I could attend graduate school at UC Berkeley, I was motivated by the promise that if I secured a teaching position, especially in an under-resourced district with a diverse student population, that much of my debt would be deferred. That never happened because the government changed it's mind. The notion of a "National Defense" student loan morphed into a monthly payment and it took me about 5 years to repay it given I was making about 10k a year back then. What a bargain compared to today's costs.

If education becomes too costly for 1 in 3, just imagine how costly it becomes without it. Are we a nation that can't seem to meet the needs of our people without weighing whether or not we can afford it? Afraid so.
No, I won't vent here. I'm too lost in thinking how fortunate I've been. As a first generation college graduate in my working class family, I'm actually happy I bought the picture. I swallowed that star-spangled dream that promised a better life. For me it worked, to a degree. Retired teachers are hardly the epitome of the landed gentry. But with very few teaching jobs, even fewer factory or technology jobs calling the U.S. home, what's that leave? Service industry?
This morning I chanced to look at some children's books in a bookstore. Fresh from monitoring an online discussion on the Teacher's Learning Network about those Little Golden Books we all had as beginning readers, I marveled at how some are still in print. There are a few with copyright dates in the late 1940s and early 50s. Of course there are newer ones, but some of those like The Night Before Christmas still exist in their original form. Then I found one called Daddies.

Yes it was sexist, with all the jobs that men do. Kids were getting the message that only men were doctors or worked in factories, or were cops. You get the picture. The original drawings were just as colorful and charming as I recall. Those Little Golden Books are real treasures. Then it hit me. Most of those jobs that those daddies went off to don't exist anymore. Some do, but many were exported. That little book takes on new meaning. It's now a historical document. The way it was.

Silent Fall

2011-11-27T12:39:00.000-08:00

For days the leaves have been falling. They soon become ground into a wet mulch that makes it's way into the house, the car, the soles of our shoes. They lie in a soupy mix like saturated corn flakes in an enormous bowl that nobody eats or even cleans up. Until today. The first of the city mandated leaf clean-ups happened this morning. When I see my neighbors park their cars and trucks on their front lawns then I know the time has come. Since we don't pay for this needed service, and our landlords are away, we got no forewarning this time. No matter. By 9:00 this morning most of the leaves were gone...momentarily. Must have slept through the tractors with the big cages on them, the small but highly maneuverable street cleaners and the water trucks. And all the while, the leaves keep falling. By tonight it'll be hard to tell the first batch was removed. It's raining now...cornflakes for everyone.
My observations on leaves have much to do with the fact that I live on a street with gigantic, ancient Dutch Elm trees. These trees define the seasons, decorate the neighborhood in every way imaginable, provide shade in the warmer months of summer, and actually keep rain off whatever resides under them. They support an elaborate culture of squirrels and crows, make wonderful silhouettes on moonlit nights, and are responsible for flurries of leaves, pollen, and small branches that rival any dust storm. They exude their aesthetic while snow-covered, dripping wet, or barren. They can be green, yellow white or

brown. Aside from their eco-biological function of being the lungs of the neighborhood, they get people talking. A day never passes when someone walks up the street and comments on some phase of these elm tree's lives.
Still they are fragile. Once a year they require inoculations to prevent disease. For the most part, they outlive us all.

TGI (your choice)

2011-11-22T14:10:00.000-08:00

This week, amid all the Thank Yous infusing everyone's thoughts and requests, saw a couple of mind numbing events. First, the overkill with the event known as "Black Friday." You'd think by the sound that this national day of consumerism was similar to the Black Monday that brought down the stock market some 80 plus years ago. But no. It's the orgy of conspicuous consumption that officially kicks off the holiday shopping season. It's the day after Thanksgiving. It's the worst in this culture all in a day.
Imagine the mindset that waits in a tent in the parking lot or sidewalk in front of some big box store that features a midnight start time to get a few bucks off something that was marked up 50% to begin with. Do these people have no life? Yup. But wait. There is now evidence that the prices on the same merchandise will actually be better as the big day nears on the 25th of December.
Would some folks trample over people to buy an electronic device that will be outdated before the season next year? Yup. Are they that ignorant? Yup. The great P.T. Barnum, master of illusion said himself, "Nobody ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American people." Maybe it's a sport? Maybe they really enjoy tearing apart all manner of consumer goods from the backstreets and by-ways of China, Vietnam, Indonesia, Bangladesh, India, and Thailand. Maybe they really feel good about themselves after eschewing sleep, nutrition, empathy, and fresh breath, to partake in a mass hog feed.
Who knows? The only thing worse than imagining this annual event is enduring the commercials for it. This year they went whole hog and even incorporated the insipid "It's Friday" song. Can I say something nice about this phenomena? Yes I can. To see "Black Friday" is to see this culture at it's very worst.
Which reminds me...New Gingrich is at it again. This time he's offered up the idea that American Public School kids should replace the janitors at their schools. He's for real, honestly. It's a budget cutting brainstorm, but it also insures that we have enough menial workers for the next century. He thinks the child labor laws need revision too. Could he be that disconnected? Fraid so. It certainly gives me pause. How about you? Is he that evil...that uninformed...that insensitive?

Let's see what happens when we try to give him the benefit of the doubt. Well, for one, some Japanese schools end the day with the student body cleaning up. Sounds pleasant doesn't it? And, it has the added benefit of instilling pride in their environment. I can get my head around that. But, unfortunately, that's not what he's saying. He's also suggesting that the #Occupy participants get a job and a haircut. Does he know how many have college degrees and no prospects? Is he that out of the loop. I'd like to know, but what will it take for someone to ask him directly? Aye, there's the rub, not with screened questions and pseudo debates on the Faux network. Maybe somebody will penetrate the illusion before he asks kids to shine his shoes too. You know, given it's the 19th century, Horatio Alger, kind of self-employed, up by your boot straps kind of thing, it's not all that far-fetched.

Stealing Life

2011-11-17T13:47:00.000-08:00

In Per Petterson's sparse yet stunning novel, Out Stealing Horses, the 67 year old protagonist has a conversation with his daughter in one of the final scenes. He's gone to live in the Norwegian woods, near the Swedish border and is at first incredulous that his grown child has even found him. To be sure, he welcomes the visit, but the reader can't help wondering if he's disappointed that he's realized it's really impossible to escape. It may not even be desirable, he's coming to realize. Still he's not disappointed, and savors his isolation as a chance to reflect on his life and life's work.
In a reflective moment the daughter says, "You were always reading Dickins at home...I remember you in your chair with a book, miles away...at first you didn't recognize me and then you replied "Dickins," with a serious look, and I thought that reading Dickins was not the same as reading other books. I thought it was a special kind of book that only we possessed." She then tells her father that she recalls him reading aloud to her on occasion. Asking if he still has a copy of David Copperfield, the daughter quotes the opening from memory:
"Whether I shall turn out to be the hero of my own life, or whether that station will be held by anybody else, these pages must show."
The daughter concludes by urging her father to read those pages again and adds, "I always thought those opening lines were a bit scary because they indicated we would not necessarily be the leading characters of our own lives...a sort of ghost-life where I could do nothing but watch that person who had taken my place and maybe hate her deeply and envy her everything, but not be able to do anything about it because at some point I had fallen out of my life, as if from an aeroplane...and could not get back to it, and someone else was sitting fastened into my seat, although that place was mine and I had the ticket in my hand."
Aside from this profound conversation, the novel offers many more stop and think moments. But this one referenced here seems particularly applicable to life today. This notion of turning out to be the hero of one's life or of forfeiting that to someone else applies to many issues and critical junctures we all face. The writer Baharati Mukhergee once suggested that we murder past selves and create new new ones in the images of dreams. I think it's true even though murder is a strong word. Because if we aren't sure those former incarnations of our self are gone, they are sure to return. So who is the hero of your life? And what are the characteristics of a hero? In our tabloid culture we confuse heroes with celebrities for the most part. But aren't we confronted with our own heroism constantly? Not just making the right choice or the moral decision; I'm coming to believe there is a component that involves coming to terms with our faults and failings as well.
Most biographies have some sort of subtitle that includes the words "a life." A life in politics, or as in Joe Klein's biography, Woody Guthrie: A life. When that book first came out, Woody's old friend Bob Dewitt told me it should be called Woody Guthrie: What a life!
As I move through this world and my years add up, I rather hope my story will have a label similar to the one Les Blank chose for his documentary of bluesman Mance Lipscomb. A Life Well Spent.

For a Living

2011-11-12T14:47:00.000-08:00

We can't save everyone. But we try. A teacher, a real teacher will never stop trying until...until...we're out of the picture. Even then, some students never leave us alone. Like that kid in your neighborhood, the one you catch yourself wondering about from time to time, it's fascinating to speculate how someone turned out.
If it's any consolation, that turning out takes a lifetime for most. Others, however, make their presence felt through a newspaper, an obituary, a rumor, and even a Facebook page. Such was the case when I chanced to see a picture of Allen Woodard recently. My first reaction was he's alive, I think. Allen lived for the military. Specifically the U.S. Marines. Probably because there was no father in his life, and his mom was a teacher's aid at my old school, I came to take an interest in Allen. He liked to talk about world politics and when the U.S. got involved in Iraq and Afghanistan, he couldn't wait to get over there.
His mom was troubled by Allen's eagerness to taste combat. Like most everyone in his life, she too hoped his military career wouldn't be cut short by a roadside bomb and a military funeral at 19. That didn't happen. That's the good news. The only good news. It's one thing to wear a full dress Marine uniform at age 10 and quite another to act out the fantasies of one obsessed with war. Allen is now home and living in the Southwest. His Facebook page, which I ambled upon when his picture and name appeared in the margin with the number of friends we have in common, reveals how he turned out. I'm happy he is gainfully employed. As a bouncer for a bar, he can live his life of authority and rules, keeping his community safe from violent types. I'm sure he gets all the free beer he can handle and still perform his duties. What stands out on this page is Allen's description of what he does (or did)for a living. He's unabashedly not afraid to say that his life skill is killing people...for the good ol' USA. It really says that. I shit you not.
I always wondered if he had a conscience. Still do. I had hoped we could have done more for Allen. But deep inside I realize he was long gone before he came through my classroom door. Still, I secretly hope there is still time for his mind to grow a bit. I noticed another thing too. Many of the kids in his graduating class keep in touch through Facebook. When I get a friend request from one and click on the OK link, I notice that they usually average from 25-50 former high school classmates. Allen's high school friends number less that ten. But what a ten. Within that number are some of the most talented, thoughtful, empathetic, intelligent kids in the class. Maybe they thought like I thought? Maybe it's not too late? Maybe it never is. Maybe?

Worst Case?

2011-11-11T11:45:00.000-08:00

The writing prompt said Worst Case Scenario. That's all, just three little words. Some went to work immediately, others leaned back, leaned forward, squirmed, dug deep into the wells of their lives to retrieve the fully repressed or fully fantasized. No me.
The thought came quickly. "What if" was the lead line. The substance was being perceived by others. Wouldn't it be horrible if people ...the people in your life to be exact, all shared a perception of you and your personality that was far...very far from what you thought. In short, what if people did not think of you in the way you thought they did?
Writer James Baldwin once said, "If I am not who you think I am, then you are not who you think you are." That's what I'm talkin' about. Not being who you think you are. Worst case scenario.
I suppose it could be a tremendous opportunity. After all, how many times do we get to adjust our personalities. How much insight do we really get from those in our lives who define our identity? Our significant others, be they husbands, wives, partners, companions know much more about our authentic selves than most. No worst case there. But the notion that people we count on, people we share important parts of our lives with may be simply tolerating us without our knowledge is an earthquake.
So I created a character that essentially looked like what Carl Jung called our "shadow" side. This dark side is much more than an Id unbound. It's, as Jung himself said, "the less commendable part of our personality. It's all our quirks, neuroses, evil impulses, un-evolved, crap that we carry around and display from time to time.
Think about what that looks like. For me, it's the name dropper, the gossip, the guy that interrupts. It's the guy that spews anger while driving because someone displayed human error. It's every time I told myself I wasn't going to react in an emotional way and violated that pledge instantly when someone or something touched a nerve.
Seems to me that this kind of worst case scenario is much more difficult to overcome than a flat tire or an unexpected car repair. It's more devastating than some kinds of loss (a job, mediocre friend, an appetite) After all, it's you not knowing yourself or how others see you.

Who was that...

2011-11-04T16:29:00.000-07:00

When the photograph of two people holding a sign that read, "Occupy Tundra," first appeared, I wondered how many small towns were participating in the groundswell #Occupy movement. There must be some rather non-urban settings. My sister, who lives in Bozeman, Mt. made me aware of camps currently in Missoula, Helena, as well as Bozeman. Gotta love those college towns. (two out of three in Montana.)
While they are nothing like the tent cities in Oakland or on Wall Street, they do contain the same amount of disaffected, disappointed people from retirees to veterans, to unemployed college graduates, to laid off factory workers. They have kids, and wet conditions this time of year, and less than adequate food, and all manner of hangers on. The media has a field day with the sub-stories. Recently, in Portland, the coverage centered on a rat in the food tent and a syringe found on the ground. Finally, an elder covering the story for an alternative radio station pointed out that some of those high end restaurants no so far from those demonstrators also have a few unwanted diners. She added that the syringe could also have been left by a diabetic. I know, not likely, but you get the point.
What's most troubling is the splinter groups, and their composition. Unfortunately there are people who are more interested in provoking violence than in participating in a populist movement. If we learned anything in the 60s, it was that along with their physical beings, people bring their personal psychology to demonstrations and marches. Coupled with the fact that the occupy camps are magnets for the homeless, the dispossessed, the mentally ill, and the addicted, there was bound to be some difficulty maintaining consistency, safety, and sometimes morality.
On that first day when Occupy Portland was born, the Guy Fawkes masks appeared. Then the black bandanas. Anarchists? Maybe just admirers of the popular V is for Vendetta graphic novel set in a dystopian world where the overthrow of the oppressive regime is heroic. But are many of these masked marchers after heroics? Are they seduced by dystopian dreams? My guess is that under the guise of political change, they seek the excitement. They are young and eager to confront. Yet, there are young and younger in the crowd that know how violence plays into the hands of authority. It gives them license to use tear gas, clubs, handcuffs. They will protect property before human life in many instances. Certainly the media adore blood.
To my mind, masks serve only one purpose.

Metro Morphing

2011-10-29T12:11:00.000-07:00

I love living in a place where I can see the seasons change. This is that time of year when some of the trees in my neighborhood celebrate Halloween by imitating fire. That they are ablaze is an understatement. The reds, oranges, and yellows are day-glow.
But there are other transitions too. They don't come at predictable times of year. They move slowly, even slower than many people might imagine, but they too are everlasting. One such change is the gradual disappearance of the newspaper.
We know this is happening, but the form it actually takes is just beginning to take shape. Every morning when I buy my hometown paper I'm aware that the little yellow metal box is soon to disappear. Hell, the paper is literally disappearing. It's often embarrassingly thin. And that's with all the ads still in tact. But there is a notion that maybe the daily newspaper could survive with a different function. One NY Times editor recently made the observation that the American newspaper is taking the place of the magazine because it now serves to review the news we already know. It becomes a summary of the information we've received from instantly following issues on the Internet.
Either way, the ways and places we receive our information about the world are changing. And with all change, the situation is unavoidable so the way we handle it or not is increasingly important. I've decided to savor the physical product called a newspaper. I do this by seeing how long it can be purchased on the street. That is, I don't subscribe any more, I buy it from the box. One day someone will explain to a curious child what those were. Perhaps a colorful contraption will show up at an estate sale one day and go from there to "The Roadshow."
I look at some of the newspaper department that now seem an anachronism. Who sells anything in a newspaper these days? Why? I read the comics, look at the weather, scan the letters to the editor, and of course, work my way through the sports section. You know, it is often all a review of things I already know. If the paper helps me know them more accurately, then it's done it's job.
And then there is the crossword and the Jumble. Good brain exercises. It's become ritual for me now. When there is a crossword sitting around unmarked, it's enough to turn off the computer. Most days I live dangerously, I do them in ink. My finished puzzles (occasionally I fill in all the boxes without asking for help) are enough to light me up like those trees outside right now.

Vacant Lot

2011-10-23T11:05:00.000-07:00

It was one of those moments when you just don't think. You react. For me, it's complicated by the teacher in me. We write and talk about social justice all the time but when it comes to actually doing something there is often no time to think.
I have a distant relative in my family that often spouts some racist notion. Everybody hears but nobody reacts. If it happens again, I've thought about what to say in such a way as to make a point without losing my cool. We'll see. I tend to go off around ignorance. That's when the teacher in me saves myself. I flip into the default personality that tries to make such an awkward situation a teachable moment knowing full well that my own demeanor and emotional state will make a huge difference. Out in the real world of grocery store parking lots, there if hardly enough time. So it was yesterday when a loud car horn blast shook me from my Saturday morning serenity and I noticed one of those Seinfeld moments. Some guy and his girlfriend were frustrated by a stopped car in front of them and blasted a warning before abruptly pulling out and around the source of their frustration. Trouble is, that stopped car was serenely waiting for a parking place which the impatient driver then took for his own. That flagrant behavior really pisses me off. Anybody can make that mistake and not be aware of their surroundings. People pushing baby strollers emerge from parked cars and into crosswalks in front of me all the time. It's one of those damned if you do /don't moments. The meaning of life, don't you know. But that's not the point. The point is I said something. "Hey, didn't you see that guy was waiting for that parking place?"
It's really a bullying situation, isn't it? We've all been on that end of things whether we intended to or not. As expected, Katie, my wife, asked me to keep quiet. I can't. Some semi-id like characteristic emerges in me and I want to push back. I'm prepared for any consequences. I know people carry guns, the engage in road rage crimes all the time. Often I do refrain, letting my sense of common sense take over. But sometimes...most times...I just react. And I proud of it. I'd like to think that the guy driving that car yesterday took a moment and in his head said something like, I really did fuck up, I didn't mean to not notice what was really going on. The smile that emerged on my lips was one of nervous face-saving because my girlfriend was with me. And anyway, some people are just too slow. It's no big deal. But next time I'll see if there is a reason someone in front of me seems like they are just sitting in the middle of a crowded parking lot.

Take It

2011-10-17T13:32:00.000-07:00

Sometimes, when it seems as if everything is too complicated to understand, or as one of my favorite baristas likes to say, "too many moving parts," it's best to go back to the basics. We see this all the time in music. So many musicians tire of the pace the amplification of sound, the artificial inauthenticity of it all and go back to the blues. Deep roots. So it is with this fickle economy of ours right now. In fact thee is much to compare with today's malaise and the big one of the 1930s.

Another little chunk of knowledge to remember is to see what some of the finest minds, at least who you consider to be the finest minds, have to say on the matter. I reached back for Woody Guthrie today because a little quote trapped in my brain would not leave me alone. Seems as if Woody had a lot to say about Wall Street. No doubt in my mind where he's be were he alive and well today. In fact Woody not only wrote songs with Wall St. in mind, he also drew some cartoons and said a fair amount on the subject. There is a wonderful little collection of his wit and wisdom called Woody Sez. Long out of print, it continues to amaze because Woody's words are so timely. Try on this little gem:
"What Wall Street is a lookin fer is a humen being to put out in front--to front for em--the reason for this is cause you caint hardly find none on Wall St. I mean no humens. When youre mind gits to where it rangs like a cash register ever time you think , why you wood make a good hand on Wall St., but you woodent make a good enything else."
Now don't have a cow, Woody knew how to spell, but he often wrote his newspaper columns with the kind of colorful spelling that reflected just how his people, the dust bowl migrants from Oklahoma, Arkansas, Texas..., spoke. That left no doubt he was not only for the people but of the people.
Woody's writings and ramblings are full of these rather eerie predictions about things that have been repeated. We all know what happens to those who ignore history, and it continues to keep happening doesn't it. Woody was fond of saying, "Let me be known as the man who told you something you already know." Fair enough. Trouble is, so many of us don't even know our own history.

If Woody were here today, and in many ways he's occupying a city near you in spirit, he'd be able to reduce his message in no uncertain terms. Six words that say it all would surely come out of his hard'travelin' little mouth: "Take it easy, but take it."

Power Panel?

