News

I consider myself a reasonably bright guy. If I’m not, about ninety people are going to be real disappointed with the workshops they’re attending this week.  Not brilliant, not earthshaking intelligence but bright enough. So how come I can’t decide what news to read and then understand whatever I choose?

It’s getting late and I need to get some sleep before my morning flight. So when I pop onto Reuters or CNN  or Le Monde to check out the haps, it’s disconcerting to be confronted with a sea of topics, for any one of which I would have to do an hour’s research just to be able to understand import of the post.

I like to keep up to date but the “information age” seems to be getting closer to the “confusion of channels” age. With a few keystrokes, I can locate and peruse much more really important information than I can possibly absorb on a given day.

So, why is it that the TV news rooms in this major market spend most of their time talking blood and guts or laughing at each other’s stupid jokes?

Apparently, I'm a stalker

A young woman of my acquaintance has recently entered into a relationship with a young man, not of my acquaintance. Or so I am to believe, based on the comments recently posted on Facebook, then confirmed in conversation with the young woman.

Naturally, I’d like to know more about the young man in question. So I clicked on a link and checked him out on Facebook.   The young woman would be happiest if I would accept her assessment of the young man and just stay away from his FB page. She even accused me of being a stalker.

Call me what you must but keep in mind my primary identity: I. AM. A. DAD!!!!

Note to daughters everywhere: When you find a universe where dads don’t care to know all they can about boys who might come sniffing around daughters, feel free to move there. Meanwhile, deal with this simple truth: WE. ARE. DADS!!!!

So as soon as she realizes whose page I’m perusing, she starts in on me. You know the rant. “Don’t be a stalker!” Et cetera.

First of all, it should not fall to a 60-year old semi-geezer to explain to a twenty-something college graduate how FB works. But just in case the young woman in question feels the need to be schooled in the basics of social media, here it is: Facebook is not private. It is more about advertising than communication. It is not a place to cache information over the distribution of which one means to exercise any measure of control.

Humph!

Moving on…

Referring back to the preceding paragraph, it seems clear to me (but of course, I’m only a geezer with little significant life experience, so what do I know?) that if there are aspects of his life and times that the young man would as soon keep out of the realm of inquiring Dad-minds, it might behoove same young man not to post them on social media. And to borrow a phrase from their generational lexicon – Ya think?!?!?!?

So the entirely unrepentant and thoroughly self-absorbed Dad of this story went merrily traipsing through the young man’s life history or at least, that portion of it that can be espied through his FB page. I shamelessly read posts, I looked at photos, I checked out friends and friends of friends.

Here’s the tragic, crushingly disappointing truth – I think maybe I’ll like this guy.

Crap.

Space frog

I was looking through the “Week’s Best Pictures” on the Reuters site and one of them just cracked me up. It’s a picture of the liftoff of NASA’s latest rocket, replete with the usual clouds of smoke and steam and the foreshortened perspective achieved by shooting obliquely from below. The gantry has been pulled back and a mechanical arm of some sort is falling away, almost off screen to the lower right.

All in all, this picture is just like any of the thousands of photos we’ve seen since Project Mercury first caught our imaginations.

Except for the frog.

You read that right. In the middle distance we see a frog silhouetted against the clouds of space machine effluvium. The frog ‘s limbs are splayed in skydiver-in-freefall style and it’s clear it leaped from somewhere. Perhaps it was sunning on the gantry and is now in mid escape from the roiling clouds of exhaust. Perhaps it just happened to jump from an off-camera platform at the perfect moment. Or perhaps it fell from space.

Doesn’t matter to me from whence it came. I just really love this picture. The frog leaping just as the rocket lifts off. We make cool machines. But we can’t make a frog.

Spending the future that remains

“Change will not come if we wait for some other person or some other time. We are the ones we’ve been waiting for. We are the change that we seek.” Barack Obama

No, this is not going to be a tribute to the current President. I don’t know or care if he wrote this himself or if it came from an off-camera speech writer. Doesn’t matter. It speaks to me.

I’m sixty years old and (one hopes) currently working at what will be the last job of my career. My children are pretty well launched and have proven self-righting when the occasional rogue wave hits. I’ve finally finished the degree so my bucket list is shorter by one major item.

So I have x number of years remaining to do the things I should do. But what are those things? And what is the fundamental principle that should drive my choices and decisions and efforts going forward?
I have an incredible life partner, better friends than I probably deserve, a decent education and lots of varied experience. Time to get down to it.

How do I bring these things together in aid of – something – so that when I leave the world my last sense can be of a deep and abiding satisfaction?

In the next couple of weeks, I’ll have lots of time on airplanes or sitting in hotels. I plan to spend some of it contemplating this question: If I am indeed the change I seek, what should be the nature of that change?

And what am I waiting for?

The Worm King

In 1485, King Richard III forfeited his life in the process of losing the Battle of Bosworth Field, thus opening the way for a Tudor ascendancy and ending the War of the Roses. But of course, that would be old news.

The new news (Redundant? Just news, you say?) is that Ole King Ricky had worms. Roundworms, to be specific.

