Big Things in Small Packages

    Thirty-one years ago today I sat in a hospital room in Hanford in a state of almost total stupefaction. In my hands I held what most people refer to as a "bundle of joy". Don't get me wrong, babies are a bundle of joy, but the feeling I most remember is the anxiety of knowing that party was over; it was time to grow up.
     I was in the room when she entered into this world, and I was in something of a trance. Birth is amazing. Walking down the hall way to tell her grandparents, I felt like a 100 lb. bag of feed had been placed on my shoulders. It had to have been that heavy or I would have floated off.
    We named her Haley for some reason, (Haley Mills, I suspect) it means "the game changer" in the mother tongue. I entered the hospital that night a scared teenaged boy masquerading as a twenty-seven year old man. Walking out the door that morning, I took the first real steps on my path to manhood. I had help bring something rare and wonderful into the world and was given the task of nurturing and protecting it.
    Because I wanted to do what's right, I quit my wastrel ways. Because I didn't want her to be ashamed of her father, I went back to school and got my degree.  She has changed my life more than any other factor.
    Babies don't come with instruction manuals, and  they are often dropped willy-nilly into a world where almost any moron can take one out for a test drive. I know that haven't been the best father in the world, but it isn't from a lack of trying to do what's right. More often than not, I have so many times,  not really understood what I was supposed to do.   Looking back on my life, the advice that I would give a new parent to avoid making the mistakes I have made is, "Love your children with all your heart, and let them know all the time that you do."

Heads Gotta Roll!

    When Dante Alighierie wrote the Divine Comedy back in the fourteenth century, Hell was probably roomy enough. But surely, the ensuing seven centuries must have created a need for larger accommodations.  If the ninth circle was reserved for the fraudulent and those who were guilty of serious betrayal, how much deeper into the abyss would we have to journey to find a place for those who have killed their fellow man because they were texting while driving?
    This has not only created a new gold standard for stupidity, as well as a serious need for an addendum to one of the world's great pieces of literature,  it has also has enlarged our vocabulary as it has expanded the definition of the word ironic - "Killed by a driver who was texting." How much more ironic could it be to get  up one morning raring to go, get in a car, and then get murdered by a moron who was texting, "Duh, LOL"?
    I think this calls for the perpetrator to spend eternity in something like the 23rd circle where they would be embedded for eternity up to their neck in the frozen firmament with the their cell phones placed two feet in front of them, and miniature demonic versions of Snooki and the Situation gnawing on their fingers.
  Somewhere, someone has to be keeping score of this stuff. As Americans, we tend to think that none of  our stupid behavior really matters, but it is getting harder to ignore that we are getting a bit worn down at the edges. The whole country has become a tad bit manic. It used to be guys like Jimmy Stewart and Henry Fonda who were the Everyman, now it's Dennis Leary and James Wood.
   Someone has to be observing us somewhere with a clipboard and pencil stuck behind their ear, clucking and nodding sagely without explanation every time we exhibit some new form of idiotic behavior, and the thing is,  he/she has gotten progressively more and more jaded as we have gone from stuff like slavery, racism, mobsters, genocide, etc to ever more abstract forms of deviant behavior.
   This person would have been outraged at first while watching the Dutch bargaining for Manhattan with their fingers crossed behind their back and $24 worth of plastic beads. Then, they would have sobbed uncontrollably as they witnessed a passing fashion trend bring about the near extinction of the American buffalo. By now, however,  it has probably gotten to a point where they merely roll their eyes as the rest of the world struggles with the vagaries of human existence, and America sits in a overstuffed easy chair, beer in one hand, remote in the other, drooling while the people from TMZ laughingly discuss how one of their minions ambushed Jimmy Kimmel at his uncle's funeral.
  Getting back to Snooki. What must the rest of the world think of this country when someone, whose greatest creative achievement lies in the art of passing gas, is hired to speak at one of our most prestigious universities? We have become so used to having our distaste in these matters voiced by some eastern brahman type with a tweed suit with brown patches on the elbows, speaking with a nasally Harvard drawl while dangling a pipe to make his point. We always start to listen but end up saying, "Who gives a crap what this guy is saying."
   But in this case, it's the guy down taking down the Christmas (winter holiday if you prefer) decorations for the city who should be outraged. Our college students should also be outraged. Our beautiful college students, who so readily paint signs in bold day-glo colors screaming "No War for Oil" as they blithely ignore the fact that they drove a car to the protest. "But it's a hybrid", they say in defense pretending to believe that their mother's Prius runs on some mystical, magical blend of used coffee grounds, recycled sewage, and love.
  They did what? No, that couldn't be. I am stunned. Our college students wanted this? I couldn't see this coming. I mean just because they have taken what used to be a holiday associated with ultimate sacrifice, salvation and hope and changed it to mean in our current vernacular, "A time to vomit on friends and strew beer bottles and used condoms on Mexican beaches", surely does not mean that the best and the brightest that our country has to offer believes for one moment that Snooki has ever in her life said something that was worth $80,000.  If that was really the case, what would they pay to hear the winner of the Kansas's Ninth Region Championship Belch-Off?
    Then there is always someone masquerading as the responsible adult in the room who offers up a weak justification. "We are just giving them what they wanted." As if  trying to be cool is the new  get out of jail free card of the Internet Age. It's not enough. If these kids want to mate with primates while rolling down the freeway in stolen shopping carts, would if be our job to raid the Rite-Aid parking lot and bribe a corrupt security guard at the zoo?
 In the words of Robespierre, "Heads need to roll!"