2011-10-11T19:23:00.000-07:00

Sometimes I watch the news in the morning. Often,the Today show will come on and while I'm working on something else or answering emails or paying bills, I'll have one ear on the content. It's fairly easy to do because they repeat their stories every year. All the recurrent themes about diet and relationships, child rearing, and of curse how to cook chicken and pasta, and the latest vegetarian discovery. But today, I chanced to catch a new feature. I think it's called Today's Professionals. The concept is a power panel, but essentially Matt Lauer sits down with three "professionals" and asks their opinion about a few of the current news stories.
So here's Matt with the resident doctor Nancy Snyderman, the resident lawyer, Starr Jones, and businessman Donny Deutsch. The doc is OK with me but not so sure I care what the others think. First Matt asks them about the pregnant woman who gave birth after running the Chicago marathon. They kick that one around for a few minutes, disagreeing about whether or not that was a wise thing to do. The women think so, Mr Deutsch says it's not common sense. Then Lauer reveals the results of a recent survey. "Americans were asked, would you rather your children have good grades or good manners?" He soon says that 75% of those surveyed said good manners are more important. All four on the set seem surprised but then settle down to discussing the merits of manners and grades. Only Ms. Jones goes for the grades. "I know my child will get good manners from me so that's why I say grades. Dr. Sniderman says that manners open more doors than grades. Mr. Deutsch agrees that manners are more important. But what follows is really fascinating. The proceed to discuss the issue equating grades with intelligence. At no point does anyone question the concept of grades as they apply to learning, much less intellect. Nobody questions the validity of IQ or the fact that grades are both highly subjective and often inaccurate representations of knowledge.
Surprising? No. Unfortunately, it's to be expected. Just another example of how people who purport to know what they are talking about know very little. I could write a letter, make a phone call, push harder, but it'd be to no avail. Tomorrow, Today will be just like all the yesterdays. New recipes, what men/women really want, what should I do about my 401k, a promo for a new NBC program...All this from the folks that once again bring you Education Nation...in orchestrated sound bytes.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Portland Occupied

2011-10-07T12:12:00.000-07:00

Easily 5,000. The local media said between 3 and 4,000. Probably closer to 6,000 occupied Portland. In synch with the burgeoning movement that started on Wall Street, my town put it’s name next to those other cities where people want to express their frustration and anger with the current political malaise. Katie and I decided we needed to go there, so on a gloomy Thursday afternoon, we boarded the nearest bus and headed for Waterfront Park. Best not to drive anywhere near political demonstrations. My 60s experience always kicks in and I focus on what shoes to wear, having enough pockets, and something to write with. Too bad I forgot my camera. At least a couple of friends of mine didn’t and I can use their pictures as well as those of the Oregonian newspaper.
For me it was all about the signs they carried. Those said it all. That and the cross section of people represented. It was billed as the other 99%, and if the diversity of the Portland crowd is any indication, it surely was.
So, in the spirit of Bob Dylan "Hard Rain's Gonna Fall, here's a teaspoon of what I saw,heard, and felt my blue and brown eyed darlin' young ones:
I saw 5000 people carrying signs* and calling and responding
I saw people of all ages who felt it was important to stop their daily routine and put their bodies in the street to make a statement together
I saw hundreds looking down on all this from office high rises and hotels
I saw an older man in a suit carrying a triangular folded American flag (as inoff a coffin)
I saw more dogs and children than I've ever seen at any political demonstration
I heard "The Times are Changin'" on a boom box
I heard the monitors and organizers stress non-violence in any encounter with others
I heard the local media keep referring to this 99% as "protesters."
I smelled all manner of smoke, from herbal cigarettes, to tobacco to weed, to sewers, to expensive perfume, to rain.
I felt my youth return in the faces of the 20 sometings present.
I felt proud of Portland that, for the most part, people get that they need to do something without alienating others.
BUT...The best way to experience all this is to take a look at the signs people carried.* Here is a random sampling from my eyes to yours:
"Never be deceived the rich will allow you to vote away their wealth"
Lucy Parsons
The only way to practice democracy is to practice democracy
Care aobut our future not Snookie's new shoes
We are the ones we've been waiting for
It's easier to get a gun than buy my education
I need a job; fuck your bonus
The police are part of the 99%
If I stole 50% of your 401k, I'd be in jail
I"m wait listed for Chemo thanks to Wall Street
Will work for democracy
Thee were hundreds of others.

Down Cold

2011-10-04T17:27:00.000-07:00

"They don't know what they don't know." That's a line we often use in education. It can apply to teachers working with students, but more often it works best when considering teachers. Many of the beginning teachers I work with often think they have to continually reinvent the wheel. Of course, they don't. In mentoring or coaching someone else, it's important to listen more than talking to or at someone. But sometimes the notion to "drop knowledge" is just too tempting. Time and experience can inform what we don't know best.
Ignorance is not an excuse, nor is it something to be overly critical about if a person simply does not know something. This morning, while making my way up one of Portland's narrow neighborhood streets, a car appeared in front of me rather suddenly. The driver, a young woman, appeared frustrated. I raised my index finger (none other) backed up and over to the side, and then motioned her forward. This happens often in my town. Usually the other driver will wave or smile, or somehow acknowledge that they are grateful for the effort. Today nothing. Some people don't know common courtesy, some could care less, some don't know what they don't know.
In that same vein, I watched a couple of sports broadcasters on a local call in program trying to discuss the recent incident where Hank Williams Jr. compared President Obama to Hitler when remarking on the recent golf game the President played with the Speaker of the House. These two novice broadcasters couldn't seem to figure out what all the fuss was about. "Who cares what he thinks," they said. "Why are people talking about this?" Apparently they don't know that this particular entertainer has an iconic father. That alone gives him an audience even when he wraps his arrogance around his ignorance. Most disturbing is Williams Jr.'s follow-up remark that "Obama is the enemy." As Waylon Jennings once sang, "I don't think Hank done it that way." Click this link for details:
Hank Williams Jr. cites tea party in defense of 'Hitler' comments

Yes, I'm aware that I have given Hank Williams Sr. the benefit of the doubt here. But that was then, his red, white, and blue tinted son, the icon of Monday Night Football because of his theme song, this All-American performer is apparently fighting his own private war right here at home. Isn't that treason? No, not really just immensely simplistic thinking.
Even the seemingly most patriotic don't know what they don't know. Enough said. THis one is a no-brainer in more ways than one.
Post Script: The last NFL game I watched featured a comment by the announcer detailing how many millions of dollars each lineman on one particular NFL team were now making. To my way of thinking this is as much a statement about the values of this culture as anything else. That the real obscenity, isn't it? In this era where 1% of the population as most of the wealth, in this week where more and more people are supporting the "Occupy Wall Street" movement that won't go away, in this current age, where the American Dream has gone beyond nightmare into the realm of non-existant and dare I say irrelevant, our political parties are referred to as "the enemy." Are you ready for some football, or maybe something better? Like Hank the original once wondered, how can I "melt your cold, cold, heart.

The Best Medicine

2011-09-28T13:21:00.000-07:00

I have no doubt in my mind that I could make it as a stand-up comedian. In fact, there is ample proof. In my 30 year teaching career, many's the time I did a routine or two. You get a lot of practices with 5 audiences a day. Timing can easily be fine tuned. Bad jokes eliminated (though I rarely did that) and new material is constantly falling all around. Anybody who can't find humor in a public high school isn't breathing.
More proof that I could survive as a comedian comes from the couple of years I had one for a roommate. I met many others in the burgeoning Bay Area comedy scene of the early 80s and often socialized with them. It was a heady time. To say they are "always on" is an understatement. This is the class that produced a few Sat. Night Life alum and one or two of the comics I knew went to work for one of their number who really made it big...Ellen Degeneres. Success for a comic is to go the way of Ellen or Seinfeld or Larry David.
From all my comedy club experience...mostly observation, I noticed that a good routine often centers around complaining about something. Not the whiney bitching that German culture is famous for, but the complaining that can be righteously funny. The observation of irony in every day life. With this in mind, I'd like to offer my short list of complaints.
As Andy Rooney would say..."Did you ever notice how..."

1. People now pay for a cup of coffee with a credit card. What happened to cash? Even just a few dollars. By the time all the buttons are pushed and receipts signed it really slows things down in the morning line. I wish people would carry cash with them once in a while and think about how ridiculous it looks charging a cup of coffee, not to mention generating more paper and leaving the corporate conglomerates a handy paper trail of all your purchasing choices so they cam pile on the spam and enrich their dossiers of your buying potential.
2. Movie theater prices for everything are completely out of control. Who, in their right mind, would pay $5.00 for the same bottle of water that the overpriced coffee shops sell for $2.00 and Costco sells for .50 cents. Are they encouraging us to bring in our own beverages?
3. What's with all the sonic noises and the TV ads before the previews too? I actually know of situations where people went to a movie on time but by the time all the ads, previews, more ads, and more previews were over, they forgot what they came to see. How long till someone gets PTSD just sitting there exposed to that sound barrage. Pathetic.
3. Corporate take-overs of coffee shops, like Peet's (still my favorite because of the people that work there) have polluted the experience mightily. They play only one kind of music. They think it's classical but it's really the perfect soundtrack for a beginning minuet class. If you want low-fat or 2% milk now, you have to ask for it.
No, western civilization is not threatened by these simple annoyances. We will al survive. But it does suggest the possibility that either no body is listening or nobody cares. Take your pick. By the way, I gotta go. My limited internet access time is about to run out and I need to hit a parking meter, which now costs ....oh who cares?

Ancient Perceptions

2011-09-25T11:51:00.000-07:00

An educational research colleague of mine once referred to "ancient perceptions of the self." It's a particularly apt description of how learners in a classroom deal with all the emotional baggage of who to be as a student. I recall students asking me not to put them in a group with___ because "back in 2nd grade something happened..." We sometimes cling to outdated beliefs and unconsciously confirm their power and accuracy. Educators see this all the time. I saw it last week in a classroom when a student could not see a link between creativity and the study of anthropology. He truly believed that an anthropological perspective, the subject of the lesson, could only be expressed one way. This kind of resistance often takes root in an early experience that sustains the perception, "I am not creative."
That theme seemed to predominate a number of events this past week. Those images of how things are seem to peek over the edges of our thinking from time to time.
Case in point: A TV station in Portland ran a story juxtaposing two high schools and their opening weeks for the new school year. One, a predominately African-American school (The only one in the state) was mentioned because of shootings in the community and the resultant safety issues for the campus. The other school, mostly white and arguably the "best school in the district" was mentioned because of recent cuts affecting the academic program. I'm sure the former, named for Thomas Jefferson, has many fine academic programs worthy of mention that are also impacted by budget cuts. At the same time, the later, named for Abraham Lincoln, has security issues on it's downtown campus too. Perceptions get fed. Interesting too that the school named for Jefferson is perceived as black (Jefferson was a slave holder) and Lincoln ...well you know the rest.
Last night I finished a most remarkable book, Empire of the Summer Moon, the Pulitzer Prize nominated account of the rise and fall of the Comanches, by S.C. Gywne. The book also details the like of Quanah Parker, the last great chief who was half white. His mother was kidnapped during a raid and remained with the Comanches much of her adult life. When she was finally reunited with her family, after having children and living with the tribe for about 40 years, she regretted her decision to re-enter "civilization." There is a most remarkable scene near the end of the book where Quanah, forced to live on a reservation, but realizing it is that or death, is allowed to leave for a short time to go on a buffalo hunt. Trouble is, after a few days and traveling more miles that originally allowed to, there are no buffalo left. They end up shooting some cattle with bows/arrows, but it's hardly the same. Books like this detail the reality of Native American life and history. Talk about ancient perceptions. Much of what we see is what Indian historian Gerry Vizner from U C Berkeley calls "simulations." You know the feathers, drums, kind of imagery. The Comanche were and wore many things. They were as violent, peace-loving, skilled, spiritual as any culture. That old demon, the concept of owning land, along with disease, alcoholic beverages, and greed, did them in, just like all the rest.

Variant

2011-09-18T09:14:00.000-07:00

It's one of those small community spaces that's not sure what it wants to be. Like many in that vein, it's located in what is euphemistically termed a "transition" neighborhood. But last night, as I attended an event at the Variant Lab, in Portland, I was struck with a most stunning thought.
What if these places became increasingly significant in the years to come. What if, and it's not all that far-fetched, these spaces were the only ones available for people to experience live poetry, avant-guarde ideas, freedom of speech, in all its manifestations, and the opportunity to share artistic expression across generations. What if?
Maybe it was the fact that the polarization is this country seems to be reaching new heights. In a recent piece I heard on the radio, Speaker of the House John Boehner was asked about his relationship with President Barack Obama. "Sometimes it's like we live on different planets," he said. To which, I thought, sometimes?
I don't do a lot of science fiction, but in this case I'll make an exception. Should some of the current crop of politicians and their ilk claim the throne, it's not outside the realm of possibility that additional freedoms could be in jeopardy in the name of national security. Given how widely some of these folks read, their capacity for empathy, (see recent comments on healthcare and capital punishment) their undercurrent of racism, mean-spirited tactics and inability to understand historical perspective...we just might be headed for a rather dim future.
So here I was, sitting in the audience of this barely lit performance space. I'd read a few poems with 3 of my writing group colleagues after one of our number was invited to be part of the evening's program. Our set went well and we all stayed to support the other poets on the program. Like many events I attend around Portland, I'm usually one of the oldest people in the house. Funny, I still feel 19 on the inside. Last night, the room was predominately the 25-35 crowd who are budding creative artists. They usually smoke, have tats, wear anything they want, often in shades of black with colors that pop, and liberally sprinkle their writing with 4-letter words and erotic/pornographic imagery. I have no problem with most of that. But it occurred to me, the aging hipster that I am, that spaces like this could one day be underground bastions of sanity and expression. That metaphor could be literal too.

2011-09-15T19:42:00.001-07:00

Soaring Poverty Casts Spotlight on ‘Lost Decade’
By SABRINA TAVERNISE
Published: September 13, 2011 New York Times

The aforementioned article spells it all out. The Lost Decade is a good description for the reality most Americans face today. 1 in 6 of us now live officially in poverty. That's about 47 million people. Very close to the number with no health care. Lost...
What happened along the way. 40 years ago I became a VISTA Volunteer after reading Michael Harrington's book The Other America and seeing the CBS news documentary Hunger in America. Back then the median income was well below $10,000, today the poverty line is about $22,000. Do the math and see how a family of four can live on 22k in the U.S. today.
I particularly like the use of the term "Lost" because poverty largely remains invisible. People expect that because someone wears an expensive pair of shoes or has a fancy electronic device that they aren't poor. They often argue that 47 million Americans can't possibly live in poverty because of the epidemic of obesity in this country. They conveniently forget the relationship between junk food and the poor. The price of food vis a vis the quality of that food. Cast in point, I bought 3 beautiful peaches at my local farmer's market today for $5. Used to be the price of a bag full.
If poverty goes unnoticed, it is also a double edged sword. In my view, one of the reasons that this problems has worsened since my days as a "poverty warrior" in VISTA (that's the domestic Peace Corps for any younger readers...called Americorps today)is that there is another kind of poverty...a poverty of the will. Our Congress is gridlocked. Our sense of self as a nation is in question. We are constantly bombarded with messages to consume, with very little means to do so. No wonder poor people possess some of the trappings of our material culture...how could they not?
So what am I saying? That the U.S. is no longer a great country? You tell me.
Here's a little game we can play. In the next year, we'll be subjected to numerous political discussions and debates. We'll hear the candidates of all perspectives continually refer to the U.S. as the "greatest nation" of the face of the globe. As my grandfather would say, "You can set your watch on that." But who will question that? Who will take exception to this perception? Can a country with millions of people in poverty and a gap in wealth wider than ever be the greatest? For that matter, why must one nation be better? Therein lies the problem.

We are waiting for the next duel leader. A later-day FDR, if you will. Someone who can be a nurturing father figure, a strong mother. Studs Terkel in his wonderful oral history Working concluded that "your work is your identity." If our nation isn't working, who are we?

Re-Member

2011-09-12T18:38:00.000-07:00

9/12. We have reached beyond the 10th anniversary of the 9/11 tragedy. Millions of words written, hundreds of songs. Thousands of poems, a myriad of art forms, presentations, interpretations, explanations, and exultations.
For me, what remains is Paul Simon's haunting rendition of Sounds of Silence. I read somewhere he was going to do Bridge Over Troubled Water, but changed it at the last minute. I get that.
My hope is that as a country, we have learned to ask the tough questions, the over-arching ones. Hardly seems like this nation is a united one at all. One look at the current political debates or the achievement of Congress tells that tale. So many non-parallel lives and belief systems under the 13 stripes and 50 stars these days.
New York's Mayor Bloomberg has requested that the term Ground Zero no longer be used. I get that too. It's become a memorial now. people etch names and leave all manner of things on, near, attached to, or on top of the inscribed name. So reminiscent of the Vietnam Memorial. But when you have 58,000 names instead of 3,000, they are a bit smaller in size. But size means nothing here.
My hope is that we won't need to build any more memorials. That remains to be seen. Remains for those who come after to find answers to those tough questions.
Yes, it's true that we are not the same nation now. We have lost much. From civil liberties to a sense of safety. We've lost time, our economy, our identity as a nation, and in some ways, our way.

I remember one of my favorite Jr. High teachers, Mr. Macaluso, drawing a graph on the chalk board and asking us if we thought the U.S.A. was still rising on it's way up, or if the country had peaked, or if we might be on the downward spiral. I remember, too, never thinking anything but upward. This gave me pause. Probably not too long because there were other things at age 14. There were school dances, and my changing body. There were things like older friends getting driver's licenses and homework and baseball and something beginning to make an appearance on the clear blue horizon...something that came to be known as the Civil Rights Movement. But I never forgot that chart. Could it be that the direction of my country (tis of thee I sing) my sweet land of liberty, was on a plateau. Certainly the next 10 years provided ample evidence. Some in the form of memorials.

Helping Hand

2011-09-07T12:33:00.000-07:00

"...expressing anger rarely solves anything. It makes us feel powerful but draws a line between people subtly reinforcing one's own "correctness" at the expense of others. We often possess the same noxious qualities (expressed differently) as we target in others."

This quote came from Peter Coyote in a recent Sun Magazine response he made to a letter critical of something he said in a featured interview. It's problematic. It begs the question, aren't some things correct?
What if someone expressed anger about being held in slavery? What about anger over being victimized? Or getting in touch and finally expressing anger over being scammed, or dismissed with condescension? Are we that sensitive to the word correct that we can't allow the expression of anger?
I know that anger is not an end in itself, but I think it's a step toward mental health if handled appropriately and without vengeance. Yes, I agree with Mr. Coyote that we do tend to project our emotions onto others. But there are times we don't. Can you imagine saying that any one enslaved, either literally or figuratively, is projecting their anger onto their oppressor. The noxious quality is not a two way street here.
There's been a bit of anger expressed lately over two offerings in the world of entertainment. The latest revival of Porgy and Bess and the film version of The Help have polarized many viewers and critics. Both productions are taking flak for stereotyped African-American characters. Not surprisingly, people of all backgrounds and ethnicities are split in their views. Since both are works of fiction, some would say this is a non-issue. I've recently read the novel version of The Help, and last weekend did see the film, so I'll confine my remarks to that work. Interestingly enough, there are many similarities that aptly apply to Porgy and Bess.

Yes, there are stereotypes. If you have a black character that passionately likes fried chicken, or looks like a "mammy" or is named Leroy and batters his wife, people will notice. No matter that every stereotype possesses a kernel of truth somewhere. It's still problematic, and worth noting. But The Help goes a bit further than that, weaving fact into the fictionalized world of it's players. For example, it briefly deals with the violent, untimely death of Medgar Evers. The domestic workers, whose experiences contribute to the oral history that ultimately gets published, never once talk about public accommodations, segregated schools, or voting rights. Nevertheless, it's a touching story that does detail the complicated interplay of race relations in the South at the dawn of the Civil Rights movement. Every film dealing with a historical era says equally as much as the era in which it was made. You can sometimes see this literally in the dress and dialogue of 50s films about the Greek or Roman empires. You can find it in some of the classic Westerns too. (One of my Jr. High teachers used to tell us to watch for Indians with blue eyes and vaccination scars on their arms.) I suppose if The Help is guilty of anything it paints a saccharine picture of the early 60s, complete with Golden Oldies like the Twist and Watusi. We don't see the dead bodies, the blood stains, or the verbal venom spewing from distorted mouths. We don't hear about missing civil rights workers. We aren't exposed to the speeches of politicos like George Wallace or Strom Thurman. A few well placed epithets among the magnolias is all. Still, the film has the potential to educate, and that can't be bad.

See what Develops

2011-09-04T12:30:00.000-07:00

I spent some time this morning talking to a student teacher of mine about ice-breaker activities for high school students. A few tried and true things came to mind. It occurred to me, also, that it's possible to combine something enjoyable and that gets students moving around with a traditional diagnostic activity. Just stand back and observe the behavior and then read the responses and you'll have a fairly good idea of who you are dealing with. Of course, it's a bit more complicated than that, but often, the first few days of a class, like other new experiences in this lifetime, can be very revealing.
A therapist I know once told me that often the days where someone says, "things are fine, I really don't have anything pressing to talk about" are when the most significant things surface. Not surprising, it takes time to reflect to see what surfaces. Writing is often like that too. It can start out in one direction and then something takes over. Something rises from the depths and commands attention. That attention quickly turns to direction. From there, it's up to the writer to find form and substance and "take it to the house," as they say.
I've been working on a new short piece of fiction. Been trying to see where this piece will take me as I let it out of my imagination. It's got all the requisite parts, feisty characters, a strong sense of place, dialogue as people truly speak, and, hopefully will say something as any thematic work of fiction will do. It's the plot that's floating on this lake of uncertainty right now.
If I sit back, open all my sensibilities, reflect, respond...it's take shape. In fact, it will take more than one shape. That's one thing I've learned about writing, each piece takes on various shapes...has various incarnations. I seem to be much more open to that process these days than ever before. I seem to come to the task with specific ideas, but ready to abandon anything at any moment, ready to follow, ready to discover.