According to a story posted today by CNN online, researchers digging in the soil around the monarch’s pelvic bones found roundworm eggs just about there his intestines would have been, had they not rotted completely away about five centuries ago.

The dude was buried in the then Greyfriars’ Friary (Hey, if ‘new news’ is redundant, how come they get to call their church Greyfriars’ Friary? I guess they had fewer annoying grammar rules in the fifteenth century A.D. ) and after much research and hand ringing, scientists determined the burial site lay beneath a current parking lot. So they dug down and sure enough – Kingly soup bones.

Scientists compared DNA from the bones to that of a couple of Richard’s modern descendants in order to confirm the identity of the corpse.

Is anyone still reading? And if so, why? And why do we spend money and the time of what must be some really smart people in finding out this guy had worms? Aren’t there more important pursuits these scientists could, you know, pursue?

Hmph!

If you are still reading – and I certainly don’t blame you if you aren’t – you may want to know that the remains will be reinterred in Leicester Cathedral. Refreshments back at the parking lot immediately after.

Gordon Lightfoot

I was listening to some Gordon Lightfoot while sweating at the gym today and I got to thinking about the lyric. I can get lost in his words. Lightfoot is still performing occasionally at age 74 and I wish I could see him once again before, well, I can’t. But no matter - I’ll be listening to and singing his songs until, well, I can’t.

I’ve always loved his songs. In the days when I was singing for tips – with Bill and with Vala and with Mike G. and solo at various times – I always had Lightfoot songs in the mix. His lyrics are so human and it felt like he was speaking directly to my life.  For example, anyone who has found themselves still longing for a lost love will be moved by the opening stanza from I’m Not Supposed to Care:

I think you have somebody waiting outside in the rain to take you away
You got places to go, you got people to see, still I'm gonna miss you
But anyway
I wish you good spaces in the faraway places you go
If it rains or it snows may you be safe and warm and never grow old
And if you need somebody some time, you know I will always be there
I'll do it although I'm not supposed to care.

He wrote If You Could Read My Mind when his marriage was breaking up but even if you didn’t know that, the song sings just to you. Old Dan’s Record’s can’t fail to put one in mind of family good times. Canadian Railroad Trilogy brilliantly captured the timbre of the Canadian Centennial and a whole country embraced it as its own.

A Minor Ballad is one of the shortest and perhaps one of the most touching love songs ever written in English. I believe I’ve sung it a thousand times and it never gets old. Other faves include Crossroads, Your Love’s Return (Song For Stephen Foster), Did She Mention My Name, (In The) Early Morning Rain, Ribbon of Darkness, the list goes on and on.

I love singing Pussywillows, Cattails simple because it feels so good to sing it. Race Among the Ruins and  Rich Man’s Spiritual  are great up songs to balance out the heart renders like That Same Old Obsession.

I don’t go to concerts a lot – not a fan of long lines and big crowds and half the time you can’t hear the musician, anyway. But I’ve been to a half dozen of Lightfoot’s over the years. And once through an odd happenstance I sat next to him at someone else’s gig that we both attended. Wish I had a cool story for that one but I’m not into doing the drooling fan thing (okay, okay, there might have been drool involved but my heart was in my throat and I could hardly bring myself to look – what of it?) so we basically just exchanged pleasantries. Nice enough guy, it seemed.

I could have him to dinner I think except what would we say? He’s said things in his songs that are so perfect, they need no further discussion. The back story is in most cases revealed in the lyric. Such as in Song For A Winter’s Night:

The lamp is burnin' low upon my table top
The snow is softly fallin'
The air is still within the silence of my room
I hear your voice softly callin'

If I could only have you near
To breathe a sigh or two
I would be happy just to hold the hands I love
Upon this winter night with you

I don’t care to explore Lightfoot’s personal life. I suppose he’s had his foibles. But at the end of the day, he’s spoken to me in a way that illuminated some of the best and worst times in my own life.  I hope each and all of you will take the opportunity to come to know at least some of his songs.

Where is Two?

Some of you have noticed that Two's Facebook page is currently down. Not to worry - this is temporary. It's a requirement for something she's doing for her school.

Auto didacticism (or not)

This word pops up every now and again but seldom enough that I always have to stop and remind myself that it means self-education.

But what does self-education mean? Is it Leonardo Da Vinci or Copernicus exploring beyond the known to find new paths in pursuit of truth? Is it Clara Barton redefining nursing practice by designing new protocols based simply on observation, imagination and a great deal of practicality?

Lincoln was said to be largely self-taught, at least in his youth.

I frequently wonder the extent to which I am an autodidact. I’ve received a lot of education through the good offices of some amazing (and a few less-than-amazing) folks who dedicated their professional lives to bringing to me and others new information, ways of knowing, ways of thinking. But in a very real sense, I defined my own winding, tortuous path to becoming ‘educated.’

Does this make me an autodidact? And does it matter if I am?

A few years ago, I might have said it didn’t matter much. But now, I’m not so sure.