"And Now a Shout Out To My Homies at GM and Ford"

    I just watched a documentary on Joe Stummer and the "only band that mattered", and it disturbed me a little .  I have been more than a disillusioned lately by the state of American culture in general. I am also living under cloud of my own making which has something to do with whether or not I'm going to be able to keep up with the speed of transition in this interconnected world.

   On one hand, I am bloody amazed and excited by the potential to expand our knowledge  of the universe, but, on the other hand, I am worried by the fact that, in the past, such change has usually been the harbinger of overwhelming death and destruction. I am so more than a little bit worried about the lack of intelligence that some of my fellow humans seem quite happy to exhibit.

   Back to Strummer movie, I have always been a little bit amused when an musical artist is willing to shout out a few bits of anticapitalist  ideology,  how many fans are willing to turn off their brains and fall groveling at the artist's feet and painting them as modern day Robin Hoods.

To me, it is a bit pretentious. I am always reminded that there were no great rock bands coming out of Russia under communist rule. There are none from China. There are some good rock bands in Iran, but if they get caught playing rock music, they are imprisoned. Most of them would love the opportunity to be able to get up in front of an audience and bash the restrictive nature of the regime, but it would probably cost them their life.

  I wish that just once, one of these Robin Hood minstrels would at least offer a disclaimer, "We are going to sing our next song "Kill the Greedy F####g Pigs", but first, we would like to acknowledge the role of the free enterprise system in helping to create an environment of free speech where artists like us can say what we think to people who have absolutely no concept of history and have those same people buy our music."

   Nothing more than that. I am not asking that Bono quit strutting around like he's a better dressed Ghandi or for Rage Against the Machine to go and promote free speech in Venezuela. Just a disclaimer, that's all.

Dog-paddling in the Sewer

 I recently read  a blog that my daughter wrote regarding the surrealistic circus that has become American culture. I agreed with most if it. I took exception to her statements about Casey Anthony. I know she wasn't defending the baby killing mother (my opinion), but I felt she leaned a little bit overboard in criticizing the America's fascination with the case and the outrage over the verdict. My own opinion is that everything that Anthony did leads me to believe with a certainty that she committed the crime.  Babies don't usually end up in a garbage bag with duct tape over their noses while their mother is out dancing in a club. All the talking heads who maintained that the verdict proves that the American justice system works are one of the more glaring symptoms of our malaise. We lend morons the weight of expertise when most of them couldn't find their bottom with an hour's head start and GPS. Is America right be outraged with the verdict? Definitely.

However, I agree overwhelmingly with the gist of what my daughter was saying. Our culture, especially anything that comes out of Hollywood, is a river of sewage. TMZ is my special peeve. If God were to put America on trial, all the prosecution would have to do is trot out the ratings for this piece of garbage to prove that God should reopen the floodgates.  The fact that we have people hiding in the bushes outside of restaurants, shopping centers, bars and airports trying catch celebs with their mouths open while they chew proves that we have sunk to an all time low.  And heaven help anyone who gets caught in the locust swarm of the 24 hour news cycle.

What is frightening is that ever since we were first warned about television's ability to reduce society to electronic barbarism, we have not heeded a single word. What further debasement awaits us in the future?

Even Roots Change

It is my 59th birthday today. The first thing I did this morning, other than the treadmill, was listen to the youtube video of my daughter singing a song she wrote for me, "Even Roots Change". It has one of my favorite lyrics. Goes something like this, "Even roots change, Even roots grow. Even skyscrapers sway when the wind blows." There it is. Even freaking skyscrapers move when the wind blows!

It conjures up images of swaying skyscrapers, smiling statues, and flowing rivers. No, skyscrapers dancing slightly off beat, like a nerdy white boy, to Dylan's "The Times They Are A Changin".  Snapping their fingers trying to look cool to impress the female skyscrapers even though deep down in their basements they are self conscious of the fact that they are swaying in the wind and not steadfast and frozen like their fathers before them.