You Know I Will

2011-08-31T14:24:00.000-07:00

It's back. The back to school week. The advertisements, the news stories, the letters, the editorials, the ads, the photos, the films, the ads, the sales, the interviews, the ads, the specials, the feature stories, the meetings, and the resolutions.
A colleague of mine shared his new mantra with me: I will not become emotionally involved. I'm going to try that one. Anyone who knows me will no doubt find that in a few weeks it will change slightly: I will not become emotionally involved...NOT! Some things never change.
Already there is a burgeoning new parents movement to opt out of standardized testing. This time it might gain a bit of traction because as one observer has noted, "parents can't be fired." Amen.
I'll be supervising a handful of beginning teachers and mentoring a couple of first year teachers as well. I've noticed that when I work with novice teachers I'm careful not to get either too emotional or too cynical. I really do believe that there is still joy in teaching no mater what the ill-conceived messengers of school reform think or do. In fact, I'd go so far as to say that there always will be because when the bell rings and the roll is taken, it's still teacher with class. The well-meaning reformers come and go, just like the principals, the superintendents, the "revolutionary new ideas" the cynics, and the insincere. Unfortunately,some of the potentially excellent new teachers go as well. Recent studies show that as many as 50% leave the profession in the first five years.
My role now will chiefly be to insure that those statistics don't ring true. It can be such a lonely existence filled the the worst kind of self-doubt. Funny thing is that even the best, even the most experienced, even the proven, award winning, veteran, most innovative professionals have self-doubt. The testing frenzy feeds on it. But it too will pass. In this age of encroaching technology and lightning communication, those that care will learn the complexity of educating a human being.
If we can bail out our car-makers, our financial institutions, our windswept, flood-soaked cities, our deteriorating infrastructure, then we can fight a war that liberates our teachers and does a better job at providing an equal education for all our kids.
So here we are, 57 years beyond Brown v. Board of Education and our schools, for the most part, are just as segregated as the were in 1954. Here we are, having difficulty reaching consensus on what matters most, a standardized test for the most unstandardized entity of all, the human mind. Have we learned nothing? We certainly have learned...a good deal too. We know about learning styles and multiple intelligences. We know that many of the systems and countries we constantly compare ourselves falling short to are trying to do what we do best. Encourage critical thinking, take risks with project based curriculum, reflect on our own practice, read the research, try to enjoy the totality of educating people.
But I will not become emotionally involved...for a few weeks.

Double Hurricane

2011-08-27T15:57:00.000-07:00

I thought that Katrina had made a difference. Perhaps people wouldn't entertain the notion that it's an enjoyable experience to ride-out a hurricane. Perhaps it's that rugged individualism we're so famous for working again. People don't like to be told what to do. Therefore they sometimes die. We see it again today as Hurricane Irene hits the Eastern Seaboard. A few scattered souls taking long walks on the beach, tempting the gale force winds to blow them around, or, as in the case of the news reporters, making some memorable television. It's a damn shame they don't listen. Or is it because they have no idea. Maybe they don't watch the news, catch the weather report, or even bother to look at whatever electronic device they tote around talking and texting, and otherwise fondling. Rather ironic that in this age of technology, it makes no difference for some people. In the Northwest, we see a simple phenomena with the local lakes, rivers and mountain ranges. People are forever falling in or coming up missing. They usually don't wear life jackets or have any food, or aren't dressed properly for the drop in temperature that almost always happens in the Cascades. They conveniently forget that when the temperature is 90 degrees, the water in our beautiful rivers and streams is ice cold. Those salmon and trout like it at about 45 degrees. Snow melt is snow...melted.
The technology really does separate us from one another doesn't it. We appear to be more connected, more informed, more aware, but seems to me it's an illusion. We certainly aren't more cordial to each other if conversing in chat rooms, or discussing comments on a news article, or replying to an editorial is any indication. Some folks thrive on the anonymity of it all. It gives them license to say what they'd never put their name next to,or sign.
I often saw thin phenomena when I was experimenting with team journals in my classroom. Not revealing your name can be empowering, but it works both ways. Some people just adore making snide remarks. With no name...fewer consequences.

The other day, I heard the latest from Beloit College. They are the people that comment at the beginning of every school year about the frame of reference of the latest class of college seniors. The class of 2011 has some particularly fascinating attributes. Just imagine, there has never been a Soviet Union in their lifetime. Sputnik must sound like a new band or the color of their Nikes. Let's hope they have heard of Mother Nature. If you're on the East coast and were born after 1990, stay inside this weekend and check Wikipedia under "Cold War." It'll keep you warm and safe. Here are some of the most interesting items on Beloit College's list for this year:
2011 List

What Berlin wall?
Humvees, minus the artillery, have always been available to the public.
Rush Limbaugh and the “Dittoheads” have always been lambasting liberals.
They never “rolled down” a car window.
Michael Moore has always been angry and funny.
They may confuse the Keating Five with a rock group.
They have grown up with bottled water.
General Motors has always been working on an electric car.
Nelson Mandela has always been free and a force in South Africa.
Pete Rose has never played baseball.
Rap music has always been mainstream.
Religious leaders have always been telling politicians what to do, or else!
“Off the hook” has never had anything to do with a telephone.
Music has always been “unplugged.”
Russia has always had a multi-party political system.
Women have always been police chiefs in major cities.
They were born the year Harvard Law Review Editor Barack Obama announced he might run for office some day.
The NBA season has always gone on and on and on and on.
Classmates could include Michelle Wie, Jordin Sparks, and Bart Simpson.
Half of them may have been members of the Baby-sitters Club.
Eastern Airlines has never “earned their wings” in their lifetime.
No one has ever been able to sit down comfortably to a meal of “liver with some fava beans and a nice Chianti.”
Wal-Mart has always been a larger retailer than Sears and has always employed more workers than GM.
Being “lame” has to do with being dumb or inarticulate, not disabled.
Wolf Blitzer has always been serving up the news on CNN.
Katie Couric has always had screen cred.
Al Gore has always been running for president or thinking about it.
They never found a prize in a Coca-Cola “MagiCan.”
They were too young to understand Judas Priest’s subliminal messages.
When all else fails, the Prozac defense has always been a possibility.
Multigrain chips have always provided healthful junk food.
They grew up in Wayne’s World.
U2 has always been more than a spy plane.
They were introduced to Jack Nicholson as “The Joker.”
Stadiums, rock tours and sporting events have always had corporate names.
American rock groups have always appeared in Moscow.
Commercial product placements have been the norm in films and on TV.
On Parents’ Day on campus, their folks could be mixing it up with Lisa Bonet and Lenny Kravitz with daughter Zöe, or Kathie Lee and Frank Gifford with son Cody.
Fox has always been a major network.
They drove their parents crazy with the Beavis and Butt-Head laugh.
The “Blue Man Group” has always been everywhere.
Women’s studies majors have always been offered on campus.
Being a latchkey kid has never been a big deal.
Thanks to MySpace and Facebook, autobiography can happen in real time.
They learned about JFK from Oliver Stone and Malcolm X from Spike Lee.
Most phone calls have never been private.
High definition television has always been available.
Microbreweries have always been ubiquitous.
Virtual reality has always been available when the real thing failed.
Smoking has never been allowed in public spaces in France.
China has always been more interested in making money than in reeducation.
Time has always worked with Warner.
Tiananmen Square is a 2008 Olympics venue, not the scene of a massacre.
The purchase of ivory has always been banned.
MTV has never featured music videos.
The space program has never really caught their attention except in disasters.
Jerry Springer has always been lowering the level of discourse on TV.
They get much more information from Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert than from the newspaper.
They’re always texting 1 n other.
They will encounter roughly equal numbers of female and male professors in the classroom.
They never saw Johnny Carson live on television.
They have no idea who Rusty Jones was or why he said “goodbye to rusty cars.”
Avatars have nothing to do with Hindu deities.
Chavez has nothing to do with iceberg lettuce and everything to do with oil.
Illinois has been trying to ban smoking since the year they were born.
The World Wide Web has been an online tool since they were born.
Chronic fatigue syndrome has always been debilitating and controversial.
Burma has always been Myanmar.
Dilbert has always been ridiculing cubicle culture.
Food packaging has always included nutritional labeling.

You Fool

2011-08-24T17:18:00.000-07:00

Crows can be scary. Perhaps that's why a large group is called a murder of crows rather than a gaggle, as in geese. But even though they can be intimidating, especially in large numbers, they really are quite entertaining. Very intelligent too.
Every night around dusk, a rather large number of crows begins to settle in. They spend about an hour circling some large elm trees in my neighborhood. They squawk and caw all the while, until a decision about which tree and which branch will do is made. Then with the dark comes the quiet. They rise early too. Sometimes, when I arise before 6 a.m. I hear them begin their day. It's not quite like their evening routine, but they're easily heard.
Throughout the day they continue to entertain. In my neck of the woods it doesn't help that one of my neighbors feels it her duty to throw crackers and bread all over the roof of her garage from time to time. They descend fussing with each other, taking off in all directions with mouthfuls of these doughy scraps. Often they drop half of what they originally had. The squirrels are waiting below and quickly police the area. I've noticed they coexist nicely. It's a regular scene from Bambi on occasion.
From time to time a rather new-agey woman wanders through my neighborhood talking to the crows. She tells me she knows them all by name. Her names? I know they recognize familiar faces because I've read and seen news stories about the University of Washington study a researching professor did wearing ugly Halloween masks. They knew and trusted his face and when we wore the masks they went nuts! A crow voicing displeasure is a thing to behold.
Yesterday, I saw two crows land on a telephone wire outside my window and nestle up to one another. Then they kissed. I don't know what else to call it. I know a kiss when I see one.

To Those Who Wait

2011-08-20T10:20:00.000-07:00

Is there something that you really want to do? Is it a something that you do not have complete control over because it takes more than just will? Do you sometimes think, I hope this happens before my time is gone?
For me, that something became a reality yesterday. Exhale now because we're not talking about world shaking events here. Not even what most folks would call significant or morally uplifting, or even mildly important. No, none of these. But for me, all of them.
Yesterday I caught a brown trout. Actually I caught two. First time for me. As a flay fisher, I have always wanted to complete the cycle and catch all four kinds: rainbow, cutthroat, brook and brown trout. The brown trout has eluded me all these years. Probably because you have to go where they are and even then, as always, there is not guarantee.
OK good for me...I did it. But there is more. The reason I'm overjoyed is that this accomplishment carried with it a few other things. Here's what happened. I went on a fishing trip that m local Trout Unlimited group put together. Even though there are hundreds of members in this national conservation group, only a few go on these outings. It's difficult for many to get away in the middle of August on a weekday. This particular trip was to a small lake in the Cascades. To reach it you must travel on no fewer than 4 different Forest Routes. Those narrow dirt or gravel roads the Forest Service uses to get around and to fight fires.
I was apprehensive, to say the least. Once there, I declared the day a success because at lest I did one thing right and didn't get lost. It's only a 90 acre lake, a real little jewel nestled in the middle of pine and fir trees. There is a 1/2 mile hike in which can be taxing if you have a float tube strapped to your back and you are slightly out of prime shape.
Having completed all that, I was not too dismayed when after five hours of casting and retrieving a number of different flies, all I had to show for my efforts was a 6 inch brook trout who, while very pretty to look at, wasn't too bright. Or was he? Some people say the little ones are even harder to catch. I don't say that.
Long about 2:30 I thought about calling it a day. When a few fish started rising to another very prolific mayfly hatch, I decided to switch tactics. The older man at the fly shop nearest me told me that his favorite mayfly imitation didn't have to sit on top of the surface. I tried that and within minutes...bam! my first brownie. A 13 incher that I photographed and returned to his home beneath a log in the nick of time.

A few minutes later, I tried another fly the old guy sold me, and my second brown trout came to the net after a voracious grab of the little floating mayfly. This one measured about 16 inches and put a smile on my face I haven't been able to wipe off yet.
For me, it's about being patient. That's what I love about fly fishing. It makes me patient and helps me be in the moment. There are a lot of moments in five hours.

Teacher Time

2011-08-18T11:58:00.000-07:00

My writing group is called The Guttery and it's aptly named. We really cut and slash. Everyone in the group, myself included, would tell you it takes a thick skin but that in the end, we are all better writers for the process.
Last night I submitted two poems. The feedback went as expected. Both were re-writes and one was much more appealing than the other. I think with a few minor adjustments, my poem for my father-in-law's caregiver, Aster, is ready to meet the world. It's the other one that's problematic.
About six months ago I decided to write something from a teacher's point of view. I wanted it to be something that was both literary and provocative. So I decided to write a sestina. You may know that a sestina is a particular form of poetry that has repeated words or ideas and adheres to a precise rhyme scheme or form. Should have known that wouldn't work for me. Still, I persevered. I took some key words to express key ideas that focus on the assault on public school teachers, the preoccupation with standardized testing, the lack of critical thinking skills in some recommended curriculum, the the corporate attempt to apply a business model to education.
In recent months, after following the discussion centering around the film "Waiting for Superman" and the media's continually getting it wrong, I proceeded. Mindful of the propaganda about charter schools, online schools, and private schools...mindful of what most of the data really says about the meaning and effectiveness of scripted and test driven curriculum, aware that young teachers continue to leave the profession at alarming rates...I proceeded.
Caveat: don't alienate people. Lots of folks will bristle at an air of self-righteousness...they don't understand the teacher's point of view for a myriad of reasons so don't turn them off before you have a chance to win their approval.
That's where I may have failed. Yes, teachers can fail. My piece is angry. Or so my group tells me. My piece makes even the two teachers in the group feel "scathed."
But wait...maybe I succeeded. I don't want to hide my anger. Actually I'd like to see a whole lot more outrage from teachers I know. Like the current criticism of President Obama, I think it's time to get pissed and think carefully about yielding to any more pressure.
I want teachers to find their power and use it. The costs of not doing so, in my view, are too great.
I call my poem Civil War Address because there is a real division in this country now. We do seem to be fighting ourselves and in a civil war, nobody wins. I have elements of Lincoln's Gettysburg address in my poem because I wanted to use the phrase of the teacher, by the teacher, for the teacher. My poem is for and about teachers. I don't think my group got that. They advised me to make it of for and by the student. I've got no problem with that, but this is a poem about teachers. Teachers who need to be very certain of how they feel about all this. Besides, some of the biggest hypocrites in education will always tell you, "I do it for the kids." Guess what, we all do. Time to do something for the teacher.

Too Fast

2011-08-14T11:31:00.000-07:00

The horses at Portland Meadows are slower than most. But they kick just as fast and just as hard. Perhaps that's a comforting thought because Charlynn Takeda never knew that morning would be her last. She never knew her death would be as quick as Secretariat could run the Derby or Native Diver could spread out a field in his wake.
She was just standing there by the hot walker when that loose horse blew by. A loose horse on the back side of a race track is sheer terror. If she'd known he was running unbridled, I wouldn't be writing this now.
But she didn't and her death was one swift kick and ironically, painless.
Portland Meadows is sad enough without this happening. And Jerry and Charlynn were the hardscrabble kind in a most unforgiving sport. They loved the life and now have paid the ultimate with death.
We don't know the name of the horse. We only know that Jerry insisted he not be put down. Jerry feels badly for the owners, the trainer, the groom. He's just that way.
Hard to say what happens now. If he started to drink heavily no one would blink. Jerry has to keep on...has to muck out the stalls, work the trainees, pay the bills, be the 24 hour caregvier. He has to do it alone now. It's what he knows and oddly it's what he loves. Like his wife, Charlynn.
Time for a few time-warn adages. The track has the highest highs and the lowest lows. Gotta pick yourself up and get back on...Things will be better tomorrow. But today, the clouds are a little darker over the track.
Hey,did you see that big 2-year-old that came in last night? He can run a little bit.

Must Be the Season

2011-08-09T14:25:00.000-07:00

I've been traveling across Oregon, Washington, Idaho and Montana for the past week. On occasion, I pick up a public radio station, and keep in touch with what's going on. Quite a week. The economy stumbles again, then goes all amusement park ride on us, 31 Navy Seals die in one helicopter crash, people become lost and found in the wilderness, a group of Bonnie & Clyde siblings still on an unbridled rampage, thousands more children in what's left of Somalia starve to death. Ironically, this is the month of Ramadan. It's traditionally a month of starving. The images become paradoxically baffling...double difficult to swallow.
The weather continues to baffle. 39 straight days of 3-digit temperatures in the dried to a flaky crust Southwest, and heavy flood runoff still swelling rivers and streams in the Midwest. And in London...fiery outrage about what? Police brutality..unemployment frustration?
Is this what folk/pop singer Donovan called a "Season of the Witch?" Seems like it.

My fellow teachers picked the wrong weekend to march on Washington. Ah but planning anything is always such a crap shoot. Too bad it had to coincide with the debt ceiling fiasco in Congress.
In Montana, I saw many many flags, veterans license plates, and way too many "Private Property" signs. It's still Frontier land, but quite beautiful. There is a wisp of diversity in towns like Missoula and Bozeman. I wanted to ask some of the more conservative, chauvinist/patriots just what they mean when they say that those Americans who have died in Afghanistan are protecting out freedom. How is our freedom related to an unwinable land war in Asia. Where are the lessons of Vietnam when we need them most? If Afghanistan goes the way of Vietnam, we'll be buying carpets in Ikea and Wal-Mart in 10 years and all those who gave their young lives on the supposition that they were protecting our freedom will be forgotten. Freedom to do what? Freedom from what? Oh, I know it sounds good...it sounds morally correct, but is it?
Recently I saw a film on the life of folk singer Phil Ochs. If you don't know the name or the body of work from his tragic 35 years on this planet, then you've got a real treat in store. Ochs once wrote and recorded a song called "Love Me, I'm a Liberal. One of Och's friends interviewed in the film makes the point that if you replace the President's name (L.B. Johnson at the time) with Obama, (or Clinton, Carter) the song is just as accurate and just as relevant today. We vote for one thing and get something else.
Today, after 2000 miles on the road, I arrived back in Portlandia, took a shower, and turned on the news to catch up on the crumbling economy. On CNN, I caught the end of a piece on education. The reporter referred to Obama's Secretary of Education, Arne Duncan, as the "top educator" in the country. Top educator is someone who never taught a day in his life.
Washington...we have a problem.

On the last night of my stay with my sister in Bozeman, the sky turned a silvery black and spit out some thunder and lightening. Ominous end to my attempt to drop out for a week. In a few minutes, the ever-changing landscape offered up a rainbow. I ran for my camera. I've photographed a few rainbows in my time. Mostly the trout variety. But this one I really wanted to capture. Just a reminder...just a reminder that it's not over till it's over.

Throughout the Land

2011-07-30T13:30:00.000-07:00

The weekend is half over and we're grudgingly moving toward a solution to the "debt crisis." One thing we know for sure. We're disgusted. We, the people, feel played. We feel powerless to change the rhetoric, the posturing, the lack of empathy, and the degree to which our legislators seem removed from the lives of those they represent.
And while this fiasco plays out, thousands of teachers march on Washington in a planned demonstration that unfortunately coincided, or rather slammed into the debt crisis on the same day. No matter, the media is ignoring it like the paid off institution they often are. There was word that CNN would cover the "Save Our Schools" gathering. So far nothing. Just for information's sake, they want the end to bankrupt legislation like No Child Left Behind. They want to get rid of the corporate interests that would do the bidding of those who threaten democracy and critical thought the most. They want an ounce of respect for the job they do and a pound of don't criticize what you don't understand. We are not the enemy here.
I wonder who will feel relieved when this entire political impasse finally ends? Nothing to feel relieved about is there? Perhaps the best we can expect is for some accountability. That would involve looking at the 3 trillion dollars our government spent in Iraq and Afghanistan thus far. They seem to conveniently forget that sum when filling out the forms of budget creation.
An observation: Politicos of all stripes are fond of using the phrase "The American People." As if there is such an entity that thinks alike on anything. Just who are the American people? How do they think. Presidents and legislators always refer to them in order to remind us all that they are always thinking of them,. Of who? Of the cab driver in Brooklyn or the Vietnamese crabber in Louisiana? Of the organic farmer in Maine or the surfer in San Diego?
Are they trying to build an consensus between the racist, homophobic, fear mongers, and the drugged out politically apathetic meth heads? The American people are much more than all these stereotypes. They are a complex network of ideas, cultures, ethnicities, beliefs, and aspirations that defy any label. So, no legislators, you aren't doing anything for the "American people" as a whole. Only if...not yet.

Blink

2011-07-24T08:41:00.000-07:00

This is such a summer of contrasts. While most of the nation has been enduring sweltering temperatures, here in the northwest, we're still marveling at a day with sunshine. We'll get to 89 degrees this weekend so it's safe to use the "s" word; summer is finally here. But it will rain in Portland in a few days. If it doesn't...just wait a few more days. It's what we love about this place. It's the price to pay for the beauty of the green forests, the rivers and streams, and the numerous lakes.
In Arizona, dust storms to rival the Great Depression's dust bowl era have occurred and reoccurred this year. While the rivers and streams in the northwest are loaded with so much runoff that it'll be September before some are truly fishable.
In Somalia, what's left of that country is offering up images of starvation that make the newscasters cringe. Wish there was a way to get some of that excess water from one part of the world to another. It's hard to believe that some of these problems can't be solved. Isn't it just a matter of redirecting our effort and energy from the pursuit of greed and power to preserving and equalizing the resources a bit?
While the weather continues to impress and depress, so does the Congress. We know more about the debt ceiling than ever before. Political posturing reaches new levels. Getting re-elected is clearly the priority. Our polarization is so pronounced it's become a metaphor for the weather. Or vice-versa. Either way, it's fairly dysfunctional.
But wait...
We have a solution. That's the beauty of our Constitution. Perhaps the President will go the route of Executive order. Then the Supreme Court will get off the bench (wonderful pun huh?) and rule one way or another. Let them battle it out since a game of chicken is all we've got anyway.
What if the U.S. government did default? Certainly it won't come to that. But if it did, what would result. Stock market crash? Loss of prestige in the world community? Gridlock? Hey, wait a minute, don't we have these now?
It's not going to happen. Some last minute "compromise" will emerge and they'll all save face. It's what happens in these situations. After all, the best predictor of behavior is still past behavior.