The sheer weight and volume of information that comes our way, through myriad channels and from sources innumerable, makes the construction of a curricular approach to learning somewhat inadequate, don’t you think? How do we understand a pedagogical approach that is so seemingly random in terms of input.

Kahn and Brainerd and others are daily encouraging us to revisit our concepts of how we seek out knowledge and make it our own. But while Kahn et al can put topics uncountable at our fingertips, what we grasp is more than ever up to each of us to decide for ourselves.

I just led a two day learning experience in which I’m pretty sure I learned more than any of the other participants. Oh sure, the ‘students’ learned how to use the software and the managers learned how to make use of the information that will aggregate as they use this system moving forward. But I learned about learning and about not assuming that just because I’m the putative teacher, I’m not also one of the students.  

It seems to me that self-teaching is going to emerge as a critical undertaking for any thinking person. When a few strokes of a keyboard can bring almost any topic within reach, how do we decide when to reach out and grab and when to take a pass?

I’ve worked on a couple of international teams tasked with constructing bodies of knowledge around particular subject matter areas and I can tell you that while such a team must come to consensus, it will almost never reach unanimity. And I think that’s a good and necessary condition. Unanimity on most topics feels too squeamishly close to group think, which is of course the opposite of anything resembling what I would term learning.

On our kitchen counter is the diploma for a degree I recently completed. I’m a bona fide Magna Cum Laude, doncha know. But does that mean I’ve learning anything? I completed concentrations in three different disciplines, wrote and defended a ninety-three page capstone thesis. I did a lot of thinking and reflecting and considering.

But have I learned anything? Anything of real value?

I hope so. But still, I wonder.

When noticing takes a bad turn

Those of you who have been following this string for awhile know that one of my favorite activities is noticing. I notice when I’m on trips, when I’m walking around, when I’m talking to people or watching strangers talk.

I don’t know where I’d be if not for my penchant for noticing. Certainly, it would have been difficult to have written many of the posts you’ve seen here. I believe that most of what people call artistic imagination is closely tied to simply noticing.

I love noticing. So it may come as at least a mild surprise that I’m bothered by noticing today and for the foreseeable future. Of course, it’s not my noticing that worries me.

Mary is at home recovering from rotator cuff surgery and her activities – at least those of an active physical nature – are constrained for the next six weeks or so. But you see, me beloved is not given to sitting around twiddling her thumbs. The more sedentary she’s forced to be, the more her mind works.

And therein lies the rub, from my point of view.

You see, Mary is no slouch at noticing. And I expect she’ll do a lot of it in the next few weeks. But she won’t be noticing glacial peaks or interesting people or much of anything outside our property. No-o-o-o… Mary will be noticing things around the homestead.

You see where this is going, right?

She’ll notice things that need to be fixed. Walls that need to be painted, lamps that blink, loose doorknobs. Mary will pick up on the need for new wallpaper and floor covering, the as-yet-unrefinished hardwood on the main level, a patio in need of pressure washing and lawns in need of pre-rainy season treatment.

The dog house needs painting and some finish carpentry and there are several pickup loads worth of detritus awaiting runs to the dump. One tree needs pruning and another removal. I should really put an extra coat of paint on the front railing, and the gutters probably need some scooping. And all of these things fall within easy visual range of my spouse.

There is nothing – NO THING – more potentially damaging to my future status as a relaxed husband than a Mary with time to notice and ponder.

It’s going to be a very long six weeks.

More about heroes

I’ve been reading Anton Myrer’s Once An Eagle . I loved The Last Convertible and I thought I’d read this one years ago but apparently not. Anyway, it follows U.S. military and social history of the twentieth century through the eyes of an Army officer.

Myrer was a fine writer and a great storyteller.  More than that, he clearly gave a lot of thought to the whole idea of human conflict. Since we’re currently engaged in a major conflict of what I consider questionable legitimacy, reading this book has given rise to a welter of thoughts and feelings.

One of the central themes of this book is the nature of heroism. It’s a subject we could spend hours discussing and never come close to consensus as to what it means. Heroism, that is.

 The word is overworked of late. Professional athletes are heroes. People who do good works are heroes. Folks whose approach to life we admire are heroes. It seems that heroes may be found in all walks of life, seemingly everywhere we look. And that bothers me.

A hero, for me, is a person who has done something heroic. Beyond the pale goodness displayed at some significant risk to self.

Salman Khan is a brilliant guy and a top notch visionary. It’s likely the Khan Academy will lead the charge in re-forming our collective educational enterprise and just might finally – FINALLY – make stellar educational opportunities accessible to everyone. I’m working with a group applying his principles to adult learning and his simple but brilliant reconsideration of pedagogical approaches is changing my world for the better. But is he a hero? Hmm, maybe not.  I’d give anything to have dinner with Khan and I’m fascinated by and beholden to his vision but that doesn’t make him a hero.

Malala Yousafzai was shot by the Taliban for daring to go to school and then encouraging other girls to do the same. Recovered from her head wound, she is back in school and even more vocal than ever about the importance of access to education for girls. Now, Malala - she’s definitely a hero.