The song is my pick-me-upper. It inspires me and encourages me to face the hero quest before me. In the last year of my fifties, I go forth ready to rumble, Achilles like (if you can imagine a old wrinkled up gray haired Greek super hero, if not, scratch that and think of a fatter version of Don Quixote), ready to joust with the shades of death, ex-wives, memories, and paper hangers. 

Go Dogs!

Flip Flops No More

I can not wear flip flops anymore.
They sit there forlornly by the door.
As if asking, "What's wrong? What have we done?"
How do you explain lower back pain to two large pieces of rubber?
You can't.

The Loneliest Feeling

I have been divorced for a year and separated for over two. Truth be told, we were separated a lot longer than that. I was not a great husband, and  I do not blame my ex for falling out of love with me. It happens.

I also must admit, that there are some exhilarating changes that come with your freedom, for example, not having to answer for everything you do, or being able to go where you want to go when you want to go.

However, the loneliest feeling, one that never fails to make my eyes water, is coming out of a store or bar late in the evening and walking across an empty parking lot to my truck. I always start thinking that no one who cares about me knows where I am or what I am doing. For a few minutes, loneliness spreads across my body like a cold winter wind. It takes me a while to refocus my efforts to move forward.

I also always end up thinking how ironic it is that it took something so simple to make me understand how special it is to have someone waiting for you.

Mexican Food

I have often said that there is no such thing as bad Mexican food. There is good and then there is better. Living in my home town is not good for someone who is trying to lose weight. There are several Mexican restaurants, and they all do such a great job of making cheese enchiladas, chile rellanos, and tacos that I can't decide between them and have to eat all three.

I think that maybe why it is so hard to screw up making Mexican food is because the ingredients are so simple. If that is the case, then how the cooks manage to wring such flavors out of those ingredients speaks volumes about the excellence of the food.

A Work of True Genius

Today in class, we read and discussed the story "Thank You, Ma'm" by Langston Hughes. I love this story. It is short but very powerful, and one of the main characters, Mrs. Luella Bates Washington Jones, is my favorite fictional character. She is someone who could have easily have succumbed to the the hard knocks of her life, but who instead works hard and ekes out a living in an inner city beauty shop. Of simple background, she exudes the dignity of a queen.

The theme of the story is about the redemptive power of love. Not romantic love, but the kind that Jesus and Buddha were trying to tell people about. I think the scene where Mrs. Jones makes the boy wash his face to become "presentable" is an absolutely brilliant use of symbolism. It sends the powerful message that it is how we see ourself in the mirror that determines our actions, and it also says that the key to life is being to look in the mirror and see ourselves as being presentable.

I once a read an article that called Eminem a genius. Reading this story makes me realize that these vile, hate spewing wannabes like Mr. Mathers will
never be real genius. It is a part of the sickness of our age that some consider them so.

I know that growing up in the era of Opie Taylor and the Beaver kind of limits my credibility as to what constitutes genius in these troubled times. I know that it is inevitable that change occurs, but think that the true genius of this age will come in the realm of someone who manages to produce beauty from the rapidity of modern life and not from the hateful musings of rappers. In the meantime, I'll have to be content reading Langston Hughes.

Good Memories

Just got back from watching my oldest daughter in a community theater production. She did a great job, and I was very proud of her. On the drive home, I started thinking about the best memories in my life and how they are centered around my daughters.

As a basketball coach, my teams have won ten section championships, and I have had some opportunities to stand victorious in front of some standing room only crowds hoisting a big trophy. I have to say that it is a great feeling to win the big game, but it doesn't compare to watching one of your children make you proud.

One of my favorite moments was when my youngest appeared in her high school talent show. I didn't know she could play guitar. I didn't know she could sing. She blew the audience away. I was stunned. Every time I think of that night, I am reminded what an immensely talented person she is. She has since gone on to a music career in the San Diego area. She has had many a great moment along the way, but it is that first time I saw her perform that is lodged near the top of my all time memory list.

Another one is the time that my oldest daughter, who was about five or six at the time, put on a one woman broadway show for her mother, her grandparents, and I. She was wearing her pajama gown and had her hair rolled up in these huge curlers. None of the lyrics made any sense, but it did not matter. It was the funniest thing I have ever seen. I laughed more that night in I laughed in whole months. The thing that made it most memorable( her grandparents have since passed on) was how much joy and love was in that room that night.
Raising kids can sometimes be a big pain in the butt, but you do get some great memories out of the deal.

A Much Needed Disclaimer

  I have gone from no blogs to having written four in the last few hours. I am trying to wean myself away from dinner time television. I wanted to qualify one of my previous blogs. I think it would be a good idea to further explain some of what I said about today's keynote speaker.