Bessie

2011-07-19T18:26:00.000-07:00

She was a millionaire, you know. But that's not how most of us will remember "Bessie." Brown Bess, the Eclipse award winner as best older mare of 1989 died last week. At 29, she lived a good long life for a thoroughbred mare. But that's no surprise, she never really got good until she was 7. That's not exactly right, she was always good, but to win an Eclipse as the best in the nation at 7 is rarely done. Most thoroughbred champions are done much earlier. Today, they often don't make it to their 4 year old campaign.
But there was nothing typical about Brown Bess. Owned and bred by Suzanne Pashayan of Fresno, and trained by Chuck Jenda, "Bessie" was based in Northern California. When she won a few Grade III races, the connections decided to go down south and see just how good she could be. We all found out.
I'd done a number of stories on her Bay Meadows and Golden Gate Fields wins, and a few pieces on the entire team. With jockey "Cowboy" Jack Kaenel, the politically conservative Pashayan, and the former Berkeley radical Jenda, this story was a correspondent's dream. Lots of folks at the track don't talk politics; it's often much better that way.
I recall driving down to Del Mar near San Diego with some Bay Area friends to see Brown Bess run in the Ramona Handicap. When we entered the parking area with Northern California credentials, one of the attendants yelled, "What are you guys doin' here?" The Southern Cali/N. Cali bias was no surprise. Besides it's generally accepted that Southern California racing and horses are a cut above those in the North. But not all horses. Certainly not Brown Bess. We left that afternoon hoarse from rooting her all the way to the winner's circle. She went on to win the Grade I Yellow Ribbon at Santa Anita and then the Eclipse. Who else?
What made Brown Bess so exciting to watch was that she was so small. Hardly a mare the size of Zenyata, she always looked overmatched. But Jack Kaenel always said her size contributed to her success because she wasn't afraid to run inside and she could scoot in and out of holes that opened during the running of a race with ease. She loved to win races and knew just how to do it.
Too bad Brown Bess never produced a champion herself. In fact, only one of her offspring ever made it to the winner's circle. But that's the mystery of horse racing and breeding.
In the fall of 1989, right before the big Loma Prieta quake in San Francisco, I drove down to Fresno with a friend to interview Susanne Pashayan for a feature in the Blood-Horse magazine. I'll never forget her 32 cats, (in a spotless compound in her large back yard) the trophies she kept in her living room, and her willingness to answer all my questions about Brown Bess. Given the current state of horse racing, this was definitely the best of times. Like the Dan Fogelberg song says, "the chance of a lifetime, in a lifetime of chance."

Taking a Chance

2011-07-17T10:30:00.000-07:00

Memorial services are always tough. It's the celebrations of life that come after that are much more meaningful to me. So it was, yesterday with the service and celebration of Tom Ruhl's life. Tom died suddenly after complications from heart valve surgery. At 61, he had so much more to do. The good news is that this was a man that left a huge impact on everybody he encountered. Some will talk of the teacher, the principal, the college professor...but it was the human being that was most remarkable. The rare combination of wisdom and passion is what struck me. To that I would add humility. Case in point: I met Tom over the phone when a friend in Portland suggested I give him a call. All I knew was that he was the director of a new MAT (Master's in teaching) program at Marylhurst University, near Portland. I'd been in Portland only a year or so and was anxious to get involved in teacher mentoring since ending my 33 year career in the Bay Area. Trouble was that I was an unknown in Portland. If I'd remained in the East Bay, many opportunities were possible. But I was delighted to be in Portland and eagerly awaited the opportunity to use my time, experience, and energy to insure that beginning teachers could see that there is still joy to be had in this particularly difficult time. So I called Tom. He listened. We talked. It was a remarkable conversation. I dropped all apprehension when we just got caught up in the excitement of teaching. He asked me about my classroom, my colleagues at the Bay Area and now Oregon Writing Project, my ideas about curriculum and mentoring. We met the following week and sealed the deal. In the next few years, I had the opportunity to work with Tom at meetings and seminars. We also participated in those tough conversations with student-teachers that range from support to considering the unthinkable: "maybe this isn't the profession for you...and that's OK."
One afternoon during a break in a workshop we both attended, we happened to be walking side by side back into the Ed. building at Marylhurst. What a perfect opportunity, I thought. "Tom," I said, "I just want to thank yo for taking a chance with me. You know when I called you you knew nothing of my work in the Bay Area. Oh I know I sent you a resume, but we both know there is often a difference between what looks good on paper and the person behind the words. It was strange trying to tell you about what I could offer the program without you really knowing me." Tom smiled that caring, all-knowing smile. "Oh no," he said. "Thank you for taking a chance with me." Humility.

Confirmed

2011-07-13T15:15:00.000-07:00

I once figured that I've had about 5,000 students in about 12 different subjects over the years. It's a bit tricky to calculate because there are two different types of class schedules to factor in and, of course, other teaching situations. Should I count the classes I taught as a VISTA Volunteer in "Rock and Blues Analysis?" Oh, it's not what you think. They were an attempt to introduce mostly white, middle class kids to ethnic studies. If you follow the evolution and development of American traditional and popular music it's inevitable to teach racial attitudes and ethnic history.
There were also the Adult school classes in ESL and something I called "A Folk History of the United States." Probably a few hundred students there over a 5-6 year period. What about teacher training workshops? Do they count? Or the "guest lessons" I've taught to model something for the student-teachers I currently supervise. No matter. 5,000 is clearly a useful figure.
So what?
Well, I was thinking that since the advent of sites like Facebook and Linked-In, it's now possible to keep track and stay in touch with many of those people. In the last 3 years or so, I've been able to do just that. How gratifying it's been to see their families, their children, their travels, their education in action. How fascinating and satisfying it has been to communicate with them, to exchange ideas, updates, memories, and future plans.
As expected, most still have trouble referring to me as Bruce. Mr. Greene is much more comfortable; so be it. But there are a few who immediately refer to me by my first name. Just a few, but they are definitely more comfortable that way.
Some, actually more than I thought, have become teachers themselves. Others live all over the globe. Still others make it a point to call or meet up with me when they come through Portland. There is even a group who meet annually in the Bay Area the Friday before Thanksgiving when they all come home for the holiday. I've been invited but yet to show up for one of those get-togethers. This year, for sure, if I go to the Bay in November.
This week I heard from a former student I had in class about 25 years ago. It often takes a minute or two to look at the profile picture on Facebook, figure out if there is a maiden name, or another name or even in a few cases, another gender. But the "friends" we share, if any, usually are the most help. In fact, I think that's how they find me. And I let them find me. I still don't feel comfortable initiating the contact. Not everyone might want their high school teacher in touch with personal information. Only rarely have I "friended" a former student. My intuition is strong enough to know that it was OK to do that. The day after Obama's election victory would be a notable example.
Lately, I've come to believe that each month, each year will result in getting in touch with a few more. Steadily, I reel in a few more. I've yet to be disappointed.
Last week, as I wrote a letter of recommendation for a beginning teacher, it occurred to me that I've only written 3 or 4 of these letters this year. Up until 5 years ago, I would write between 40 and 50 letters. Thinking further, I realized that the last students I taught have graduated college this year...at least most of them. No deluge of letters, but a trickle of "friends."

Step Right Up

2011-07-10T11:22:00.000-07:00

Of all the quotes and rants, of all the looped tapes playing the same pathetic faces endlessly saying the same inane things...of all the sensational headlines, the tabloid blathering, the bobbing sea of talking heads...one statement about the recently concluded Casey Anthony trial stands out. "That family can best be described as a circus of dysfunction," said Anthony's former fiance. That metaphor goes far beyond the family and the trial that seems to have riveted the voyeuristic fantasies of the American public. It works beautifully to describe the current Congress's attempts to agree on anything, much less the deficit. We know we've hit rock bottom when the good of the order (you and me) takes a back seat to posturing so that re-election is not in doubt. For decades our legislative body has been in perpetual gridlock. They seem to have elevated the concept lately.
We in this country are certainly not alone in our greatest show on earth dysfunction. This was the week that the British tabloid News of the World finally went under. Apparently committing crimes by hacking into crime victims mailboxes, or the Royal family's personal communications, or even the lives of those that served in the Iraq war and didn't come home, in no way is an ethical issue. Rupert Murdock's Fascist media juggernaut just might be temporarily stalled. We'll see. Perhaps it's time to make morality and ethics required reading.
II.
Dysfunction takes many forms and another that surfaced this week in a strange way concerns a colleague of mine. In for heart surgery on a Tuesday, and no longer with us two days later, I will miss Tom Ruhl every day, every time I enter a classroom. On paper he was the Director of the MAT program at Marylhurst University. In person, he was the perfect combination of passion and wisdom. Four years ago, a phone conversation with him led me to his office and to a second career supervising and mentoring beginning teacher. We know when we hit it off with someone. We know when we feel comfortable taking a chance on something. Tom and I both felt that way with one another. A few years down the road from our initial meeting, that sense only grew stronger. If ever there was injustice in someone dying too soon, in losing someone who makes a huge difference in people's lives, Tom's untimely death is that example. But alas, he is not dead.

Bursting In Air

2011-07-05T13:30:00.000-07:00

I love July 5th. Any day that follows the 4th is going to be better. Oh, I believe I'm as patriotic as the next guy/person. But July 4th is loaded...literally. My neighbor's well drugged dog has survived another evening of shell shock. We often forget how a canine's sensitive hearing perceives the onslaught that continues well past midnight. Where I live, I can hear both Portland and Vancouver, Washington's annual explosive offerings. Those echos bounce around the Willamette and Columbia rivers like toy boats crashing into all manner of air currents and sound tunnels.
It's really got very little to do with the Declaration of Independence any more, hasn't it? But this morning dawned sunny and peaceful, with only the white noise of traffic and a slight breeze.
Little Toto was still not normal, but he's beginning to believe that the immediate danger is over.
The crows took off for more rural surroundings on Saturday evening. I think they knew what was in store. Either that or they'e been to Iraq or Afghanistan and decided to just abandon the large elm trees they usually occupy for a few days. I'm not sure how the squirrels fared. Conspicuously absent, they will emerge by this afternoon to pick up some of the pieces...peanuts, fruit peels, berries.
So it's done and the flag was still there. Bring on the summer.
Last Sunday afternoon, while at a friend's BBQ backyard gathering, I chanced to get into a conversation with some folks seeking shade under a giant umbrella. As often happens, politics reared it's frothy head. What a great opportunity to discuss the current state of affairs without getting over emotional I thought. And I did.
The conversation, led by a verbose woman who, as luck would have it, was sitting on a stool about a foot higher than everyone else, got around to particular politicians. When our "leader" called MItch McConnell "stupid" a rather portly man piped up, "He's not stupid. He may be a right wing, intolerant, Republican, but I assure you he's not stupid." At that, an intense woman who had joined the circle of conversation a few minutes earlier decided to respond. I was wondering about her. A tall,thin, rather Balkan looking woman, she was intently listening with her head down most of the time. I was waiting for her to either leave or erupt. She erupted. First she told us that she was an immigrant from Czechoslovakia and felt her perspective on American politics was such that she had a hard time with Americans who whine all the time about their political institution. What ensued was a sort of "try being locked up for what you say or not being able to travel anywhere when you want to" kind of diatribe. Tough to argue with that. Nobody did. I'm sure everyone sitting around the only naturalized citizen at the table wanted to offer more. But nobody did. I was thinking of going down the "you are quite right, but even the politics of the U.S.A. is perfectible. That intolerance and greed and unethical politicians are unfortunately the norm. I could have elaborated on the current attack on that most democratic of all our public institutions: our schools. Best not to mess with someone's notion of The American Dream on July 4th weekend. Wait till Labor Day.

Bi Bi Bi

2011-06-29T20:35:00.000-07:00

We have every reason to think that as a nation we are still a united state. People are connecting and networking like never before. More opportunities to see how everybody you know and anybody you knew is doing from minute to minute. Given the rise and evolution of sites like Facebook over the last five years, there is every reason to believe previously unknown uses and benefits await. Just imagine where all these postings, photos and updates might take us.
Yet...as a nation, we are more polarized than ever.
The gap in wealth in this country is so great that our middle class is disappearing fast as an ice cube in Death Valley. In a recent study, 50% of the American people reported that they could not raise $2000. in a two week time period. Month to month is more the norm now. The 2% with most of the wealth just can't seem to fathom that. "Why aren't they saving any money?" some ask, ignorant of unemployment figures, outsourced jobs, sixty somethings that can't afford to retire and twenty somethings spilling off the college graduation conveyer belts and piling up before returning to their parents homes to re-group and figure it all out.
But that is only one dimension of this paradox. With the rise of cable TV and the proliferation of so-called "news media," preaching to the converted has reached new heights. Seems to me that most folks are choosing to receive the information they want, with the results they want, rather that considering accuracy, truth, documentation, journalistic ethics and talent. We shout at one another more often than not.
Comedy doesn't help because the fine line between satire and seriousness is nearly indistinguishable. Unbelievably, for some, political labels or positions on the spectrum have become tantamount to diseases. Recently a friend of mine was angrily called a "socialist" with all the distain of an 18th century fire and brimstone preacher. When did "liberal" become something to fear, someone to avoid, devalue, or dismiss?
When I wonder what all this adds up to, I think that maybe it's all not that difficult to figure out. Seems to me that at their core, people either are empathetic or they are not. They either want to help others when possible or want to help themselves. Through that lens, this bi-polar, bi-partisan binary we have makes perfect sense.

Every Distance Is Not Near

2011-06-25T21:49:00.000-07:00

Rohinton Mistry writes, in his wonderful novel A Fine Balance, "Distance was a dangerous thing...Distance changed people." The context of that comment is a young man going off to school in a large city in India, but the fear of distance remains universal. I suppose we have all lost someone to distance. I can think of a few examples in my own life experience when distance unloosed it's dangers on someone close to me. But if change is to be embraced, maybe then distance need not be dangerous.
I see many examples of how distance changed someone for the good. The freedom to be is certainly part of that. But coupled with time, distance really achieves its potential.
I've been spending the weekend about 600 miles away from home. Re-living my life in the city where I previously lived. The changes are subtle and then all of a sudden something crashes down. Today as I drove my truck toward an intersection I used to see daily, I felt momentarily lost. Something was missing. How about a building! I lost my sense of balance because I suddenly looked up and saw air...sky...and the S.F. Bay in the distance. There used to be something on that corner. It's gone. Distance has changed my perception.
I've seen people too who I haven't seen or lived near for a number of years now. As I am muttering to myself how old they look, or how gray their hair is now, I wonder if they are doing the same when they see me?
Tonight, at an Indian restaurant, a beautiful young woman from Nepal was our waitress. My mother-in-law quickly engaged her in conversation by greeting her with "Namaste" and clasping her hands together as many Asian people do. She was so full of life and positive energy and so far from home. Next she wants to go to nursing school in New Mexico. Why there? Because it seems like an interesting place to be. I will probably never see her again, but then again I hope to see her every day.

Side Show

2011-06-19T12:18:00.000-07:00

Last week I was sitting around with some folks from my writing group and the topic of carnivals came up. I sometimes think that thoroughbred horse racing, and the entire alternate universe that it supports, could just possibly be the last American carnival. If you go to any county fair with racing, the argument only gets stronger. But as we sat around, postponing our work momentarily, we got off on topics like the circus. The circus has definitely morphed in recent years, but it does retain much of original charm, if not it's strong aura of the underbelly of this culture. Of course it's politically incorrect in every dimension. (Read or see the film "Water for Elephants" for a glimpse)
Eventually I told my fellow writers that I have a strong early memory of being taken to a real circus side show when I was very young. It was some time in the 1950s. I must have been 5 or 6 years old. My sister and I were invited by an older couple that lived across the street form us. Being a poor kid with no chance to see Barnum and Baily's Greatest Show on Earth, our parents let us go with them. In a tent to the side (really off to the side) I saw a man with alligator skin on his back, a giant (he drank a 6 pack of 7-UP all at once) a sword swallower, and a woman with no arms or legs. Thee was a real bearded lady; I think she was the fat lady too. Those terms were thrown around back then.
When this conversation ended, it occurred to me that we really haven't lost the side show at all. Just this morning, while making the daily trek to my favorite coffee shop I saw plenty of folks that would survive in a side show. So many mentally ill people on the streets these days. So many people that could have been drown by "The Far Side" cartoonist, Gary Larson. And that's just going from here to there. When I look at just last week's news, the attractions get stronger. We get the sexting congressman, the homicidal mother who is both a pathological liar and a sociopath. A team loses a hockey game and cars are overturned, buildings burned, and another generation loses the sense of civility.
Seems to me the antidote to all these things might be ethics and empathy. If we felt what others felt, or even stopped to think about what another might feel like, if we stopped and thought about what might be the right thing to do when our emotions are raw, we might end the side show once and for all.

Open for Business

2011-06-13T12:35:00.000-07:00

The great oral historian and humanitarian, Studs Terkel, once concluded, "Your work is your identity." Of course this nugget of wisdom came from his wonderful collection called Working where all kinds of people talk about what they do for a living. No surprise here, if you put your life into a career, an occupation, an avocation, it often becomes who you are.
When I stopped being a full-time teacher I naturally wondered how my identity would be impacted. "Who will I be when I am no longer "Mr. Greene." Truth is, I will always be Mr. Greene. This was recently evidenced by a brief meeting with a former student last week who seemed more comfortable not making the leap to informality. That's fine with me. Funny thing is though I introduced myself to her partner as Bruce. We left it at that.
Because my identity as a teacher is constant, I can't help reacting the way I do to the current attack on teachers and the institution of the public school. Last week my local newspaper ran an editorial accusing teachers of desiring the "status quo." The politics behind that ridiculous statement was simple. The governor and some large corporate and political interests are trying to ram through more "official " assessments, so when the teacher's union and other educators balk, we get accused of being in the way of progress. That's the way arguments are framed these days.
OK, I get that. Only thing is, it's not true. Why would any teacher in their right mind want to defend the status quo? Pretty neat tactic, isn't it? Just more proof that those who know the least about educating a human being, think they have viable arguments about school reform to offer. No, no, no. They are only interested in a good front, numerical data, profits from testing and assessment materials, and promoting a view of education that is hopelessly inadequate for a life that is changing so fast that it's impossible to keep up with the latest technology even if you had the resources to do so.
To this mess I will add another ugly player. Up here in Oregon we are treated to the rants of people who teacher bash about the Public Employees Retirement System. To hear them talk you'd think this huge teat was being sucked dry by a bunch of undeserving, 3 month vacationing, ineffective, whining, pseudo professionals. They really (I mean REALLY) resent the fact that teachers can put half their life into a profession and end up with a living wage when they retire.
This rage is so misdirected that it borders on the ludicrous, but no body's laughing. It's painful. True I am a retired California teacher living in Oregon. True, the California State Teacher's Retirement Association is in much better shape. What's not true is that it hurts just as much to hear teachers maligned no matter where they teach.
Of all the pain connected with being a veteran teacher, I've come to believe that this is the most hurtful. We can get over the physical pain from assault to illness, from the mental stress in the form of headaches, all manner of psycho-somatic diseases, and weight gain or poor diet. We can endure all those bad days. The student (s) who know how to get on that last nerve, and how to stomp on it. We get past the days when we uttered, "for this I went to college." We know how resilient students can be and we find that it's contagious. It's these public bullies who channel all their frustration and anger onto the teacher that turns the knife.
I've encountered them from time to time. They lurk on message boards, in editorial chat rooms, and sometimes pontificate in coffee shops. I try to invite them into a classroom. Urge them to experience a day in the life, but they'll have none of it. We both know that would put them out of business.

Uncivil War

2011-06-08T11:27:00.000-07:00

This is the week when the school year ends. All over the country, it's time to grade the last papers, calculate, contemplate, and for some...graduate.
While there is often time to reflect, and congratulate, unfortunately, many educators will go home with no job for the fall. Huge layoffs continue, skimpy budgets in place. As if that isn't bad enough, the attacks and harangs on public schools and public school teachers continue.
In July a march on Washington will put thousands of educators in the street. A brief time in the sun. Hopefully the comparison between the fight for civil rights and the fight for teacher's rights will follow.
My hope for the summer is that millions more will join in the battle raging. A new civil war awaits.
I wrote this poem with that in mind.

A Civil War Address

Dark time, delicate days, for the teacher
Too much remains locked inside the school
Not the task that tortures or tempts the child.
But the top down weight called reform
That slithers with co-opted force
Making hostages of time and skill

We hone this craft, this subtle skill
Where intuition serves the natural-born teacher
To motivate with success,
Alone at very public school
Bloodied by philanthropists
Eager to please some inner child.

But real children, like rivers, break
They languish yet still survive,

Today I learned of a teacher
Who changed plans mid-stream
Abandoned test prep and invited her class to watch snow fall,
Making their own stories with better outcomes,
The unpredictable is what we remember.

Those who have taught decades do not surrender conscience,
Cannot function without morality,
It is the youngest of our number who must
Inspire, masking fear, innovate, wearing cloaks

If only a day in the life could force
Time through the eyes of a child
Out of office, into a school,
Use our names,
Talk to us about your own dilemmas,
Hear the ideas we punctuate with music, motion, and mystery

Measurable chunks of information mean nothing,
Concepts change the world,
A proctor, a score, a percentile,
Spell only fear

We have another vision; a community school
Based on research and welcome reform
Where we privilege learning and critical skill
A change equal in force
Adult and child
Both teachers

We see that school
Shaping reform
A fountain of skill

Of the teacher
By the teacher

For the teacher.