We refer to our uniformed military as heroes whether or not the individual in question has ever done anything heroic. The folks who wear their country’s uniform deserve our appreciation and respect. And some of them are indeed heroic. But still…

When we use too wide a brush in painting our heroes, we cheapen the term. And I think it’s a term that deserves to be preserved in its original meaning and import.

Anjezë Gonxhe Bojaxhiu was fascinated from an early age with the lives of missionaries. She gave her life to the “poorest of the poor,” exposing herself and her sister nuns to poverty, malnutrition and truly horrible diseases. The world came to know her as Mother Teresa of Calcutta. For me, she defines the term ‘hero.’

Wayne Morse and Ernest Gruening opposed passage of the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution and they were widely censured for being the sole standouts against sending our troops into a conflict in which we had no legitimate interest except in the minds of Domino Theory adherents.  58,000 American deaths later, they were proven right. They were heroes.

 Gerald Ford was one of my heroes. He had to know that in pardoning Nixon he was signing his own political death warrant. And that pardon was necessary if the country was to start to move on from the toxic political climate that Nixon and his evil crones created. Ford didn’t do it for Nixon, he did it for all of us. And it cost him dearly.

Elie Wiesel – at a time when so many acted as bystanders to the holocaust – devoted his life to explicating the nature and ever ready presence of evil among us. While others assigned the blame entirely to the evils and excesses of the Nazis, Wiesel correctly and courageously pointed the finger at those who knew or should have known of the mounting horror and did nothing.  He’s one of my heroes.

There are folks out there, or at least I hope there are, who will help us find a way to resolve conflict without killing people and blowing things up. It’s the only way the human race will survive.

Cruising at altitude

Yesterday, Mary and I spent about twelve hours driving 360 miles through the Colorado Rockies with Pat and Patty, all above 5,000 feet and maybe two thirds above 8,000, topping out at 14,000 and change. The day before, we took the cog railway to the top of Pike’s Peak (14,000-plus) and then today, we flew home (commercial airliners are pressurized to the equivalent of about 8,000 feet).

This evening, I feel like I’m in a permanent yawn.  And I’m as tired as I can recall having been. Turns out, altitude does not become me.

That’s okay. Mary and I had a fantastic time visiting with Pat and Patty and their friends.

Don’t get me wrong - I couldn’t live in a mile-high location. I’m too fond of oxygen. But I definitely understand why people would go through acclimating themselves to the rarified atmosphere in order to be able to live where they do.

We saw bighorn sheep and elk and deer and marmots up close. Rock formations that could only be formed by the patient hand of erosion. We witnessed virga and pouring rain, dark gray clouds and blue skies within an hour of each other. Babbling brooks and roaring rapids and dry gulches abounded.

We travelled through high tundra and conifer forests. Granite canyons and high plains. And saw firsthand the ravages of fires and bark beetles and time.

We saw where Katharine Lee Bates was inspired to write the lyric to America The Beautiful and understood why.  

Mary and I are unlikely ever to have the scratch to afford whirlwind tours of Europe or cruises to the Pacific islands. Doesn’t matter. There are some truly wondrous things to see right here at home.

Exploring the Rockies

Turns out it’s a sight easier to explore the Rocky Mountains now than it must have been in the 1850s.  

We’re in our last day with Pat and Patty in Colorado before flying back home for Mary’s rotator cuff surgery. Yesterday we took the cog railway to the top of Pike’s Peak and it was truly a lovely day. Today we’ll do a Rockies loop and visit with Mary’s old work buddy in Leadville.

We’ve also done a nice drive up the Poudre River drainage which has been one of my favorite scenic drives since I first did it with Pat years ago.

We have cameras and binoculars and bottles of water. A Garmin gps has replaced hand-drawn maps. Nary a pack mule nor a Sharps rifle to be seen.  Donuts and muffins have replaced jerky and beans in our travel  larder.

Both in the car and on the railway, internal combustion engines have replaced leg power and the sweat on my brow is due solely to the heat of the day. Speaking of the heat of the day, we’re only exposed to it when we step out of the rental car to get a closer look.

We have it a lot easier than those earlier touristas.

Little girls and wishes

When One was in about second or third grade, her grandmother – my Mom - sent her and her sister  Disney princess costumes for Halloween. They were orders of magnitude grander and more expensive than anything we could have afforded at that point and One decided she wanted to wear hers for her class costume party.

Being a good Dad and a total pushover, I agreed to deliver the Belle costume to One at Stevenson Elementary at the appropriate time.  Having signed in at the front office, I was walking toward the classroom costume in hand when two little girls of approximately pretend-Belle age came around the corner and stopped dead in their tracks at the sight of the costume of their dreams.

Seeing the longing on their little faces, I quickly ran through my options:

·         Instantly produce two more Belle costumes;

·         Work out a sharing arrangement that allowed each of them to Trick or Treat in their own neighborhoods, with me running back and forth with the costume;

·         Skulk off toward my daughter’s classroom;

·         Die.

