Daily Blues & Views

I love this little illustration of a classroom through a teacher's eyes (eyeglasses). This drawing accompanied a NY Times article on educational issues a few weeks ago, but it seems appropriate for so many related things. On first glance, many of the kids look bored or sleepy. To be sure they are. Sleep depravation continues to explain much that the pundits and critics and bashers of the current condition of schools and schooling often miss or dismiss altogether. But kids, especially in a classroom arranged like the one pictured, get fidgety, they yawn, they daydream, they take their time. Some of the kids are reading, some appear unconscious, and some are thinking. By most standards, this is a normal size class. These kids don't look hostile; they don't look angry or "at risk" in too many ways. What's fascinating to me is not what you see, but what you can't see. Even if all the kids were sitting in neat rows perfectly engaged, it would still be ...

June has been kind to me, but I'm crawling out of my skin, anxious to get up into the mountains and check out a few small lakes and streams I know. With rain and snow late into the spring, there is no reason to panic. Still, I get itchy. Back to the bounty of June: two articles published and promise of one more. Some readings and open mic performances, and possibly more. Winning a little memoir writing competition has been a nice boost and now, with warm weather and the promise of some travel, all's well. This morning while browsing around in my local Goodwill, a wonderful bit of synchronicity occurred. Katie wanted to go to the big Goodwill in search of blue work shirts, so we drove down there. I'm always aware of who shops in Goodwill and why, but these days it's most everyone. Definitely a diverse experience for Portland. This morning more blacks and Latinos than white folks, (again, rare for Portland) but who's counting? So here I am walking up and do...

Today I bought a couple of tickets to an upcoming concert. Finally. Something so simple seemed to bring great relief. Here's why: I made the decision to go without waiting for a handful of friends who expressed interest but have been unable to act. It's the Carolina Chocolate Drops outdoor concert at the Oregon Zoo. Great venue, perfect time of the year. July in Portland can be ideal. I just couldn't wait for anyone who was still "thinking" about going to decide. Things don't happen when people think too much. That's what I'm coming to believe. Oh, I know it's not such a big deal, but there is a bigger picture here. Doing is important. Thinking about doing is often ineffective. It's my new mantra. I've lost a few fly fishing buddies too. Nobody died, not yet. But one friend has been seriously ill, another unwilling to travel to Portland, another a new father, (he's in his 30s) and another is a gamble because he's ne...

Last night some of my writer and poet friends and I did a radio performance of our "show" called Love Outlives Us. The performance was originally done at Three Friends Coffeehouse in SE Portland last February. Doing live radio, especially at a listener sponsored station like KBOO, is always an adventure. After some initial guitar amp problems, we settled into two side by side studios and using headsets began the 50 min. program on time. Having to pass around one pair of earphones between three of us was less than desirable, but harkened back to something out of the early days of radio. Seems like all the nervousness and anxiety vanished because we were having fun juggling the headset, moving about the small studio, trying not to rustle our pages, cough, or get caught saying something unwanted into a live mic. It looks like we'll get a good recording of all our efforts. Hard to tell how many people listen to a small station on 10 p.m. on a Monday night. But since the...

Once again the state of Louisiana faces cultural extinction. We can be frustrated and angry at the response time, but with Katrina, Mother Nature still had the last word. This time it's different. Just as the gulf and it's ecology will never be the same, so to will BP never be the same. As one creole fisherman said the other day, "the gulf the canary, and if you don't like what you see here then take heed, it's coming near you next." The oil spill may have made a sludgy mess of the gulf waters, but in another way it has sent out a ripple clear and powerful as a Cajun fiddle. Here's what we can expect now: Lots of critiques of the Obama administration. Even when he's angry, it's hard to see that the President is angry. So what's appropriate here for a head of state? We don't doubt that he is intelligent, that his emotions don't get in the way like they do for most politicians, but perhaps it's time to get righteously pissed....

I didn't go to many movies that year. Living on $180 a month didn't leave room for much after food and rent. But when Easy Rider came to Houston, Texas in the Fall of 1969, everybody on the VISTA project went. We went in groups because, after all, it was Texas. If I told you that after the last scene of the film, the one where Peter Fonda and Dennis Hopper get blown away by shot gun toting rednecks in a beat-up old pick-up truck somewhere inside Louisiana, that some folks in the theater audience applauded, I'd be telling the truth. Long hair on men had not come to the South until later. Dope smoking, motorcycle riding, war-resisting, free-loving counter culture types were thought to be a major threat to democracy, at least one version of it. The hair and the marijuana would come a few years later, but on this day, many in that Houston theater were relieved when the forces of vigilantism restored order in the land. We weren't surprised. Back then we too had the ...

First it was the Apartheid like Immigration law, now the state of Arizona is after "Ethnic Studies." Where do they think they are living? This comes on the heels of the state of Texas renaming slavery the "triangular trade" and putting a decidedly "whiter than white" spin on all the history that's fit to print in their eyes. Make no mistake: this is very dangerous stuff. Where to begin? An objective article I recently read about the Arizona ethnic studies bill said this: "The bill prohibits any class in the state from promoting either the overthrow of the U.S. government or resentment toward a race or class of people, and that advocates ethnic solidarity instead of the treatment of pupils as individuals, and -- here’s the big one -- that are designed primarily for pupils of a particular ethnic group." Oh how it comes around. How fascinating this paradox. Just a little over 50 years ago the dominant "race or class of people" r...