Shall not perish.

Gathering No Moss

2011-06-03T07:25:00.000-07:00

So Bob Dylan has turned 70. Given his track record that is a cause for celebration. We almost lost Dylan literally and figuratively a few times over the last five decades so I for one am glad he's still around. I made my piece with Dylan and now take everything he offers with the same old sense of joy and awe as the old days. Hit and miss, but what isn't.
In honor of this occasion Rolling Stone Magazine has published a piece called The 70 Greatest Dylan Songs. The picks are described with detail in short paragraphs and some have rather well-known authors. Bono weighs in on the #1 pick "Like a Rolling Stone." (What else!) David Crosby and Mick Jagger have their say as well as Lucinda Williams and Sheryl Crow. Along the way of this 22 page feature are little tidbits and features. I especially like the sidebar called Dylan's Most Inscrutable Lyrics...Five cryptic classics that keep Dylanologists guessing. Relieved to find Gates of Eden at the top of the list.
Two things jump out at me from reading this piece. First, Rolling Stone has remained a constant source of excellent commentary and information over the years. As a publication that documents popular music and all its incarnations over the years, they really have done a wonderful job. Their production ethic is solid and the magazine has always been aesthetically pleasing with outstanding journalism.
The other thing that resonates is how many of the various Dylan songs, for me, are connected to specific times, events, places, and people in my life. They form a sort of chronicle of my youth. But make no mistake, I listen to this music today and have consistently done so over the years.
Like a Rolling Stone came out in 1965, the year I graduated high school. I remember going to a graduation party and touting the virtues of Dylan as the greatest poet of our time all night. Like a Rolling Stone played all night long much to the dismay of many Beatle fans. Of course, the anti-war songs of the 60s and early 70s take me to rallies and class discussions. I still see the kid putting out the trash with his transistor radio plugged in listening to The Times are Changin' because it only came on the radio when the top ten in England was played on my AM pop music station did that feature. Nashville Skyline came out when I lived in Houston, Texas as a 22 year old VISTA Volunteer.
Going through relationship drama? Have I got a Dylan song for you. From Just like a Woman to Tangled Up in Blue, those tunes could get you through the night. If there was anger, just did out Positively 4th Street.
In my classroom I used pieces that didn't make the top 70 but still hold strong memories. From Who Killed Davy More? to Hurricane, to the Ballad of George Jackson, Dylan was ever present in my curriculum. Not surprisingly, a few of the people who were given the privilege of making the selections chose older, lesser known songs. A real shocker is Keith Richards selection of Girl From the North Country for it's Anglo-Celtic roots and what Richards calls the "absence of Bob's later cutting edge. There is none of that resentment."
Sometimes when I think of Dylan over the years I see the album covers. The first few I easily recall in order. It gets foggy after that. I remember buying many, but over the years, especially after living in a few communal settings between 1969 and 74, a few albums just floated into my record box. Now and then I just like to look at the album covers. It brings it all back home.

Decorations

2011-05-30T12:57:00.000-07:00

On this Memorial Day, most folks are taking it easy and enjoying a week without a normal Monday. They also stop, for a moment or two and recognize the reasons we celebrate this day. Well, not celebrate, but rather honor those who have served our country in previously wars.
I have no problem with that. It's tradition, and I love tradition. But I take this time to reflect on the concept of war as well. It really is the last option of presumably civilized countries. But as noted writer and thinker Chris Hedges has pointed out, "War is a force that gives us meaning." His book by that title accurately points out how we are all too often seduced by the mythology of war.
But today is for those who have made the ultimate sacrifice. Today is for all those young people who never had a chance to live their lives into their 40s or beyond. I submit that they often never had a chance to think deeply about the reasons we go to war, the consequences that follow, or the alternatives to war that we might pursue with as much vigor as we pursue the violence.
In my community, like many others, there is another kind of local war. Gangs. These dysfunction surrogate families remind me, in some ways, of nationalistic entities who value retribution, seem insensitive to violent acts that take human life, and often breed via the seduction of young people. I often see a disconnect in the national dialogue. I'm waiting for someone of legislative or popular notoriety to ask the simple question again: Why do they hate us?
I'd like to see our foreign policy formed along those lines, so we might be able to put an end to foreign interventions and follow the advice of George Washington who warned about "entangling alliances" in his Farewell Address.
But too often we infuse our love for all things military with religion or simple-minded jingoism. We like the sound of "putting a boot in their ass" better than the hard work of solving international issues with permanent solutions.
On this day I feel for my classmates and their fathers who never made it back home from the European or Pacific theaters of war, the mud of Korea or Vietnam. I feel for my former students who did not survive the sands of Iraq or the moon like terrain of Afghanistan.
On this Memorial day I see the 1/3 of the mentally ill and homeless on the street that are veterans. They can't eat the flag, or take it as medicine, or even get close enough to most people to tell their tales. And the little flags carried by children watching parades or stuck into the countless rows of white gravestones at attention on cemetery's are not big enough to keep out the cold of the sidewalk.

They used to call Memorial Day Decoration day. It was a day when people wore little poppies with red, white, and blue decorations and bunting attached. It arose after World War I. There have been too many wars that followed, one every 20 years if you do the math. So at some point, Memorial Day enabled us to lump all the honoring together to include all wars past and present. It solved one problem but ignored an even bigger one.

History Lesson

2011-05-24T11:35:00.000-07:00

I read some of the education blogs. I belong to a list-serv that allows educators all over the nation to exchange ideas. I have "Liked" on Facebook all manner of pages that support public education, authentic school reform, and various events taken or soon to take place. Now and then I write a letter to my local newspaper editor. Such was the case recently when I responded to an Op-Ed piece written by an insightful 17-year-old high school junior who really seemed to get that the so-called "achievement gap" had more to do with poverty and home environment that with teacher quality.
Yet one thing in all the debates and exchanges I see remains constant. People seem to rely on their perceptions of school to frame and inform their opinions. Nothing wrong with that except those perceptions are often inaccurate or sadly lacking. In time I have come to see that much of the disagreement comes because those who teach feel one way and those who do not fell another. Needless to say it doesn't exactly lend itself to treating teachers as professionals when everyone who ever attended a school truly believes they know what it takes to bring about change.
That's why I always invite people to come over to the other side. Unless you do the job for at least 10 years, your opinions, in my view, will continue to be misinformed no matter how well meant.
So what might be the reasons that so many non-professionals feel they know what's best. Again, these perceptions that they carry, no matter how ancient or inauthentic.

There is always the profit motive too. Public education is a multi-billion dollar business. All those bad textbooks, those supplies and most importantly, those many, many tests are worth billions. The profit motive is what drives pseudo reformers more thn anything else. They may tell you that they "do it for the children" but they fool nobody. Those that "do for the children" are in the classroom. They show up day after day, year after year. They are the career professionals that are privy to much more than "perceptions" of what is and what should be.
So what do they see? They see the child that hasn't eaten, that has more going on at home than many will see in a lifetime. They see the child with no self-esteem hiding in plain sight, the idea spark in someone's eyes and everything that can't be measured or standardized. They assess from moment to moment.
Despite this obvious disconnect, it seems to me we need to find a way to deal with all these perceptions. Not easy. Most educators I know are either so depressed or so angry that right now they are incapable of productive conversation. Hopefully the much needed summer break might allow some of this much needed conversation to begin. Until that happens, keep your eyes on the month of July when a million teachers will come to Washington D.C. A little history can go a long way.

Every Day

2011-05-21T14:54:00.000-07:00

This week, all over the country, many cities had school bond issues on their ballots. In my town, Portland, there were two such measures. Also in my town, like most other cities, these measures went down. That people are feeling the pinch of our stagnant economy is obviously much of the reason that these bonds failed. I'm sure a lot of folks were torn. No doubt many who always vote for school bond measures did not this time. It's certainly understandable. It's also difficult to face for those in the education community.
It underscores the contradictions so rampant in education today. Give us more with less. It's that simple. Educators are under the gun to deliver a perceived notion of what constitutes "achievement" but nothing that truly might make that possible is provided.
We want higher test scores, highly motivated and engaged students, committed teachers, and curriculum that meets these standards. Oh, by the way, we're cutting your wages, your colleagues, and taking away your right to organize and bargain collectively. Any fool will tell you that this won't work. That this is not leadership. But here's the thing: many teachers go to work everyday, spend their own money for basic supplies, create their own curriculum, and spend extra hours grading papers, calling homes, and educating themselves as lifelong learners...anyway.
I've learned to live with these contradictions. Doesn't mean I like it, or condone the status quo, but I've learned to adjust my reaction. (at least I'm trying)
In the novel and now film Water for Elephants, the theme of illusion becomes the overarching metaphor for not only the circus, but life in general. This we know. Things are seldom what they appear to be. Because this is so, it's a constant in explaining the contradictions that are so much a part of how education issues are seen. If any gap exists in achievement in this country it always comes down to socio-economic status. Put simply...poverty. But the poor have always been invisible. We live in a culture that values appearance. Is it any wonder that poverty is the reigning illusion?
That begs the question, do the people in power even see the real issues? We have a Secretary of Education that was never a teacher. Can you imagine a Surgeon General who never went to medical school or a member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff who was never in the military? Incredible, isn't it?
Recently a high school junior in my town wrote an opinion piece that was printed in the local paper. The title says it all. Struggling Students Need Broad Support, Not Labels. Here she argues that it is the socio-economic disparity in this culture not race or standards or more testing that explains what the reality at play in our schools today. She gets it. But then, she goes there every day.

Look, Up in the Sky

2011-05-11T13:19:00.000-07:00

In the aftermath of the death of Osama Bin Laden some fascinating observations have come to light. The President went on 60 Minutes to relate just what happened, how and when. But even then, we all know our knowledge of this entire event will be limited at best. The sequence and substance of events changed half a dozen times in the first few days.
Stories do change with each day; that is just the way it is. This we know. But it was left for Michael Eric Dyson, speaking on Bill Maher's program last week who offered a most unusual, if not dynamic perspective. Considering how President Obama, until very recently, has been considered "the other" by so many seemingly mainstream Americans, Dyson quipped, "Isn't it interesting how as soon as he is violent, Obama is accepted. It's the American way. Harsh words, but I fear, very true. And Obama didn't mince his words or dredge out the the safety of passive voice. He never said Bin Laden was killed, he said we killed him, we got him. Subject -verb, just that simple.
That comment aired on HBO was barely 24 hours old when some of us watched the L.A. Lakers crash and burn in another attempt to win a championship. But not before blowing up in a fit of violent, flagrant, unnecessary fouls. We're not winning so let's have the 6'10 "professional" shove his oversized forearm into the kidney of the little 5'10" guard. Flatten him. If we can't win fairly, we'll just take you out. American way? Is it so unreasonable to think there is a connection between these two media events?
The overwhelming lack of sportsmanship is bad enough, but when professional athletes get paid tens of millions and act that way it truly shows, in an instant, how sick this culture can be.
I worry about people talking about killing other human beings, (no matter how vile) so cavilerly. I had the audacity to hope we were better than that. Is there ever a time when vengeance is preferable to justice? Just asking.
In other news, I read where the good folks at Superman comics are going to remove the phrase, "truth, justice and the American way" from the official Superman text. They defend this decision by explaining that Superman is now a citizen of the world and it's more appropriate in the 21st century to portray him that way. Let's not forget that Superman is a child of the Great depression. Like King Kong and Seabiscuit, his roots run deep into the American psyche. If he can change and adapt to a global perspective, maybe, eventually, there is hope we can too.
Gives one pause.

Happy 100th Birthday Robert Johnson!

2011-05-08T08:39:00.000-07:00

This blues class is presented with a wonderful film that set against it's historical context showcases Robert Johnson's voice and guitar playing talent as well as the social and political realities that produced it. In the first three decades of the 20th century there was a huge Black migration into the cities of the North and Midwest. Fueled by wartime jobs and the possibility of a better life without overt Jim Crow laws and decent wages, the city of Chicago blossomed with youthful energy and thousands of migrants. As Johnson sang, "Come on, Baby don't you wanna go...?

Crossroads

2011-05-07T19:44:00.000-07:00

Tomorrow is the 100th birthday of Robert Johnson. The only thing more intriguing than his legacy, his haunting voice, and the handful of recordings he left in his short 27 year life is all the mystery that surrounds him. There are at least 3 gravestone markers and countless stories of former friends, family members and, of course, girlfriends.
I'be been listening to his music for the last two days. This year, the anniversary of his birth coincided with the Kentucky Derby. Man, it just doesn't get much better than that. I was hoping that all the mythology might come together and produce a winner like Midnight Interlude. After all, Johnson was rumored to have sold his soul t the devil at midnight at the crossroads of Highway 61 and Highway 49.
But this year it was Animal Kingdom, a 20-1 longshot that emerged from the pack and won going away by 4 lengths. I'm sure if we looked deep into his breeding we could find a connection. Let's see, there were 19 horses in this year's Derby so no number 49 or 61. But wait! Animal Kingdom was number 16...One and six, the same two numbers that make up 61. Just change the order, invert the possibilities. Oh yeah, I knew it all the time. That ol' devil works in strange ways.
If you listen to the original recordings of Robert Johnson, they are just as stunning now as they must have been then. Had he lived, of course, then all the mythology would be gone. But that begs the question, what other recordings would he have left?
But, we can only guess and that leads nowhere. In the end, there is just his small body of work and the enormous possibilities he left behind. Happy Birthday to the King of the Delta Blues, the Grandfather of Rock and Roll, and an American original.

Jingo All The Way

2011-05-02T14:53:00.000-07:00

The names are uncomfortably similar. Osama ad Obama. They rhyme, they connote Islam, at one time they could so easily be "the other." With the news of the death of Osama Bin Laden, confirmed at a midnight press conference by Barak Obama, the names will no doubt be intertwined forever.
The reaction to this death of a villain is diverse and troubling. For some it's a celebration akin to a football rally, but eerily reminiscent to a lynching. There is no moral high ground here. Can't say I'm surprised, but is it so much to ask for more people to react with reflection rather than vengeance? What happens when we mimic our "enemies?"
The polarization in this country is greater than ever and this event really brings it to the fore. This morning I read various responses on Facebook pages. They ranged from carefully worded statements suggesting people think about what it means to celebrate the death of another human being to "hope he was tortured before they killed him and isn't God great."
Time to get out the Dylan recording of "With God on our Side."
The Jingoism is rife today. The media is sucking it all down and regurgitating a red, white, and blue Superman cape for a national picnic.
In a few days, the party will be over. The news of Bin Laden's death will spark another round of militaristic chest beating, but the essence of what is truly here will go unspoken. Who will ask the tough questions? How will anything be different? Would the victims of 9/11/01, in all three locations, be concerned that we address the real issues behind those attacks?
Particularly chilling was how the President used no passive voice in telling the country that the evil archetype of terror was dead.
We killed him, not he was killed. Who stops to think how that will play elsewhere?
Sure, like everyone else, I'm glad that Bin Laden has been brought to justice. But were there alternatives? I think about other archetypal evil figures and I immediately think of Nazi Germany. But the government of Israel took a moral stance and gave their enemies of the state public trials. Isn't that what we'd expect from the United States of America.

Line in the Sand

2011-04-24T11:12:00.000-07:00

One of the most profound experiences that high school kids can have is to participate in something we used to call Challenge Day. Sure it can be a bit too "touchy/feely" for some people, but the overall impact can have life long consequences. Consequences that can easily affect bad choices, intolerance, and the alienation that many young people deal with daily. Challenge Day is organized around a set of activities that encourage personal growth by having those involved develop empathy for members of their own community, whether it be a school or a culture or a sub-culture. One of the most memorable activities is called "Step over the Line." There are various versions of this movement strategy but it's usually done by stating a condition like, who here knows someone who has died of Aids, or cancer, or heart disease? If so, step over the line. People move around, putting their bodies over the line, or not. As you might surmise, this can get fairly emotional or traumatic given the conditions for crossing over the line. Lots of support comes from all over the room. When we see that we are not so different, that yes, even the white or black kids have had similar experiences, yes even our teachers or administrators have also had those experiences, it's difficult not to change your thinking or at least your assumptions about people.
But this is not about Challenge Day. It is, however, about stepping over a line.
Sometimes I wish we could lay aside all the blathering about educational reform and simply draw a line in the sand. What I'm interested in is telling the truth and sticking to the issue at hand. The conditions have to be specific. If not, the "line game" will have no meaning. For example, I watched one of those Sunday morning talk shows where politicians discuss current events. When asked about a new national poll that says 75% of the American people disapprove of what the current Congress has done, a Congressman, whose name eludes me (but that's no matter) was eager to reply. In 10 seconds, he went from answering the question to gas prices on the rise. He was never asked to go back and answer the question. Who isn't upset about paying $5 for a gallon of gas? The point is simple: deal with the subject at hand and nothing else.
So here's my version of Step over the line.
Step over the line if you agree and wish to do something about public education:
Step over the line if you believe...
*schools are underfunded
*school facilities need to be upgraded and infrastructures repaired or replaced
* Testing is not teaching- standardized testing is wasteful, costly, highly problematic, and often inaccurate
*The privatization of public schools is ill conceived at best, evil, racist, irrelevant, and undemocratic at worst.
*Scripted curriculum and pre-packaged materials from huge publishing houses (aka "teacher proof materials") are attempts to de-skill teachers
*Budgets are moral documents and reflect what we really care about but do not wish to admit.

OK, now I want to give legislators, philanthropists, pundits, and Presidential candidates a chance too. Remember there is only one rule here, you must tell the truth. Step over the line if you love to talk about education reform,
* if your really believe that education is not a high priority in this country, and anyway your kids are in private schools where everybody looks alike.
* if you truly think that not everyone needs to be educated, after all, who will work the service professions
* if you believe teacher unions are the real problem here.
* if budgeting more for education and less for defense is entirely out of the question.
* if you secretly enjoy talking about education because you know it's important to talk, but also enjoy knowing that you can win more favor by talking about tax cuts, the war on terrorism, bad teachers, and how this is just not the right time to ask for more money for schools.

LET THE GAMES BEGIN.

Refresh Your Memory

2011-04-18T11:48:00.000-07:00

It's happened again. Another best selling memoir exposed as a fraud? We don't know all the details yet, but according to reputable sources like "60 Minutes" and writer John Krakauer, the blockbuster Three Cups of Tea, by Greg Mortensen may be full of lies. If not complete falsehoods, then some very questionable facts. Did Mortensen's chain of events happen as detailed in his two books? Are the schools he claims to have built all up and running? Was he really captured by the Taliban and detained in a cell or are the "captors" he's pictured with in the book just friends. And then there is the money? 23 million in contributions that include $100,000. from President Obama's Nobel Peace Prize money. Troubling. Very troubling. As Krakauer writes in a recently published essay called "Three Cups of Deceit,"

The first eight chapters of Three Cups of Tea are an intricately wrought work of fiction presented as fact. And by no means was this an isolated act of deceit. It turns out that Mortenson’s books and public statements are permeated with falsehoods. The image of Mortenson that has been created for public consumption is an artifact born of fantasy, audac- ity, and an apparently insatiable hunger for esteem. Morten- son has lied about the noble deeds he has done, the risks he has taken, the people he has met, the number of schools he has built. T hree Cups of T ea has much in common with A Million Little Pieces, the infamous autobiography by James Frey that was exposed as a sham. But Frey, unlike Morten- son, didn’t use his phony memoir to solicit tens of millions of dollars in donations from unsuspecting readers, myself among them. Moreover, Mortenson’s charity, the Central Asia Institute, has issued fraudulent financial statements, and he has misused millions of dollars donated by schoolchildren and other trusting devotees. “Greg,” says a former treasurer of the organization’s board of directors, “regards CAI as his personal ATM.”

Those who know Mortensen well, know that he's a bit quirky. They know too that when memoir is written, sometimes events are compacted in time. Dialogue is spiced up a bit, and longer, detailed scenes are gutted in favor of action. Action...just the action ma'am.
What bothers this writer more than anything about this scandal is the book tour. Allegedly, Mortensen is picking up $30,000. speaking fees, globe trotting on private jets, and avoiding questions of the media about his integrity. Thus far, we can't pass judgment on all of this until it sorts itself out and a public accounting of the money and facts occurs. But it does beg a few important questions for writers in general and writers of memoir in particular. Are we being asked to forgo accuracy for action? Is our audience so fickle or so dependent on sensationalism that we must knowingly tweak the substance of our personal stories in order to gain favor with a mass audience?
In my recently completed memoir, I constantly grappled with these issues. I found myself responding to constructive criticism with ethical replies. My inner memoirist was screaming, but that's not what happened. But that's what you want to happen, or If I wanted to say that, I'd have written a novel. It is the job of the memoir writer to find the action and the sensational within the truth. Our stories, as they actually happen, have the power to captivate even the toughest audiences. It's our job, our ultimate challenge to tell them in ways that do just that.
It ain't easy. But it's oh so necessary. Otherwise we end up fabrication. We end up prostituting ourselves to a popular culture that often sacrifices the deepest personal or political for the glitter of overt violence. A publication industry that sometimes panders to the quick buck with no regard for ethics or substance. This explains why Snookie of Jersey Shore, in my view the most inane TV offering of the century, gets a book deal.
Bleak as all this looks, there is another side. I recently received an email from an old friend. In fact, a very special old friend. After 40 years, I found myself talking to one of the VISTA Volunteers I served with in 1970. He'd heard I'd written a memoir of that year through some of the folks I'd contacted and decided he wanted to read it. His note to me mentioned that he'd been up all night reading it from Preface through all 12 chapters and the Afterword. He'd found it compelling and well written. (Thanks Boo) and mentioned that it brought up all sorts of issues and recollections. GOAL!
I realized early on that it would take more time, money, and inclination for me to sell it to a publisher. My goal was for many of my former students to read it, so I put it online. (Readers of this blog will find it connected here) Now I may not be doing too many speaking appearances, or soliciting funds or appear on the most popular top selling lists, but I can say that my memoir is accurate, it occurred...all of it... the beauty and the hatred, the racism and the wonder, the violence, fear, horrible alienation and brutally authentic music of the oppressed..all of it...as it happened.