I may have told you the story to this point before. What I haven’t told you is that at odd moments, such as when Two is about to leave for another several months at school on the other side of the continent, I find myself wondering about those two little girls. My little girl got to be Belle that day and now she works at the magical place they all dreamed of back when.

How did things turn out for those would be Belles from Stevenson? I hope well. I hope they still pretend and that one day they’ll be able to provide the perfect costume for their own little girls.

Every little girl deserves to be Belle just once in her life.

A week in the country

I was in Southeast Idaho this week, leading workshops with a good friend of mine for some of the best people in the world. It was a great week both professionally and personally.

I always enjoy the area around Blackfoot and Idaho Falls. Probably not my cup of tea as a place to retire, but a lovely place to visit.

We finished the last day’s workshop about 3:00pm and decided to go check out Yellowstone Bear World before dinner. You drive through – with your windows UP – and gawk at bears and deer and woodchucks and birds and wolves and a moose… You get the idea. Admittedly cliché touristy but it was fun so don’t judge me.

The best part was the petting zoo. The two month fawn fawned over me.

Then, this morning as my plane waited its turn at the runway, I happened to glance out the windows to either side. On the left, no more than a hundred, sixty or so yards away a herd of cows was grazing, udderly (couldn’t hep masef) unconcerned at the jet engines spooling up so close to them. Maybe four hundred yards to the right a classic Midwest Protestant church steeple, improbably pointy and impossibly white, poked up through the trees.

So, just before being propelled to four hundred miles per hour, I got this little dose of country.

Cool trip.

Age and foibles

Last night, I did something truly dumb and it was only by an incredible stroke of dumb luck and fortuitous timing that it didn’t turn into an honest-to-goodness disaster. (And before you ask, no, I’m not about to tell you what dumb thing I did – it’s too embarrassing.)

The thing is, my faux pas had to do with mental failures. Failure to notice and failure to recall and failure to predict. Failure of situational awareness.

And that scares me.

Maybe it should and maybe it shouldn’t but the simple fact is that at age thirty this would have been a woops, sorry about that. At sixty, it’s more of a “is this how it begins?” And therein lays the genesis of my discomfort.

I’ve never been an athlete or developed any particular physical skills but I’ve always been able to rely on my brain. My work is centered there, as are most of my leisure activities. Noticing and recalling and situational awareness have always been my strong suits, my go-to abilities. So when I fail to notice and correct a simple but potentially catastrophic situation, it sets me reeling.

I’ll provide a more entertaining post soon, I promise. But for the moment, I’m sort of tied up with spinal shivers.

Park people

Today I felt like a hamster in a running wheel and the wheel was winning.

I love the work I do and particularly the work I’ve been doing this week but it’s definitely kicking my ample caboose. I’m preparing materials for teaching next week and managing a startup project that I’m not sure I totally understand and, and, and…

My evenings are alternately taken up with the quest for health and the quest for a reasonably clean house and orderly yard. Spending time with mine frau occupies a lot of quality time and of course, there’s sitting around. QUALITY sitting around, doncha know.

The park across from my office has of late become populated by denizens. Bums, as it were. Mostly fairly young, certainly young enough to be working gainfully at something. They take up a lot of the park and in the morning you literally have to step over them to get off the bus.

Between their obvious commerce in illicit drugs and having to walk around evidence of their public and copious bladder emptying activities, they are not what one might call a positive presence. And this particular group makes clear while asking for the proverbial spare change that the line between begging and strong arm robbery is defined only by the near presence of the police. I don’t like that they’re there. And I could do a whole rant about it except that I find myself feeling a bit sorry for them.

Don’t get me wrong – I don’t like them and I DO judge them. They got themselves where they are. They could be working a couple of the crap jobs I worked at the less exalted junctures of my journey to where I am now.

The thing is, I can’t help reflecting that at least once each evening - most likely as they lay down on the concrete swaddled in gospel mission blankets - that street  life is not deluxe and it’s going to get worse before morning.

I wish they were hardworking and dependable and productive and honest. I wish they were willing to do the things I've done to get along in the world. But I also wish they were warm and dry.

Another rant list

Herewith, a list of verbally distributed nonsense that I wish would stop:

·         “…with au jus.”  This means “…with with jus.”  Get it?

·         “You guys,” when used to refer to my wife and me, as by a restaurant server. Pretty sure my wife is a gal. Not going to prove it to you, but it has been categorically proven to me. Not a guy.

·         “Like,” when used merely as unneeded punctuation. A young lady on the bus last week used ‘like’ in this manner over twenty times in two minutes, by the clock. (Sometimes it gets boring on the bus when you neglect to charge your Nook battery.)

·         “…spare change?” We’ve been over this one before but I heard it four times while walking two blocks to the bus stop today.

·         “…don’t…” as in “He don’t…”   Damn, really?

·         “Anyway…” followed by nothing. What does this mean? (Except when I use it; then, it is meaning laden.)

·         “…bitch…” Unless we’re referring to a female canine… However, the more high toned ‘bee-otch’ is entirely acceptable.