  I did mean to question her intentions or her very obvious qualifications and achievements. I also did not mean to be rude. I do have a lot of issues with people who are in charge of deciding which way our education system is going. I only have to look around me to see the graveyard of unwise educational decisions that public education has become.

    For example, the decision to bend over backwards for the individual student who can not behave at the expense of those who can and do. It seems to me that we put up with far to much bad behavior than we should. I don't believe in throwing kids away, but often it is this increased tolerance for such misbehavior that corrupts them most completely.

  I have to wonder why too often the people making important educational decisions do not have a social filter that would alert them as to how well their information is being received, do not have the ability to present information in a concise manner, and do not have the ability to summarize important points into short but powerful bites.

That is what teaching is all about isn't it?

Speaking of Strains in the Class System

   In the discussion today about Common Core Standards, there was one thing that did stand out. The lady mentioned that there was to be a significant shift from using literature to using informational material to teach reading.  The reason being that we need to prepare our students for the job force of the future.

    I wonder if people understand what it is really happening. The goal of education should always to create the best human being as possible. We should not accept anything but this goal. The movement toward creating a skilled work force is important, but it should never override the other. Teaching literature well is all about showing the various conundrums and mysteries that human beings must face merely by being alive. This is what makes us human. I think we have reason to be concerned with anything that smacks of choosing the "educating worker bees" scenario over the task of creating great human beings.

In America, the real concern would be in denying our disadvantaged (read those who cannot afford good private schools) kids the right to the same type of education as the ruling classes. This has always been our great advantage as a nation. Seems to me, that this new shift appears to be the rich (business leaders) saying, " We don't need good, well rounded, human beings  (our own kids will handle that role), what
we need are good workers!"

Keynote Speaker Runs Amok

  Today was our back to school luncheon, and my colleagues and I were treated to a symposium on how not to give a keynote speech. I won't mention the lady's name. I will mention that she is educational big- wig who is prominent in the movement for Common Core Standards.
   It left me wondering why is it that the people who tell us what we teachers have to do are usually the worst teachers of all? The lady placed a presentation on the big screen and then proceeded to read it to us (I have had them even pass out copies of what was on the screen). I graduated from college. I know how to read. If I did this in my classroom, I would have no justifiable argument to use to prevent my kids from taking their pencils ( if any still have a pencil) and plunging it eraser deep into their eardrums.
   Being generous, I might acknowledge that the lady and her cohorts have good intentions and some good reasons for what they believe. But, I find it frightening when the people who are making these big important decisions that will impact education in America for years to come, too often don't have the common sense to recognize that it is probably not a great idea to put all the new Language Arts and Math standards on a big screen and go over them line by line to a group of people who had just eaten lunch on a hot day in August.
  Is it too much to ask that at least one of people making these big decisions would know that it would suffice to say that changes are coming, explain why in way that would make an avid Twitter user jealous (heck, use texting abbreviations), and close by telling us that we are the only thing standing between civilization and the History Channel series "Life Without People" becoming a reality show. Really.

Rioting is Wrong, But ........

   After viewing some of the footage of the rioting in London and other English cities, my mind automatically began to anticipate those muddled thinkers who were going to start their analysis of the problem with a perfunctory nod to the wrong actions of the mob, but who would then quickly digress into an obligatory blaming of the class strains in English society.
   It utterly amazes me how many people think like this. They rail against the system, "It was the 20% unemployment that caused bored, angry youths to pillage and destroy out a sense of rage." As long as people think this way, we will never get to the root of the problem.
   It was not the widening of class lines that caused this mess. It was instead the widening gap between people who know who how to behave in a right thinking fashion and those who let their animal instincts run wild.  It is fundamentally wrong to pillage and destroy your neighbor's belongings. The argument begins and ends with that concept. There can be no justification of the actions of the these mobs.
   To even attempt to explain this away as something produced by class strains, is proof conclusive against the very arguments that these fuzzy minded thinkers are trying to make. The poor, the uneducated, the oppressed peoples of the world are not intrinsically animalistic in behavior. Witness the dignity of say Booker T. Washington or someone like Ghandi. Look at the way that the class and character of those who marched with Martin Luther King Jr helped to sway the way that people looked at race relations in this country and abroad.
  What we saw in Britain was the exact opposite of class and dignity. The youth are bored because there are often no consequences for their boorish behavior in schools. They can't read and our culture teaches them from the cradle to be rude,  rebellious and dismissive of social conventions. That are unemployable because they have no job skills to make them otherwise. This doesn't give them the right to behave like animals.
  Instead of blaming the class system. We would be better focused on examining the social/political system that awards power to bungling bureaucrats who really only behave compassionately in order to hear the admiring oohs and ahhs of the slow witted. In their efforts to appease, they usually only manage to strip their victims of their dignity and pride.