Tune In

2011-04-14T17:31:00.001-07:00

This week's daily news is certainly full of blues. Ironic that on the 150th anniversary of the Civil War our country seems more polarized than ever. While the self-righteous politicos like to talk about "the greatest country in the world," the quality of life in the USA continues to deteriorate. One day it's air traffic controllers falling asleep in increasing numbers, and another day we learn of even more tax loop holes for the most wealthy and the largest corporations. We've got blood, oil, and greed all over our hands and faces.
In 1861, session was unthinkable. Today, I'm not so sure. Critics of education like to compare the U.S. with other countries. Mostly China and Japan, but increasingly the Scandinavian countries. When I think of life in a country where the kind of energy expended on social justice is minimal because people come before profit, I think about Canada and then Sweden or Norway. Rarely about countries with millions. Maybe it's time for our United States to re-configure. It's been done many times in mostly amusing ways. Last year a very funny but fascinating attempt to divide the blue from the red states circulated widely around the Internet. Worked for me. I could live without ever setting foot in parts of the heartland, Arizona or So. California. The Bible belt isn't on my itinerary and many of this countries most incredible natural resources would be in my half. It's preposterous, I know, but the possibilities are enticing. I'll gladly swap the Everglades for the Napa Valley. The Rockies for the Mojave Desert or Death Valley.
I must say, the heart beats a little faster thinking about a land where those most vulnerable aren't forgotten, the budget really does resemble a moral document, and health care, women's reproductive rights, school funding, environmental safeguards, and a free press become non-issues because most agree on these crucial issues.
I know...POP!
But I can't help thinking about the loss of resources and all the wheel-spinning we do just to have a discussion on these issues that shape the quality of our lives. Reminds me of the Paris Peace talks on the Vietnam War, where the parties involved took months just to agree on the shape of the table they'd sit at.
Recently, a friend of mine decided to call a halt to the status quo. It took the form of just dropping out for a while. Just sitting back and "watching the world go by" as John Lennon sang. I'd love to give that a try. Just don't know if it's in me. Too many reasons to stand up, plant my feet, and keep trying to put this experiment in democracy back together.
BUT WAIT!
I need to rethink what to do about Kentucky and Louisiana. Any chance of annexing Lexington and New Orleans?

Will You Still Need and Feed?

2011-04-07T14:35:00.000-07:00

Dealing with age is something that has never been particularly difficult for me. Like most people, I usually wanted to be older. That changed when my mother was diagnosed with terminal cancer when I was 16. High School was full of the usual adolescent hopes, fears, and confusion, but in hindsight, I sense that I was forced to grow up a bit earlier than my peers. Too many responsibilities that my friends just didn't have yet. At 22, with graduation from college, I left home. I knew I would never return and felt a bit of guilt because my father was left alone in the family home. Still, I could and would not live there because I wanted to break away from L.A. and many of the people and the geography that was all I knew.
My father lived ten more years. I visited regularly and even offered him many opportunities to move closer to me as began my career in the Bay Area. I have no doubt, though I am well aware that I could be wrong, that I will outlive my parents in all probability. My peers are grappling with getting older in various ways. From surgery to hair loss or color to just plain acting inappropriately, they struggle. I try to stay healthy, try to embrace what I consider to be the logical physical changes that go with age, and marvel at how I seem to have fooled some of my new friends who think I'm a bit younger than I really am. The latter is probably the case because I tend to hang out with younger folks like the people in my writing group or the student teachers I mentor. Of course, I have older friends. Many, like me, are physically mature but think youthful thoughts. Thoughts like try not to resist change, be careful about being too judgmental, and realize that this is a different world than the one our youth inhabited.
This morning I awoke with a certain Beatles song in my head.
"When I get older, losing my hair, many years from now...
Will you still be sending me a valentine, birthday greeting, bottle of wine....

Today is a good day to be 64. I have an answer to those questions.

Sudden Accountability

2011-04-04T12:53:00.000-07:00

I'm sure it's been done before. It must have. Still, I keep thinking of another way to counter all the nonsense about teacher accountability I keep hearing from non-experts who nonetheless make policy. Any teacher who has been in the classroom for more than just a few years has them. They are notes or letters. Sometimes scrawled on everything from a 3x5 note cards to Hallmarks, Post It Notes, fancy stationery or plain ol' notebook paper. Sometimes the come quite unannounced if the form of emails. Like the one I received a couple of years ago from a student I'd had in class 15 years earlier. In many ways the sudden thank yous are the most rewarding because they answer the questions that could only be answered after the passage of time. How many teachers ask themselves daily, Am I making a difference? Even after they retire, the question becomes did I make a difference? And then these little notes appear. In some ways they never stop appearing.
I've come to believe it's time to collect these messages and print them in an anthology or two. They are the best data we can use to fight the corporate takeover of our schools. They contain what no standardized test could contain. They tell the tale of what cannot be measured. So, yes, It must have been done before. There must be a book or two with titles like Letters to the Teacher I really must look sometime. If by any chance it has not been done, then someone ought to do it; perhaps I will. Until then, I offer one here.

Hi Mr. Greene~

I have often wanted to send you a thank-you note for the incredible experience I had with you as a student at El Cerrito High School. I just cannot tell you how many times, and in how many ways, your class has helped me in the 15 years since leaving high school. Your passion for teaching, your ability to expose your students to your rich perspectives without seeming overbearing or condescending, is a true gift bestowed on all of us who were fortunate enough to learn under your guidance. I still vividly remember the amazing, albeit sometimes obscure, books, the fishbowls, the posters and music… and I could go on and on. You truly opened my eyes while feeding and encouraging my curiosity. I really credit the experiences in your classes for making me a deeper, more critical, thinker and a person willing to stand up for what I believe in.

This is not my best piece of writing and it probably does not adequately express my gratitude. I really just want you to know that you have left a lasting impression on me and I am so lucky to have had you as a guide.

I hope all is well and that life has been good to you.

Take care,

Rachael (McDonald) Ford

I will take care. I will take great care to make sure that accountability takes many forms.

Jingles

2011-03-29T14:21:00.000-07:00

This week produced two very fine slogans. Sometimes, someone says something in a few words that just shoots through all the other verbiage and makes nothing else necessary. Such was the case when a recent blog written by Peggy Robertson used the line,"I will not feed you, but I will test you."
What's useful here is that all those critics and pundits, and the billionaires who think they can do education reform, must face the fact that poverty is deeply embedded in any crisis in education we currently face. They never want to see that. This summer, at the million teacher march in Washington D.C. I expect to see small children holding signs with those few words. Maybe then some folks, with other agendas will get that about 23% of this country lives in poverty. As always, real poverty is invisible. Poor people wear the mask well and it takes a thousand forms. Back in the 60s there was a neat little slogan that went, "the poor pay more." In Texas, during my VISTA training, we had to investigate that notion and see f it was, indeed, true. I recall going into local mom and pop stores and seeing outrageous prices for a single egg. A dozen eggs back then would go for 59 cents in a super market. But in the ghetto or barrio, it was not uncommon to see a single egg go for 7-10 cents. The little corner stores also gave credit, so if you needed to feed your family for a few days,and the end of the month was a week or two away...you get the picture.
Today I noticed that at Trader Joe's bananas are 19cents each. Those same bananas go for 69 cents a piece at my local 7/11 store. I guess that's the price of convenience.
Another slogan that says so much with so few words came out of the mouth of John Stewart recently. "They're firing teachers and missiles now." Oh yeah. We hear about the extravagance of public employees benefits. Those overpaid teachers and fire fighters. We read about the tax loopholes large corporations like Standard Oil and General Electric have, and nobody seems to ask about our military budget. How many could have benefited from the money the fighter jet shot down in Libya cost? So now we have three hot wars and none one "declared." What happen to letting the Congress talk about these issues before acting. Time to revisit the War Powers Act? Oh I forgot, it's the way you get a doctrine. So now we have the Obama Doctrine. I want a doctrine too. How about we fund our schools, provide "liberty and justice for all" so that corporations pay their share of taxes instead of running off to Switzerland (in name only) and then if anything remains, we can selectively take up the cause(s) of human rights violations in other countries after we debate the merits.
As always, the poor (which is most of us) pay more.

Paper? Plastic? ...Poetry

2011-03-27T18:29:00.000-07:00

c2010
B.L. Greene

Poetry and Groceries
I.
My grocery store offers more than food,
Fiery temptations to taste aged cheese, compare olive oils, or sip free trade grinds,
So I take time,
deter impulse,
advance ideas,

In the WholeOatsWildSeasonsNewFoods grocery store hides a magazine rack,
Beyond health and current affairs, sidestepping Gourmet, Outside, and Harpers
My eyes rest on Poetry Northwest,
Two chairs, like campfire stumps, invite.
I read poetry
before
buying toilet paper,
admire similes
before spinach.
II.
Yesterday, while camped,
a poet takes me to Market Street at dusk,
riding the streetcar into the amber breast of darkness,
looking for a lover in red shoes.

I must not forget to pick up milk.

The boundaries of age and wisdom make me an observer now,
Each day youth depreciates like an oak desk,
An atrophied bank account,
A fine wine,
turning.

But in the market aisles, I’m finding unbridled joy in bread sampled,
the palate of apples,
a butcher’s banter,

Hours later, I see myself at 30 in the eyes of a coffeehouse model.
Brushing crumbs off her Levied thighs,
talking to her computer screen,
Must I avert my eyes?

It’s her black cowboy boots I want most.

Near and Far Sided

2011-03-22T19:27:00.000-07:00

Sometimes I wonder if cartoonist Gary Larson ever lived in Portland. Some of the Far Side images he draws seem to appear in this town. I see them everywhere. If not at bus stops, on the sidewalks, in the grocery stores, and most definitely in the pubs, bars, and coffeehouses so abundant here.
Last night I took the 10 minute drive from my home to Three Friends Coffeehouse to see the weekly Monday evening program and try out a couple of new poems during the open mic they always have. Gary Larson would have loved this audience. Just enough one-of-a-kind folks to give him material for another year. But then that's Portland. Where else can you get two hours of poetry, original music, and a few inexplicable other "performances" for very little cash?
I arrived at 7:00 just in time to catch Robert Griggs, an 82 year old former Beat poet who has called Oregon his home for many years. Griggs read for about 20 minutes, saying at one point," Here's a poem I wrote 50 or 60 years ago. I tried to throw it away two or three times, but it just kept coming back." He was in good form. As is the custom, he was followed by two of his friends who offered very different styles. One read poetry, actually sonnets all based on Aztec culture and the other read mostly anit-war rants that pumped up the crowd and set the tone for the open mic that followed.
I was too casual and almost missed the sign up because I ran into a poet friend of mine, Shawn. He had just returned from Japan, where his wife is from, and recounted a riveting tale to me of driving on the coast before the tsunami hit. Shawn said that he saw the ocean recede and there seemed to be hundreds of black pointy things left behind. Sea urchins. By the time I responded to this I noticed the open mic was about to start and ran to see the sign up list. Only #5 was left. The first two readers left a bit to be desired. The energy was good, but the material wasn't either funny or profound. Next came a wiry artsy looking woman in her 60s who announced that she hadn't been her in about a year but tonight she was going to do something she'd been thinking about for a long time. That turned out to be singing. Her offering began just fine; a little verse about dreaming and dreamers. She then launched into what can best be described as a kind of folksy scat singing. The time limit for the open mic is 7 minutes. After about 8 minutes of her repetitious tune, Melissa, the woman who runs the events there just started clapping. Everyone followed suit. The woman emerged from her trance, mumbled something like someone just awakened by an alarm clock and then accepted the applause of relief. Glad I didn't have to follow that. By the time I read my two poems and returned to chat with Shawn for a moment, I realized I'd had enough and slipped out the back door. One of my poems was about a recent tragedy in Amish country where a family of 7 lost four of their children when their buggy overturned in a rain-swollen creek. As I was getting up to leave, one of the more vocal patrons asked, "You're not Mormon, are you?"
I love this place. It's like a good poem: unpredictable, emotional, puzzling, satisfying.
Oh Yeah, I'm going to read those two poems I tried on that crowd tomorrow night at a more formal reading. We'll see how that goes. Depending on the reaction, one or both of those pieces could end up here.

Coalition

2011-03-20T16:25:00.000-07:00

On Friday, March18, we went to a memorial service at the Japanese Garden in Portland. It was a simple ceremony and vigil in memory of the loss of life in the recent earthquake and tsunami. This garden is arguably the most peaceful place in Portland. It lies at the base of the west hills and features an overlook where it is possible, on a good day to see both Mt. Hood and Mt. St. Helens. It was not a good day for viewing the mountains, but the small crowd assembled was not about sight seeing.
A local Buddhist monk chanted, and then we were offered the opportunity to take a small bit if incense and place it into a burner, as is the custom. This we did.
Participants in the service were also encouraged to walk the grounds of the garden and reflect/worship/mediate/contemplate...in their own way about the recent tragedy. The location resembles one big Zen garden. There is also a small stream that empties into pools filled with Koi.
Other events were simultaneously taking place in the city as well. Groups gathered to take part in other tsunami related services, anti-war demonstrations, and education rallies. A harmonic convergence, of sorts.
In my long history of demonstrations, and vigils, the simple ceremony at the Japanese Garden was singular. It gave a glimpse of a sane, non-violent, serene world. There was something timeless about it, something inspirational, if I dare.
Today we hear that the U.S. is military is involved in yet another country with the news from Libya. All the arguments sound hollow when we rely on the old "humanitarian crisis." How many other crises of a similar nature do we ignore. I just ask that (oil) the commander in chief, (oil) and his advisors, (oil) and the pundits, journalists, (oil) and other countries involved in this "coalition." tell the truth. This time.
Item: the number of American military suicides last year was slightly lower than combat deaths.

All Things Japanese

2011-03-16T15:14:00.000-07:00

The world is watching all things Japanese these days. If the nuclear radiation worsens, it seems as if we'll remember the events of March, 2011 for the meltdowns, rather than the Tsunami. Like others, the minute I saw the videos and the photographs, the minute I heard the voices that told the stories...In that moment in time, I thought of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Even if the nuclear reactors were safe I'd have thought the same. The devastation is similar. So too is the massive dignity of the Japanese people.
I sense that scientists and geologists will learn a good deal from these events. So will anyone who follows the story. That story is one of heroism, stoicism, discipline, and always hard, hard, work.
My best friend in high school, Tomio Nishimura, first showed me those values. Like me, he was soft spoken but passionate about learning and living. It wasn't until I had studied history at the University of California that I learned of the Japanese American experience during World War II. I guess the political uprising of the 1960s was necessary before high school textbooks were ready to tell the whole story. Hard to believe, but throughout my entire friendship with Tomio and the other Japanese-Americans in my high school class, I never knew that their parents and grandparents had been interred in those "camps." It wasn't taught, and they never spoke about it.
By the time I had learned ALL about American history, and began to teach it, a few things clicked in. I learned about the cultural values that make Japan a strong nation and that Japanese people here and there, in Japan, often use to guide their lives. I could list a string of adjectives or "isms" but a better way would be to look at how the Japanese people are responding to this current tragedy.
First of all, it's an ancient culture. That means there is tradition, there are roots that go deep; and even though they may have been undermined by a Tsunami, this is a nation that will survive. If, as the only country to be the recipient of two atomic bombs, they survived in the past, they will survive now. Reporters and journalists are astonished by the lack of looting and the calm demeanor of the people as they attempt to gain some measure of control on all that has been destroyed. This too is something Japanese. It is a reminder that even if tragedy brings out the worst in nature and people, it can also bring out the best. Sometimes one inspiring story is enough to want to continue on.
Over the years I have allowed myself to learn from my Japanese students and colleagues. They have helped me keep perspective when my inclination would be to become overcome either by fear, anxiety, anger, or depression. It was with Dina Murakawa, a former student and friend that I first started an Amnesty International student group. That group has survived long after we both moved on with our lives. It was with colleagues Jan Matsuoka and Carol Tateishi from The Bay Area Writing Project that I first learned to question my practice, value social conventions like bringing a gift to social occasions ("It's so Japanese," Jan would say as she asked us to stop at a store many times. "I just have to do it, I can't help it.") and consider the difficult question of asking all my students to speak in class.
So now, in these difficult days, I wish to play the role of student because I know there is much more to learn. If/when I meet with my student teachers I'm sure the topic of helping young people understand these historic days will come up. I will encourage them to begin by understanding all things Japanese.

Why They Don't Know

2011-03-10T14:15:00.000-08:00

"They don't know what they don't know." That's a phrase often heard when I discuss how complicated and difficult it is to be a full time teacher today under the present circumstances. In supervising beginning teachers these past few years, I've heard myself say it a few times. Case in point: two of my student teachers have previously taught on the college level and severely underestimated how much more work teaching high school can be. When you add in nuanced approaches to dealing with adolescents, their parents, some school administrators, and the current climate, you begin to get the picture.
Not knowing is a useful definition of ignorance. We can't blame people for being ignorant if they were never in a position to learn, grow, question, and/or receive accurate information. Too bad the term ignorance has such stigma attached because we might be able to use it without it being a pejorative.
When arrogance links itself with ignorance you get a different animal altogether. Such is the case with the current handful of states and their governors bent on taking collective bargaining from public employees. I wonder how many of those legislators even know the history of how those rights were won?
Though it seems a dark time for teachers and other public employees, there is still plenty of light at the end of this ugly tunnel. What they don't know is that teaching was, is, and will continue to be the ultimate political act. What they don't know is that in all their posturing, bluff and bluster, they cannot begin to comprehend or control what goes on behind closed classroom doors. I wonder how many history departments are reviewing and revising their labor history at this very moment in time?
When will politicians get that they know very little about what it means to educate a human being? They are going to learn a difficult lesson in the days to come. I'm not naive enough to believe that teachers will be able to organize themselves in such a manner that they might display the power the truly have. I know better. I know that some of my colleagues would not abandon their students or their classroom for any reason. Unfortunately, I disagree. Like the Declaration of Independence says, "when in the course of human events it becomes necessary..." This is the part that states there comes a time when you have to stand up and say enough! For teachers, standing up may be walking out.
Now the Republicans, Tea Party fanatics, the uninformed, the ignorant, and all those without the empathy gene, will no doubt clamp down on that one. "Abandoning your duties," "If they really cared about kids," they will say, "good riddance," others will counter. That might last a few weeks, but make no mistake, it might be necessary, as it was in the 1930s, to shut it all down. It could happen. Chances are it won't, but just sayin,' this time it could.
If it did, if a General Strike like the one in San Francisco in 1934 occurred it might really get interesting.
My only hope in all of this is that the truth comes out... in all forms. The tactics are getting despicable, the methods of manipulation more sophisticated, the consequences grave.
As I wrote this blog entry today I was listening to CNN. In an all to short piece on Wisconsin's current struggle I heard a Republican strategist say that the average teacher salary in Wisconsin was $100,000. I choked, then I checked. Latest figures put the average somewhere under $50.000. Wisconsin ranks 22 nationally and almost $3000. under the national average.
But there it was, in stunning arrogance...more ignorance.

Trifecta

2011-03-06T11:11:00.000-08:00

Astrologers call it a grand trine. It's when 3 planets align 120 degrees apart giving the appearance of an equilateral triangle. I'm not the best at math, and hardly into astrology, but it's an intriguing metaphor for the current state of affairs. At one end we have the current wave of democracy rolling over the Middle East and North Africa. Powerful stuff; definitely an idea whose time has come. Libyans now rebelling know full well that they are in for the fight of their lives. This is no Egypt. But they will not turn around now. Their inspiration is currently igniting fires in Yemen, Saudi Arabia, and Iran. Point two on the triangle is none other than Charlie Sheen. He's chosen to place his bi-polar self on the airwaves every day for pundits and pseudo-journalists to pick apart. He too inspires the immature, the uneducated, the duped. They admire his "life-style," his obscene income, and his choice of female companionship d'jour.
Finally, the massive 3 point shape is anchored by the battle for wealth and power currently taking place in state capitals like Madison, Wisconsin, Sacramento, California, and near me in Salem, Oregon. For Sheen, it's the CBS executives, the LAPD and anyone who would tell him something he doesn't want to hear. To Sheen, he's winning. It's all about winning. Certainly some democratic uprisings are about winning too. Col. Gadhafi, also quite reminiscent of a manic megalomaniac, has already announced he will take his last breath of air and shed his last drop of blood in the land he so earnestly sucked dry. He will win or die trying. Likewise Gov. Scott Walker, the committed union buster covets a win too. His personal psychology is entwined with coming out number 1 as well. We're just now finding out how he was disciplined and ultimately dropped out of Marquette University for campaign violations during a student body elections. This purveyor of democracy wasn't endorsed by the school newspaper, so he decided to destroy all copies of same. Great preparation for governing a state, don't you think?
So here we are, witnessing the grand trine of decomposing political battles.
Now I can't speak for the freedom fighters in Africa and Asia, and I certainly even utter a sound for Charlie Sheen. But when it comes to my own situation, I have no problem. What we have hear is a battle royal for power and money. As much as I'd like to believe the struggle for unions and a decent wage is at the bottom of it all, I know better. Eliminate unions and you eliminate funding for the Democratic party. Convince an apathetic public that test scores are true indicators of outstanding teaching and you have a say in how budgets are funded and money is spent. (wealth and power)
When you study the history of this republic, one thing emerges repeatedly. Our great conflicts come down to questions of human life and rights vs. wealth and profit. You know where the legal system usually lines up on these issues. What's different this time is that the gulf between haves and have nots has never been so wide. In monetary terms, there will be a price to pay. Along with rising gas prices and blood pressure and flags, and consciousness, will come the tides. As the old labor song used to ask, "Which side are you on boys? (or girls) which side are you on?"