·         “Duh!” As in, this is so obvious, you’d have to be an idiot not to understand it. Usually used by someone who is inappropriately confident of their own understanding of the concept in question.

·         “Awesome!” when referring to anything that does not actually inspire awe.

·         “You feel me?” Yeah, my head’s tight to where you’re at.

Moral: When you’re a grumpy old Fudd, there’s no such thing as blogger’s block.

A little insight into the minds of men

One of you recently posted a link on a social network which purports to offer a view into the minds of men. It’s titled The One Thing All Men Feel But Never Admit.  

(Note to poster: I love you, always have and always will. More than that, I respect you probably more than you’ll ever know. If you were an idiot or a stranger, I could let this pass. But you and your thoughts are too important to me to let this one slide.)

The piece is chockablock with unsupported assertions and downright untruths. Ludicrous assertions and hateful untruths.

Between trumpeting that “every single boy growing up in the United States has heard these phrases at least once over the course of his life” and “although men are dying to speak, they are taught to stay silent,” we are supposed to understand and accept that all American males grew up living in fear of being taunted as less than manly.

Hmm.

Why is it misogyny when a male makes a sweeping generalization about women but “insight” when the shoe’s on the other foot?

I’m not sure just how gullible (or inappropriately judgmental?) you need to be to accept the outrageous blather that “most men grow up in toxic environments where they are encouraged to repress their emotions (and) express power through dominance.” Many males are so raised, and to their detriment, I agree. But the gulf between many and most is wide and deep and it’s into this chasm of illogic that both the writer of the article and the director of the film project have apparently blithely leapt.

Through my work I am regularly required to take part in “diversity” training and that would be a positive thing if diversity as understood by the leaders of the effort was driven by a desire to be inclusive. Basically, as an older white male, I am given to understand that diversity means hanging my head in abject apology to the myriad demographics toward which members of my demographic have acted badly through the centuries.

I am the accepted, standard bad guy. I get it. Mea maxima culpa. Now, can we please move on?

In order to believe that all men are homophobic, domineering bullies because of their toxic upbringing, one must first accept the premise that all men are in fact homophobic, domineering bullies. If you know me well and still believe this, then at least one of us is delusional.

Bigotry is bigotry. And not all bigots are balding, sweaty, pink-faced white male Southerners or towel-headed Allah-worshiping terrorists. Some of them are film directors and writers of Internet appeals.

 Jennifer Siebel Newsom should not look for my donation to her project any time soon.

And by the bye, while we’re on the topic of talking about how awful men are (this is the thinly veiled sub-text of this whole thing, after all), perhaps we should remember that it was overwhelmingly white, middle-aged males who voted to grant women the voting franchise in the United States. This country – along with many others – has a horrible history of subjugating identifiable demographics, women included, and the men of yesteryear have much to answer for, were they not already silenced by time. But the continued slamming of men intentionally overlooks an obvious truth: men are no more homogenous in their upbringing and attitudes than are women, gays or store clerks. And a ‘researcher’ who denies this is no researcher at all.

Scary things

One of our family’s favorite memories is of the time we were driving late at night with Two ensconced in her car seat in the far back. We were talking about creepy things when suddenly then-four-year-old Two announced to the world, “I’m not afraid of nothin’!”  And at that moment, she was probably telling the truth.

Most of us are afraid of something. Spiders, heights, snakes, fire, all sorts of things. But most of our fears have some grounding in reality. My lifelong fear of going up in tall buildings has less to do with the actual altitude than with the fact that there’s not a ladder truck in the United States that can reach above about floor seven.  So, I never, ever, for any reason go above seven.

Not overly fond of driving over bridges but that one has more to do with shivers down the spine than any actual sense of incipient danger. This is not to say I don’t drive over them and I’ve walked over the Golden Gate and Deception Pass bridges, no problem. Why being in a car should make it scarier I admit is a puzzle.

I kill spiders for Mary. When our neighbor who’s blind hears bumps in the night, I am the one who checks out her garage or backyard. I’ve stood down a huge guy who socked a woman in a parking lot (I was pretty sure I was going to get the snot slapped out of me that time, but the police showed up) and I’ve no problem dealing with the denizens of Third Ave on the way to the bus stop.

Not a hero, but not a coward, either.

So, can someone please tell me why I’m deathly afraid of butterflies?

We’re talking cold sweat, run like a rabbit, squeal like a little girl, arms flailing, spittle spraying, back shuddering, unable-to-form-an-intelligible-thought frightened.

I’ve had people suggest a negative butterfly encounter in early life. Or maybe it’s because they’re so unpredictable. Or maybe just because they’re so dad blame ugly (I’ve a right to my opinion!). Of course, most people just don’t believe me. How could a grown man be afraid of something so harmless?  But sooner or later, they see my butterfly dance. And then they believe:

I am sore afraid of butterflies.

And I don’t know why.

 (NOTE: I may have made reference to this in an earlier blog. Can’t help it. It’s butterfly season.)