Simple

2011-02-27T12:31:00.000-08:00

On a dark, sub-freezing morning last week, I drove out to Gresham High School. Portland's little flirtation with snow was all but over, but there were some patches of black ice that could ruin your day in a hurry.
I like the drive out there because it's due east from where I live and when I get about half of the 10 miles down the road, I often get a nice view of Mt. Hood.
I allowed a bit more time on this day just in case the traffic was thicker because of the dicey streets. Black ice can be a killer because, unlike snow or rain, it's largely invisible. This morning was darker than usual, but when I neared my destination, a shadowy figure loomed up ahead just to my right. The mountain, in all it's stunning glory appeared more a black shade someone had pulled down to keep out the cold. Still the shape was discernible. Then a remarkable thing. The sun, milky and distant peaked over the mountain's shoulder. There they were, vaguely visible but definitely paired up for anybody to see.
The image reminded me how simple some things can be in all their complexity. The day that followed extended this metaphor.
Because the previous day was a snow day, attendance was lighter than usual for a Friday. The student teacher, whose Global Studies class I was observing, was wondering what to do with his lesson plan if some key students were missing. When a substitute failed to appear on time, the CT (Cooperating Teacher, in whose classroom we were) invited those students to come across the hall until someone arrived. So there we were, 2 classes and 3 teachers and the window of opportunity that any true teaching moment affords. Jack, the student teacher, made a few adjustments an both classes participated in a group activity/discussion based on the characteristics of social movements that lead to revolution. From Egypt, Tunisia, and Libya, to what is currently going on in Wisconsin with the battle for collective bargaining rights, to the Civil Rights movement, to Gandhi, MLK, and the anti-war movement of the 1960s-70s, the kids considered it all. Probably one of the best discussions any high school class could have. What started out as a busted up day turned into arguably one of the best of the school year. It often goes like that.
On my return trip I realized two things. Like that image of the mountain and the sun, democracy in the Middle East is on the rise and here at home, we're going the other direction. All those hard fought worker's rights are being threatened by dark forces who do not value human rights over cold, corporate, cash.

An Open Letter

2011-02-21T21:28:00.000-08:00

Dear Family and Friends,
Given the momentous events of the past few weeks at home and abroad, I'm sure we're all watching with interest how these crucial situations are changing the face of democracy. As one of my treasured compatriots (if you are on this list, I treasure you, like it or not!) I trust that you keep up with world affairs and I suspect that the irony of democracy threatened here at home is not lost on you. That's why I want to share some thoughts with you and why I seek your comments on same.
In short, the siege on public employees and teachers we're now experiencing is as serious a threat to our democracy as anything going on in the Middle East.
In this age of instant communication, the costs and benefits can work in favor or against the dissemination of the truth. To be succinct, public schools and the teachers they employ are under attack. Both the profession and the hard fought rights that involve everything from due process to collective bargaining are threatened. Most of this assault is under the guise of balancing budgets or overspending. Make no mistake, that is hardly the truth. As noted economist Robert Reich said in a recent commentary, "The problem isn't that we've been spending too much. It's that most Americans have been getting a steadily smaller share of the nation's total income."
What we have here is a deliberate and concerted attempt to break unions, and place the blame for everything that's problematic or "wrong" with public schools on the backs of teachers and/or the struggling poor and middle classes. One has only to look at the people and organizations behind many of these so called "reform" efforts to see the big picture. These corporate, hedge fund backed, wealthy (I might add greedy) organizations have no real interest in educating our nation's children. They are all about control, punitive measures, exclusivity, and deceptive use of the all mighty "data." Privatizing and Corporatizing public schools is their agenda. This, of course leads to all manner of undemocratic consequences like de-facto segregation, but it also deepens the gulf between "haves" and "have nots" in this country.
So what's at stake? Only democracy, that's all. If we lose a viable public school system, what will we have lost? Tell me what you think.
Like me, I'm sure you have thought about what it means to live in a culture that values diversity, education, learning for it's own sake, and equity. Unfortunately, many in our country have either abandoned those principles or have decided that they don't matter any longer.
When I think about the future; that is, the world our children and their children will be inheriting, I'm troubled. To be sure, the universe of social media that we are just beginning to explore will make us closer, but it will no doubt make us distant in ways we have yet to imagine. The technology is often about imagery, if it's about anything. Books, photographs, landscapes, people become simulations. Could educating students in a democracy share the same fate? Programs like NCLB or the current "Race to the Top" are examples of the illusion of reform. They are ill-conceived and, unfortunately, appease those who would blame the victim (students) or those attempting to educate. (teachers)
If you are still with me, let me say only one more thing. I write because I'm deeply concerned. I value your perspective and seek your thoughts as well.
As you may know, I taught for 33 years. I know full well the problems in public education. I know there are people who should not be in the teaching profession, as there are doctors, lawyers, politicians, and corporate executives that do not belong in their chosen fields. BUT, the time has come to defend public education. There are millions of dedicated professionals that put in long days at under resourced, ill-cared for facilities. They know that testing is not teaching. They know what it really means to educate a human being. They are on the verge of losing any semblance of integrity and due process to heartless politicos who have no idea what it means to be a teacher. Lastly, there are millions more students, (like many of us) who were educated in public schools that prepared them for careers, occupations, community colleges, state and private colleges, as well as our nation's most rigorous, prestigious, universities. Our public schools are the true essence of our democracy. It's time to stand up and support them. You can do that in many ways, even just telling the truth.
Bruce

No Blinking

2011-02-20T14:26:00.000-08:00

Looks like some of the fervor over democracy in the Middle East is spilling over into the state capitals of many states as governors scramble to slash budgets and exert the corporatizing of public education. In Wisconsin, neither side is willing to blink. But while the media emphasizes the attack on teacher benefits and salaries, (other public employees too) the real battle is over the right to bargain collectively. If ever my fellow Americans were showing their ignorance of their own history, it's in situations like this. Many have no concept of how the struggle to unionize workers yielded everything from minimum wage, to an 8 hour work day, paid vacations, and the entire structure to bargain collectively and grieve unfair practices. Right now, Capitalism is devouring Democracy. An old labor song says that "every generation got to win it all again." So true. At this writing, demonstrations in state capitals are being planned in California, Colorado, Oregon, and New Jersey. Other states will follow; battle lines are drawn.
Underreported in all of this is the attempt to break up the last of the influential labor unions. That's what all this is about. Republicans know that with no voting bloc in organized labor, they can easily dismantle the Democratic party, and with it the control of Congress, the courts, the immediate future.
Last Friday night, speaking on Bill Maher's program, journalist Tavis Smiley said it best. "Budgets are moral documents."

With the privatization and corporatization of public education comes all the evils that teachers are currently resisting. Skewed data from unreliable tests, data driven curriculum, and all the soulless quasi-reform efforts that make both students and teachers dread going to school.
I'm excited. The time to take a stance is now. I wish an organized body of teachers wasn't such a "sleeping giant." It's the sleeping part I worry about. I hope the train hasn't left the station. Ten years ago, when enmeshed in this crisis, if I started to voice a passionate opposition with everything that's wrong with public education I would be mistaken for a teacher that's burned out.
I vividly recall telling people who genuinely seemed interested in these issues that I might be tired, I might be discouraged, I might be angry, but I AM NOT BURNED OUT. Hardly.
Until we live in a culture that has the will to care for all it's citizens, we will have this unrest. Until our governments have the will to care for those most vulnerable, those most deserving, we will have this unrest. Slowly, more and more people are able to determine what is worth fighting for. Those folks will do what it takes. No blinking.

But I Try and I Try

2011-02-14T20:08:00.000-08:00

This year's Grammy awards had something for any musical taste. Too bad we didn't get to see some of the more "esoteric" categories, or even hear the results. But with CBS at the helm, it was more an entertainment extravaganza than an awards show. I think the show was on for an hour before the second award of the night was presented.
As expected, the dress code is wide open and many of the winners actually performed right before their names were called. For me it was all about the new and the old. I've been trying to help some folks my age explain to a genuinely curious young man, why Bob Dylan is so revered. You'll never get a clue from his voice today or even most of his performances. History lessons are required to deal with this subject. Fortunately Martin Scorsese's film No Direction Home will do the job well. One Facebook thread I've been following has whittled itself down to people from all over the country sharing their favorite Dylan lyrics. Seems to be making an impact on this young man. He had only to ask.
Of course a 67 year-old Mick Jagger strutting out a tribute to the late Solomon Burke was a thing of beauty. People in that crowd had a sense that seeing Mick's first Grammy performance, ever, was something to cherish. He's still soulful, full of energy, and knows how to work the crowd year after year. Satisfaction.
Watching musicians age is poignant. We grow up and we grow wise with the music of our time. As our favorites age and pass on we lose a little something of ourselves. But the music remains. It always remains. We may have to change the way we access our music, but it will always be there. So many people I know are figuring out how to "do music" these days. As soon as they got comfortable with CDs, I Pods came along. Some of us don't want the computer to be our key hole to everything we do. It might be inevitable, eventually, but right now we still have choices.

Probably the most satisfying thing from Grammy night came near the end with the announcement of "Best New Artist." No mass selling pop star this time. A beautiful Jazz bassist/vocalist from Portland took the big prize. Surprise, Surprise Surprise. Esperanza Spalding is on the brink of a huge career. She gave the Academy the opportunity to award talent and originality and they did just that. The little girl that saw Yo Yo Ma on Mr. Rogers Neighborhood and decided she wanted to play a "violin" (she called the cello a violin at age 5) will inspire millions. Don't know if a shocker this big will ever happen again. What is clear is that right now more than a few 18 year olds are reinventing themselves. They are planning colorful costumes and the logistics of arriving in giant eggs or hanging from and ultimately dropping from the sky. It can't be helped. But for now, there is quite a bit of satisfaction blowin' in the wind.

Big Red

2011-02-07T13:57:00.000-08:00

I finally saw the Secretariat film last week. I had been warned, so my disappointment wasn't as great as it might have been. A pleasant distortion of many of the facts, but still entertaining. Disney at its best, especially the undercurrent of "Oh Happy Day," the spiritual-inspired tune by the Edwin Hawkins singers running throughout. It soars during the big climax at the end too. Disney being Disney.
So the question becomes, why can't Hollywood, or anyone for that matter, make an honest horse racing film? Seabiscuit was OK, but the documentaries are always better, in my view. I think it's a matter of will. Now I have no expectations from Disney. You're going to get happy endings and that's that. Even at the end of the film, when they show the real individuals on screen and do the where are they now? messages, Disney won out again. When Ron Turcotte's picture appeared, instead of mentioning that he was a paraplegic, the caption said he was injured in a racing accident and now "rides his wheelchair." No shit. I'm sure there are some Zenyatta ideas in the works. Certainly not the same kind of tension there, but even after the mare wins 19 in a row, and then loses her only race by a nose in the Breeder's Cup Classic, there are disbelievers.
Of the few things I know something about, two have an interesting similarity when movies are made about them. As an educator, I always marvel at how teachers are rarely seen teaching a lesson in class. Ever notice how the bell rings in the classroom of about 14 students and most of the dialogue and action takes place after class? On TV it's even worse. All those TV shows with teachers as main character, and we never see them teach. Why do you suppose that is? A notable exception would be Stand and Deliver, where Jaime Escalante is actually shown teaching math and Calculus. But screenwriters and directors rarely show teachers planning curriculum, teaching lessons, pondering over student writing, dealing with any one of the 14 major decisions daily that researchers tell us are just part of the profession. I wonder how long it will be before we see the hours grading papers after the school day is over, or teachers spending their own money so that they might be able to teach a given lesson or book.
Similarly, in horse racing films, jockeys are always wearing their silks all over the place. They are in silks in the morning, in the barn area, after the race. In the starting gate, they always say things like "you'll eat my dust" (twice in Secretariat!) and rarely speak more than a sentence or two. Just once I'd like to see them reading or talking to each other in the jock's room.
One of the things that I first noticed when I first became a turf writer was how diverse the community of the backstretch really was. And not just ethnic diversity; it could still use a bit more there. But class diversity, for sure. It's really a microcosm of the larger culture: high brow to low brow, God fearer to atheist, dropout to advanced degree.
So they don't get it right...so what? It's a simple matter of will; that's what. Some decide what story will be told, some decide what story they want to hear.
I suppose there is another side when we do finally see something different. Recent National Book Award winner Lord of Misrule would make a great film. It deals, however, with the most ugly and despicable people and circumstances of horse racing. The little universe swirling around Indian Mound Downs, the fictional setting for this tale of low life where the grass is not only less green, but often dying, contains kernels of truth. It has to battle the stereotypes, of course, but it's a gritty tale filled with horror, suspense, and just enough sex and violence to make some screenwriter come calling.
Come to think of it, they do make TV films about teachers gone astray. The ones that get involved with former students, or the pedophiles, or the unethical. It's what sells, isn't it?

To Download or Not to Download

2011-01-30T14:17:00.000-08:00

I've heard a good deal of discussion lately about E books. Many people I know are quite concerned about the recent revelation that downloaded books are outselling the traditional variety. It's no wonder, they are certainly less expensive. Even paperbacks are moving towards $20. these days. Most downloads go for half that price. But that's hardly the issue. It's really about the real thing as opposed to an electronic version.
Lately, all the electronic versions are looking more like paper books; some even have a simulated turning page. (That's hysterical, isn't it?) But many people I know are completely unwilling to give up their books. Some are quite worried about all this. I think it's a moot point. What will be, will be. And, believe me, it is going to definitely be. So much so that many college "bookstores" will no longer sell books. That's right, it's happening right now. Students either download or rent books. Lots more room for sweat shirts, bumper stickers, and all sorts of rah rah paraphernalia.
I wonder if other generations dealt with the oncoming technology in a similar fashion? We could no more stop the development of the computer, the automobile, or the camera that we will or want to stop what's happening to our literature. To my friends I say relax. Keep your books, buy your books, hold you books, sleep with your books, worship your books. I do. You should be able to live your live comfortably assured that the "book" as you know it will always be with you. Do I think that something huge is going to be lost when all the world downloads. Absolutely. But neither you nor I can do anything about that. We can only go with what works for us and sit back and enjoy the sweep of evolution. It is, however, fascinating to think about a time centuries in the future when humanoids will discover books. I'm sure there will be stashes discovered just like ancient tombs. Pages and pictures will be fondled. The tactile wonder of it all!
I wonder what those books will be worth?

Oh by the way...I found my original copy of Hesse's Siddhartha the other day. One of my student teachers will be using it in a class he's teaching very soon so I thought I'd give it a re-read. I was prepared to buy a use copy for 6 or 7 bucks if necessary, but, as I suspected, I kept the one I used in college. I'm the original owner. I noted that the price I paid for this "new" copy was $1.25.

It's True, I Swear It is

2011-01-24T16:57:00.000-08:00

Last Friday I watched the first episode of Portlandia, the new tongue in cheek parody of life in Portland, Oregon, my fair city. Funny? Yes, in parts. A little over the top? Definitely.
Today I read a bit of a review from Newsweek which contained the following:

There are certain things every Pacific Northwest native knows:
* You must love the outdoors.
* You must eat local and organic.
* You must brake for pedestrians, even when you’re in the middle of an intersection with a green light.
Now here’s what a Pacific Northwest native who returns home after living in another city knows:
* You will hold back your frustration after 45 minutes in the checkout line at Trader Joe’s, because the cashier will insist on having a conversation with everybody coming through the line.
* You will experience uncontrollable road rage, because in the Pacific Northwest, there is no difference between the right and left lanes.
* You will spend 10 minutes standing in front of a row of trashcans, trying to decipher which of the five recycling bins and three compost piles your candy wrapper should go in.

Trust me when I tell you I agree with everything on this list. On the eve of my 5th year living in the city of roses, I find all of the above to be the absolute truth.
Why, just yesterday I went to my local New Seasons grocery store. You know, the one with the row of trashcans referenced above. I had only a few things and found a checkout line with only one person in front of me. She was right out of the casting call for Portlandia in appearance, but that's no big thing, especially in these winter months. Currently I'm seeing all manner of colorful winter leggings under skirts which are over pants. This 20 something in front of me was only purchasing one thing, a small jar of some henna hair product with which to treat her raspberry colored hair, no doubt. I waited until the conversation between the clerk and the customer ended. That's what we do up here. Our grocery clerks ask how our day is going, what we have planned, if we have tasted one of the newer products we may have placed on the counter, the weather, and any number of other possibilities.
Not everything depicted in Portlandia is a stretch. Ask anyone.

As Others See Us

2011-01-20T18:40:00.000-08:00

Some years ago I went to an Italian festival in San Francisco. I'm not Italian, but being a Bay Area resident at the time, this yearly event featured great music, art, and of course...FOOD. The festival back then took place near Fisherman's Wharf on a roomy pier that featured both indoor and outdoor attractions.
After sampling some lovely garlic infused pasta and a robust red wine, I wandered into a nearby display of photographs. The history of the Italian community in San Francisco was on display. I found myself engrossed in a few of the photos more than others. Perhaps it was because of their size. They had been enlarged to life size and covered large portions of the makeshift walls used for their display.
One particular photo that caught my eye was of a 1926 milk truck. It beautifully captured all the detail of what was then a state of the art motor vehicle. I was fascinated by the tires, the bumpers, the detail of the upholstery, and the steering wheel. Then I noticed what appeared to be a group photo. On closer inspection it was just that. Only this group of people, about 15 in number were posing in front of a large wooden vat. The description next to the photo explained that the picture was taken near Daly City just after Prohibition began. The photo featured a wine maker selling his contraband to the local Italian community for use at their Sunday dinners and special occasions. One of the men in the photo had a burlap bag over his head. He was the winemaker! (Hiding his identity)
So I'm standing there looking deeply into these 15 faces that range from children to middle-aged folks, when two people join me in scanning the photo. A man who is at least 80 and a woman in her 50s are enjoying the historical photo as much as I am. The older gentleman begins to cry, slowly at first, and then breaks out in wailing sobs. I turn to the woman, who it turns out is his daughter, and ask what happened?
"He sees himself as a young man in this photo." She points to a dark swarthy young man standing in the rear almost hidden by a tree and says, that's my dad in 1927."
That moment has remained fresh in my mind. What must that have felt like? Was his reaction normal? What's normal? ow many emotions might be captured in seeing a former self? There is something about this experience that won't leave me alone. It's become a Zen Koan for me. Are we only who we are now? Are we always who we were? Sometimes, when I read an obituary I see pictures of the deceased at various ages. Seems somehow fitting. A more complete picture, I guess.
Seeing ourselves as we once were can be a profound experience.

Time for a Kenneth Patchen Poem

2011-01-14T10:41:00.000-08:00

Sometimes, nothing else will do. I have enjoyed sharing Patchen's work with some of my Portland poet friends this week. He remains a profound influence. Now
More than ever,
I think the saying goes...

There Are Not Many Kingdoms Left

I write the lips of the moon upon her shoulders. In a
temple of silvery farawayness I guard her to rest.

For her bed I write a stillness over all the swans of the
world. With the morning breath of the snow leopard I
cover her against any hurt.

Using the pen of rivers and mountaintops I store her
pillow with singing.

Upon her hair I write the looking of the heavens at
early morning.

-- Away from this kingdom, from this last undefiled
place, I would keep our governments, our civilization, and
all other spirit-forsaken and corrupt institutions.

O cold beautiful blossoms of the moon moving upon
her shoulders . . . the lips of the moon moving there . . .
where the touch of any other lips would be a profanation.

Healthy Choice

2011-01-11T12:15:00.000-08:00

How deep does a culture of violence go? Apparently deep enough that we have varied ideas when trying to sort out the rantings and ultimate assault of a psychotic young man in a Safeway (irony not lost) parking lot in Tuscon, Arizona. Yes, our airways are filled with hate speech, intolerant sound bytes, all manner of pseudo commentators with agendas as transparent as Saran wrap. Yes, actions have consequences, so that when Sarah Palin uses gun crosshairs on a map to target members of Congress we don't really believe she intended them to look like a surveyor"s view. Yes, over the top video game graphics and content desensitizes people to violence. How could it not? But other, less apparent ironies abound.
One has only to look at the smiling face turned mug shot of this troubled young man to know that his "elevator does not go to the top floor." While the media interviews former classmates and teachers, while the shooter's mother cries for days, while the detectives review everything on this disturbed young man's computer...where are the concerns about mental health? Ironic that Congressperson Giffords, who fights for her life, also fought for health care. Crucial, too that the onset of schizophrenia occurs most often between the ages of 17-25. If you look at the ages of school shooters, political terrorists, those who commit hate crimes, those fascinated by the politics of perversion, a strong correlation exists.
I wonder how many of those stone colored Arizona strip malls have those big box sporting goods stores that sell weapons of crass destruction. Could Jared Lee Loughner have purchased his gun of choice in any number of Sporting stores easily found on any number of streets in any number of cities? No doubt. There will be calls for gun control, calls for city ordinances, state laws, maybe even a Constitutional amendment. Always are. Perhaps Rep. Giffords, herself, will one day take on this issue becoming the living poster child of the cause. We've seen that before too.
But will anyone take note of this tragic incident in the context of U.S. foreign policy. The irony of homegrown terrorism. The way we parse the killing of human beings depending on place, culture, political objective, natural resources, vindication. Are the images of war from Iraq and Afghanistan really any different than a shooting in a parking lot?