A hero

Helen Thomas has passed away. 
As the father of daughters, she was a hero to me. She was never flashy and not heralded as are the frequently empty suits and hair dos that sit at the big desk during prime time news.
She was the consummate journalist. In a time when most news people were news men, she was at the top of the game.

If you're a daughter or have daughters or if you just value competence, Google Helen Thomas and read up.

Stick to what you know

I was trolling for something interesting on the tube tonight and came across a re-enactment of the oral arguments before the Supreme Court in re:  Gideon v. Wainwright, 1963. This is the landmark case in which Clarence Gideon requested that the Supremes consider whether he should have been afforded counsel during his trial. Fifty years ago, the Court granted certiorari, Abe Fortas agreed to argue it, and the right to counsel became enshrined as one of the basic protections.

This is one of my all time fave cases and while I’ve read the pleadings and decision, I’ve never seen it re-enacted. Yes, yes, I’ve seen Gideon’s Trumpet, but that great movie nevertheless takes liberties. I looked forward to watching the whole thing play out in the original words.

Turns out the ‘actors’ are lawyers from the WA State Supremes and UW law school.

As long as these folks are around, Arnold Schwarzenegger need not worry about being called the worst actor in the worst movie ever.

So, a life lesson for lawyers: stick to what you know.   Please!

(And while we’re here, I’m equally unimpressed with actors doing PSAs to tell me how to run my life. Again, stick to what you know.    Please.)

Alaska

Coming home is one of my favorite things in the world to do.

I was teaching in Fairbanks this week. It’s really a cool place and there’s a lot to do and see. The Ice Museum is excellent and there are a number of attractions related to the Chena River. Google it and you’ll see what I mean.

Permafrost combines with wind to make for some interesting growing patterns.  Flying in or out, you can trace the effects of weather and time.

Time is a major  theme up there if you’re interested in noticing. The University of Alaska Fairbanks is built on a series of ridges that raise the viewer four- or five-hundred feet above a valley that goes on seemingly forever, except that you can see mountains rising on the horizon. Stand on that ridge and you’re looking at time. I swear I’m not just trying to be profound.

You can see both the past and the future from that ridgeline. Or from an airplane as you pass over glacial flows that go for miles. From my window seat I could see the ice blocks calving off at one end and the never-ending genesis of the winding river of ice at its origin.

I love road trips in large part because of all the history to be seen. But in most places, you have to already know the story or understand how volcanism or tectonics or alluvial flows work and then apply your imagination to complete the story.

Not so in Alaska. All you have to do is look down or up or around and the masterpieces of nature show you how they came to be. How they’re still coming to be. In Alaska, you don’t need to spot a caribou or an eagle or a bear to be looking at a living thing.

I'm ba-a-a-a-ack!

I'm just back from Fairbanks and I have to say it's one of my favorite places in the world. And I got to work with some fabulous, caring people. Sometimes, I just have the best job!
Will post soon.

Choices

It’s still morning – 9:18 as I type this. A gorgeous Saturday, full of possibility.

Mary is off on a hike with her sister, Daughters One and also Two are far away following the pursuits of their day. Odin the Large and Lazy is stretched out in the sun on the back lawn, living up in all respects to his moniker. Zoey the Small and Annoying can’t decide exactly where her presence is required and so has just come back in to stare questioningly at me for a moment before she goes back to her primary job description, laying half in and half out the sliding door, peering.

I fed them when I got up and have since spent an hour reading. Time to eat some cereal and then get out in the yard for a couple or three hours of grunt labor before the sun angle makes outside work too unpleasant. And then, a trip to the gym and perhaps an hour of housework before showering and settling into the unplanned part of the afternoon and evening.

I may do some writing or perhaps, put in a CD and spend the early evening  sorting give-aways in the continuing quest for a clutter-free house. I will probably spend some time prepping for next Saturday’s paddling session on the safety crew for the Fat Salmon swim race. I love working that race each year.

Paddling solely for recreation is great fun, especially when my brother or Two are part of the outing. And my recent session with the paddling meetup group was cool.  But working Fat Salmon is special. It’s not boring, like working the triathlons for which the kayak volunteers are essentially human marker bouys. In Fat Salmon, you actually provide a service as part of the team. Hence, the need to make sure my safety gear is all in place and serviceable.

My favorite is to be assigned to the tail end. The swimmers who will never win and may not finish before they time out and we have to cut them short but who nevertheless give it their all are awe-inspiring. I hated the couple of times I’ve had to pull swimmers. But in both cases, they were thankful that I did, once they got over the initial disappointment.

Anyway, that’s next Saturday’s choice. Today’s choices await me more immediately.

Choices are precious. My friend’s son’s choices are fast dwindling. He lies in a hospital bed and he’s just started the conversation with his parents about what he wants done after he’s gone. Which, he’s told, may be a year or three but most likely not much longer.

His mother, my friend, has basically run out of choices. She can only love him and that choice was made long ago. None of the rest is up to her.

I hope I make good use of my choices today and tomorrow. I’m certainly going to try.

Special offer

“…and if you call now, we’ll throw in another (product of questionable value) for free; all you’ll pay is $7.99 for additional shipping and handling.”