Then You Are Not

2011-01-07T10:26:00.000-08:00

2011 is turning out to be a big year for Mark Twain. Go into any bookstore and you'll see his telephone book sized autobiography for sale. Twain cleverly left notice that it was not to be published until well after he and anyone mentioned were no longer around. It's not surprising that someone as perceptive as Mark Twain would take great care to insure that the truth would hold sway over anyone's attempt to alter anything he might have wanted us to know.
So it is with equal fascination that Twain's work has again come under scrutiny and truth is on trial. This week, New South Publishing announced a new version of Huck Finn which replaces the n word with slave. Some see no difference. I get that, but I beg to differ. School boards have already tried to censor writers who use the n word in historical context. Richard Wright's Native Son comes to mind. Is this being too PC. Are we that sensitive that we can't handle the truth?
I argue that we can have it both ways. No, I'm not referring to changing anything. We can (and should) avoid censoring or changing great literature while still being able to handle the context and time crucial to its understanding.
Is it a supreme irony that the U.S. Congress this week in it's opening session tried to censor the reading of the Constitution? The timing couldn't have been more perfect. How long before it takes that the majority of citizens are unaware of the 3/5 clause, relating to African Americans held as slaves, or the precise wording about who is and is not a citizen of this country. These are not minor issues. How long before someone decides that another novel needs word substitutions? Will that slope be sufficiently slippery to glide on over to history books. After all, gas chambers for human beings do not conjure up pleasant thoughts.
We really ought t protect ourselves from ourselves on these matters.
I would be the first one to line up in support of the power of the written word. Language matters, words do hurt. Read Toni Morrison on the power of language if you need a refresher course. But censorship hurts just as bad, and it comes in various disguises.

James Baldwin once said, "If I am not who you think I am, then you are not who you think you are."
Wonder what Mark Twain would say about that?

Who Cares?

2011-01-03T13:57:00.000-08:00

I've been reading about a new study that finds a correlation between reading and empathy. Apparently as people abandon reading, I guess that means books, they are also turning away from the innate human characteristic of empathy.
Empathy is what makes us human. It's our ability to feel the emotions of another. Moral emotions is what child psychologist Jerome Kagan calls them. Best definition of empathy I ever heard was, "The ability to feel the whip on the other person's back." Now we know what happens when a person has no empathy. It's like having no conscience. Feeling nothing, no remorse, no moral emotions. We usually call these folks sociopaths because they are a danger to all (society) with whom they come in contact. They were formerly called psychopaths, but that term psycho tends to have media buzz and is best replaced by socio. The study says that as empathy declines, narcissism rises. A real me-first mentality, I guess. I see this kind of human desensitization all over now. I see it in the behavior of people, I see it in how younger people react to one another,though it's not excluisve to age or generation. I see it in what passes for entertainment, music, and in many cases literature.
Case in point: Dexter. After reading some reviews about this Showtime series about a serial killer who turns his fixation and obsession on other serial killers, I agreed to give it a look courtesy of Netflix. New Year's Eve we watched the entire first season. Well produced, if not bloody. A great premise, and lots of cognitive dissonance when you find you empathize with a killer. There's the rub, huh?
When I think of studies about who and how much is and is not being read these days, I also think of the fight many educators are putting up just to have their students read "whole books." In much of the near-sighted school reform efforts of the past decade is the belief that anthologies with excerpts of certain works of literature will suffice for an educated person. I recall, with pride, the waning days of the 2004-05 school year when I joined some of my colleagues and a few student teachers at the time in demonstrating our disapproval with removing entire books from the curriculum. Taking our cues from a teacher in Santa Rosa, Ca. whose name eludes me, we staged a public reading of the novel Ferinheit 451 as a way of drawing attention to both our plight and the ridiculousness of any reform effort that would privilege only excerpts over the whole book. Before long we were joined by students who took turns reading aloud the novel about banning books. As you may recall, 451 degrees F is the temperature that paper burns.
Which begs the question about the use and popularity of E readers. I don't know if people or students who use the burgeoning array of E readers are included in the data of that survey. Could it be that the transition to downloading books will increase the frequency of reading. Perhaps people are abandoning books in favor of web pages/sites? New research pending, I'm sure.
A final caveat: We who would hope that the book survives, that the love of literature endures, need to do more than just condemn. We need to work toward building time and skills and places friendly to reading. Do you care about the alternative?

Not or Never

2010-12-27T10:02:00.000-08:00

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 students to take advantage of all the technology, possibly learn to spell by using the spell check program as a dictionary, and turning in a better piece of writing to boot.
I think it's all a moot point. When are some folks going to learn you can't go backwards on technology. It's wishful thinking. If the technology is available, if it exists, students will find and use it. Punto! (that means period...end of sentence...end of argument)*

I think, too, that the expression, development, and illustration of ideas trumps spelling and grammar. Now I know all about the form vs. substance debate. Both are important, but really now, if you had to choose between the two, which is more important?
What's clear is that things are changing and we have to change with them.
What happens when people are not burdened with making spelling errors because anything glaring will be caught? A few things. Proofreading becomes even more important because of all the typos that waltz through undetected. Take a little commonly made error like writing n o t instead of n o w. "We should now pursue that plan."
Let the spell check teach, let the writer proof read.

Confirm Now

2010-12-21T19:00:00.000-08:00

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 definition of a "hippie" to how the history of the 60s will be written, in the end, we "Friended" each other.
Another confirmation came from the official site of comedian Bill Maher. In his annual Christmas message, he had the "huevos" to say something about the queen of all media Oprah. Here, see for yourself:

Bill Maher's video "Check out my Christmas message t…" on WhoSay

I don't think we'll be seeing Bill on Oprah anytime soon.

Advice

2010-12-16T11:36:00.001-08:00

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 holiday spirit.
It's not that I'm surprised, just slightly disappointed. Has this culture's bastardization of any true notion of this season become so disconnected that even a supposed "expert" can't see what's going on here.
What is the definition of a gift anyway? Is it "something I'd like you to have." Is it "something I thought you would like?" How about "something I gotta do?"
I gave a few people on my list this year what I think is a win/win/win. A local artist, in conjunction with raising money for Gulf Coast Recovery, (BP oil spill) is offering beautiful, decorative tiles with the image of a brown pelican for a contribution to the fund. My family/friends get the art work, the fund gets the money, and I get the privilege of keeping to my tradition of gift giving.

What Do You Know?

2010-12-11T08:59:00.000-08:00

"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 well and when my time came I managed to pack in as much as I could with my allotted 10 min. We never really got to Mandela's release because building an understanding about just what Apartheid was and looked like too the entire time. I decided to do a mini demo about why race is a bogus concept. By having the tallest and shortest kids stand and then the lightest and darkest we talked about how everyone has the same 6 genes for skin color, but that the biggest genetic difference in the classroom was in height. Fortunately the kids responded well and when a blond, blue-eyed kid volunteered to "be the white guy," and one f only two African American girls in the class volunteered to be the person with the darkest skin tone, the point was well taken.
Before the lesson ended I heard a baby cry. Then more noise and a student got up holding a lifelike doll and slowly walked out of the room with the screaming infant. Immediately I knew it was a doll and what was going on. One of those "Social Living" class activities where students are part of a simulation about pregnancy and childcare. Back in the day we used uncooked eggs as the vulnerable life form. Today, the technology is so advanced that the simulated child looks and sounds real. Only the issues about teen pregnancy and birth control are the same.
When I return to this classroom in a month or so (Winter Break) I'll have a chance to see what they know about Mandela. I did mention, though, imagine what it's like going from prisoner to president?

I noted too that someone in Portland last week dropped a S. African gold Krugerrand into a Salvation Army bucket. It's worth about $1200. these days. No mention was made about the system and working conditions that produced that coin. Merry Christmas.

About the Money

2010-12-09T18:44:00.000-08:00

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, part of his initial salary went to establish a scholarship at his high school. Money well spent. According to tennis great Arthur Ashe, who used to give presentations nationwide, there are only a few thousand professional athletes in this country. That's all. If you take all the pro football, baseball, and basketball players, their number combined is less than 5,000. Given the number of kids who aspire to be professional athletes is in the millions. Ashe used to say that the odds of making it to the big show were 1 in 1000. "Would you bet your future at odds of a thousand to one?" he'd ask.
Yet, they all have the dream, and rightly so. Most don't really care about the odds.
A couple of weeks ago I asked a friend about this particular basket ballplayer because it's been almost 10 years now. I was curious if he was still playing in the NBA and if the scholarship fund was still in tact. I knew he had been traded a few times and enjoyed mild success, but was now more of a journeyman. So I decided to do a little research and found that at this point in his career he has played for no less than 9 NBA teams. On his way out? Hardly, I further read that he just signed a 5 year 32 million dollar contract. Guess the scholarship will be around for awhile.
I tell this story only because it underscores more about the values of this culture than a 10,000 word essay, prolifically illustrated, ever could. He's on his way out of the NBA and is earning 6.2 million a year for the next 5 years.
Every year people try to convince me and others that we really care about education. That it really isn't about money. That this country and culture are the greatest ever. (BTW why must one always be better than all others?) I certainly don't begrudge any professional athlete form earning a living wage. But really now...
The battle lines have been drawn in this latest attempt to ward off a corporate takeover. Teachers won't be signing 5 year deals but like the world of corporate athletics, will be under pressure to produce or fail to make the cut. Their stats will be published in the local press, if injured, their contracts will not be renewed. Unlike the pro athletes, they feel no pressure to terminate their education early. In fact, as teachers, they are lifelong students.
No, it's not about the money. I wouldn't know how to live on 6 million a year. I wouldn't want all the madness that would bring. Aside from a decent place to live, if I had excess money I'd travel. But then, I think a teaching credential should be a boarding pass to anywhere at anytime anyway.

Say Something

2010-12-03T16:37:00.000-08:00

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" I began with a little story that needs to find itself into these pages. Before Act 1 began, I told my classes about my friend Ed Robbin. Ed and I were featured players in a performance called "An Evening with Woody Guthrie" that survived in many bars, taverns, community theaters, fund raisers, benefits, and campus auditoriums throughout central and northern California from 1979 until about 1986. Ed knew Woody; in fact helped put him on the radio when he first got to California. He joined our little troupe when it was evident that his recollections and stories of the Depression era would really provide a contribution to the overall production. Ed died shortly after we stopped playing the circuit of clubs and coffeehouses but during those years we became good friends. His experience as a writer and theater director were an added bonus. So it was no surprise when Ed asked me to accompany him one night to a preview of a major new play in San Francisco. The playwright shall remain anonymous, but suffice it to say, he's a known award winner and very much alive. On this particular evening the director invited audience members to remain after the final curtain and participate in a discussion about the performance. Ed indicated he was interested. We found our way to the first few rows center stage in the Geary Theater (I'd never been that close before) and soon the director came out. The curtain opened and the cast were sitting in a half circle on chairs right in front of us. A question and answer session ensued. Within a few minutes Ed raised his hand and all present turned to look at this 76 year old, long white hair covered by a navy blue seaman's cap. Ed's olive skin, the deep set lines in his face, the pleasant smile, the distinguished look all made him attractive. People waited anxiously for him to speak because, simply put, he just looked like somebody important. Ed rose.
"You're all very good," he said to the cast nodding his head as he panned the group. "But the play doesn't day anything."
DEAD QUIET
"A play has to say something; this play doesn't say anything."
With that, Ed smiled politely and said, "c'mon Bruce, I'm ready to go now."
I know he was right; the play didn't really say much. I'd tell this story to my classes and then hold up a copy of "Salesman."
"This is a play that says something."
As a writer, Ed's little escapade has never left me. Seems like there are a lot of emperors out there today, and they've all got new clothes.

Thanks, giving (Sic)

2010-11-28T11:12:00.000-08:00

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 begins, 6 year old melts down, Bruce, take out this recycling and trash, where's the beer? How come I can't get online all of a sudden, what time is dinner? 8 year old demands water, now! Detroit Lions are actually winning in the second quarter, Bruce get a turkey roasting pan and rack, and twine for stitching up the turkey (it's 5:00 p.m. on the Wednesday before Thanksgiving. How many pizzas will it take? Bruce can you replace these light bulbs... one of the nephews asks me about Portland, forgetting that he's a recovering alcoholic I tell him, among other things, that it's a great town, especially if you like beer. "I liked it too much," he reminds me. No need to stuff the turkey now, just stuff my mouth. Bruce fold these towels, 9 year old trips and falls needs attention. This kid needs a first aid kit around her neck. Detroit loses, again; I really want to duck out the back and go have a drink with some former students who are now in their mid-20s and 30s, window of opportunity slams down when no one moves to do the dishes and I won't let the ants win this round, diswashing and clean up become meditation time. I never forget those less fortunate, out there in sub freezing weather with no family attachment, no certain overnight place, those who experience holidays like this one as a day ling tear drop, waiting for sun up on just a normal...Bruce this garbage needs to be taken out...
On the morning after I meet a friend for coffee and we go to Golden Gate Fields for a couple of hours. I see a few familiar faces, more gray and white hair now. "I couldn't really retire because I need the medical benefits, so I guess I'll just keep working."
My horse wins, but gets DQ'd (bullshit!) and my friend's horse gets the money; so does he. That's O I play one more race and cash a ticket and get ready for the trip home.
Next day, 12 hour drive becomes 14 as we do the chains on chains off? dance up the interstate. The snow falling is beautiful but a cautionary tale...road condition and weather change abruptly. By Ashland, a good meal, place to pee, chance to walk around, better radio station. Gas goes from $3.24 to $2.89 ... By Eugene, a Saturday evening radio show with a stoned wilting flower-child playing Grateful Dead concert recordings from the early 70s, zzzzstaticzzz, she morphs into Portland's Jazz station as far south as Salem....we be-bop into town, over the Ross Island Bridge, up Powell Blvd. over to Division, and around Ladd's Circle and down my street. Leaf picked happened and curb is in sight. Home in time to see Portland now has a Christmas tree bomber. Still, my dental appointment on Tuesday next doesn't look so bad. Scuse me, got to take out the garbage.

Mom and Pop Psychology

2010-11-22T14:56:00.001-08:00

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 always a reasonable expectation.
"You teach people how to treat you," is a favorite phrase of TV psychologist Dr. Phil. We all know what he means, and he is quite right. Isn't that another version of The Golden Rule? I offer a small example here. Last night we got in to the Bay Area from Portland. 12 hours straight through to Berkeley, through rain, sleet, a little snow, just like the USPS. As this is written, I've been here 24 hours and my mother-in-law is teaching me well. Oh she's teaching me how to treat her all right. I'm going to avoid her as much as I can because she has taught me to; she's treating me right now like her errand boy, handy-man, naive, son. I am none of the above, so I have learned to make myself scarce. In a day or two, other family members will arrive from all over and there will be grand kids and much ado and some of the nephews will inherit the chores and demands of the grande dame. Till then, I'll keep learning. I will take out the trash, the recycling, and run a few other errands for her. I am not a rock and after all she is 85 years old. But first she'll have to find me. It's not the list of tasks, it's her manner, pure and simple.
The Beatles said it well too. ...And in the end, the love you take, is equal to the love you make." Like Eliade's "Myth of the Eternal Return," it's a final summing up on the cosmic scale of justice, isn't it?
But like most things, it's complicated. Of course it's important to treat others as we would like to be treated, but it is not always possible to do that, I submit. There may be circumstances, because of who we are, that discretion is the better part of fairness.
I remember anti-war activist David Harris trying to explain to a group of inquisitive students why each person has the responsibility for ending war by looking deep into themselves first. To say war will only end when each individual chooses not to participate certainly is understandable, but it is difficult for many to understand. Yet the principle is sound.
"Look," Harris would say, if you do shit all your life, what you are left with at the end is a big pile of shit."
Some say dharma, some say justice, some say a lesson taught, some say "what goes around, comes around."
It's all golden.

Sometimes It's Just Tough

2010-11-16T09:42:00.001-08:00

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 was like any job. Hardly.
So, all in all, it was a good day. When someone has a tremendous burden lifted, the change in personality is immediate.
It made me wonder, though, how many unhappy people in the profession would feel a similar sense of relief if they were allowed to make that same, tough decision. We talk all the time about easing some folks out of the profession. I remember one colleague of mine and I used to secretly consider placing want-ads and job classifieds into the mailbox of someone who was supremely ineffective as a teacher. Just to let him know it was OK to move on. Arrogant? Presumptuous? Mean-spirited? Yes, I suppose. But I'd counter with caring, supportive, enabling, as well.
This latest experience is all the more fascinating because the student teacher that is no more was young, just starting out. I have another this year who is much older; in fact, almost as old as me. He has the mental toughness and ability to be self-critical that it takes. He gets that teachers, like their students are remarkably resilient. He'll learn, in time, how truly complicated teaching and educational reform really is. Don't think so? Take a look at this:

Congratulations

2010-11-11T19:47:00.001-08:00

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 that," she said.
"No, a writer, but I do notice things like that."
We proceeded to talk about how hard it is to find the time to write and how most people, if not everyone has something to say.
Could have talked longer. She mentioned she wrote things for her job, but procrastinated when it came to her own attempts to be creative.
I decided then and there I wanted to save her, motivate her to take the time to write. But check out at the store is hardly enough time to weave magic.
"Nice talking to you."
Maybe it didn't end there. I suggested she try a blog. Maybe she has more to celebrate.

So Zen

2010-11-07T06:46:00.000-08:00

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 behind the head of Blame, a magnificent competitor in his own right. But it was always about Zenyatta. From where I see it, it still is. We won't see anything like her again in my lifetime.
My forced walk so early this morning gave me the opportunity to figure out a few things. Like the sport of horse racing itself, the race horse is a mirror. It reflects outwardly everything that we are. From the worshipers and haters, to the addicted gamblers, the artists, the dreamers. From the children and the uninitiated, to the child-like and the veterans, we all come to drink from the fountain and we all leave something.
We wanted perfection. Just one time. But Zenyatta took our burgeoning hubris and reminded us... nope, not this time, or ever. It doesn't work that way.
What we are left with is knowledge, insight, and wonder. The kind of things that can come in a dimly lit walk in the rain at dawn. That's not so bad after all.

On the Wall

2010-11-01T11:15:00.000-07:00

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 politically conservative. Of course there are those horse folks whose views are similar to my own, but for the most part, some real value conflicts exist. They are rarely, if ever expressed. Maybe that's a good thing. Are they as tolerant as I am? That's what I wonder. Do they notice these glaring differences in worldview? Do they care?
One thing is certain, I have never been "de-friended" for my political view as far as I can tell.
I like to think that I may be tempting others to think about the kinds of things that I post. Guess that's the teacher in me. But then I also know that no real comprehensive level of discussion ever takes place on Facebook. Quick comments or a thumbs up click are most often as far as anything gets. Maybe some folks look at an article or video posted. That's a start.
I'm still sorting this situation out in my mind. I think there is something here; just not sure what. Any ideas would be greatly appreciated.
A few hours later...
Part of the current political climate involves painting most people with the same broad brush. Labels do that, the media exacerbates the situation, and our thinking becomes exceedingly loose. We seem to have lost the ability and the opportunity to have a civil discussion. I want to pitch an idea for a TV show. Another kind of reality show, perhaps. Not Politically Correct. That's been done. Maybe just correct. A chance for people to explain their beliefs and what supports those beliefs. Then have everything fact-checked. Invite people who listened to a reasoned, comprehensive discussion and actually changed their mind about something or re-thought a conviction to explain what happened. Most of all, discuss what it means when people who don't think alike on anything or many things actually become friends.

Do You See What I See?

2010-10-24T15:23:00.001-07:00

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 down the volume on one of those pseudo newscasts and just watched the body language. Points made verbally were often followed by laughing, wide grins, real schoolyard behavior. If you had to guess what these folks were talking about from this silent viewing, you'd be hard pressed to say it was anything worthwhile.
And now John Stewart, one of the funniest comedians around, wants to lead a political march on Washington. Certainly if Glen Beck can, Stewart should be able to. But what's really going on here? What does that say about the real marches in our historical past?
With 500 cable channels, the opiate of the masses is as widespread and toxic as ever. I reprise the P.T. Barnum quote, "Nobody every went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American people." In this culture, where over 50% did not read a book last year, where the majority care far more about Dancing with the Stars than the infrastructure of public schools, public roads, or campaign finance, where candidates for national office have not read the Constitution (no really) the illusion reigns.

Song of Ourselves

2010-10-21T12:53:00.000-07:00

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 a standing ovation at the conclusion.
What struck me most was how many of Whitman's lines hold up these many years later. His comments about war, equality, the need to own or possess things, human rights, and simply being in the moment are all just as important as they were back when.
Mass poetry readings are a good way to build community. Who's next?