Now, just what idiot swallows the claim that it costs more to handle, box up and address two than one of these junk drawer stuffers? And please don’t say the second one adds additional weight, thus driving up the shipping cost. For one thing, none of these things weighs more than a few ounces. And please tell me you know that the original price was already way inflated.

I’m pretty sure we spend more on crap in this country than some countries spend on food, shelter and hospital care combined. Designing, making and selling crap is big business. And years later, when the crappers have long since made their money and relocated to Florida and the crappees have passed away or downsized, many hardworking people will be employed hauling away the residual crap and using is to create air holes in landfills, thus enhancing the decomposition of organic discards.

So, I guess at the end of the day, the crap has some use, anyway.

We have some crap here in the manse. Not TV crap – we don’t call strangers in boiler rooms to give them our credit card numbers. Nevertheless, crap we have. So please feel free to think of this missive as less a lecture than a lament.

Think I’ll go throw away some crap. Then I’m going to bed.

You get a good rest, too. Good night.

(BTW: My nomination for the dumbest product in the history of As-Seen-On-TV? Perfect Polly, the fake parakeet, wins the contest hands down. And by the way, call right now and you can get two for the same low price!)

Keeping busy

There are some days you’re busy and other days, you’re BUSY. Today was one of the latter variety.

I love what I do for a living and being busy is certainly better than being bored to tears. But today and this week and the next couple of months are just going to be silly. I’ve three teaching trips and a major project starting and, and, and…

The thing is, at sixty years of age and counting, I’m finding it difficult to foresee a time when I druther sit contemplating my navel than do something useful. At the same time, I can easily foresee a time when I won’t want to be bound to a bus schedule or trip plans at others’ demands as to time or doing work that is of value to someone else but not so much to me.

Time to start thinking of a change. I finished my degree a couple weeks ago and even with summer chores related to landscaping, I now have evenings free. So I’m back to working on the book. The book I mentioned in an earlier post.

I love writing and I hope it sells at some point but mostly, I’m getting more and more into these characters and their stories. It will take me a thousand hours plus to get the first draft ready for editorial readers and it will be a great thousand hours. It will be spent in the company of some of my best imaginary friends.

Some kinds of busy are just plain fun.

In the spirit of Icarus

The Solar Impulse, a completely solar-powered aircraft has today completed a multi-stage flight across the continent, from Moffit Field near San Jose, CA to New York City.

I don’t care all that much about the flight. I mean, it’s interesting and I took the time to read an article and check out some photos on the Net. But the flight itself isn’t what caught my fancy. For me, it’s all about the technology involved.

The strong, lightweight materials, the highly (by current standards) efficient solar cells, the finely tuned motors and propellers, all speak to solutions. Solutions tied to getting the most output from the least input.

All over the world, there are people living without power and power is key. Power can convert brackish water to potable, cold to warm or vice versa, immediate consumption food to storable. And in order to feed and clothe and shelter those people, we need to find solutions that are efficient, resource cost-effective and locally deployable.

We use a LOT of power in this country and often for some pretty frivolous pursuits, as compared to the subsistence needs of people living where power is scarce. I’m not slapping ‘us’ for our power use but I am thrilled at some of the emerging technologies designed to make ever more effective use of the power at hand. Especially power that’s free for the asking and essentially inexhaustible.

Wars are fought over power and will continue to be, so long as we base our economies on power sources that are both non-renewable and unevenly distributed geographically.

Power is key to development and in a larger sense, to social equity. Wider use of inexhaustible resources such as solar power and efficiency in the use of other resources (Google “rocket stove”) hold out the promise of a leveling of the playing field such as the world has never seen before.

So, while I don’t care all that much about the flight or who flew the plane, I am thrilled and fascinated and yes, reassured by the interest and energy flowing in the direction of these worthy technological pursuits.

More on facts and truth

Some of you might recall an earlier post in which I discussed the difference between facts and truth. In reading a friend’s blog yesterday, I came across a quote that says it much more betterly than ever I could. In describing why she generally prefers  a book to the movie version of the same story, she said, “…my mind did a much better job creating the picture and making the story real.”

Toni, I couldn’t have said it better. Just wish I’d said it this well.

Hot weather

Cons:

·         Sticky

·         Hot

·         Glare

·         Low energy

·         Limp clothes

·         Use more electricity

·         Dogs lethargic

·         Mary lethargic

·         Brer Michael lethargic

Pros:

·         Dogs lethargic

The pleasures of the harbor

Mary and I have been working on the yard this weekend. Weeding and leveling in 90 degree heat for Gawd knows what reason. Okay, I do know a reason. We’ve had unseasonably wet weather until just a few days ago so we’re using every non-waterlogged day we can to get the work done.

We were going to put in a new fence on two sides until Odin the Large and Lazy decided our disposable income should be shunted into the doggie surgery account. And the Boston bombers made it necessary for Mary to make an expensive unplanned Mom visit with Two. So now, we’re limiting our landscaping to jobs that cost no money. The trouble is, when you’re talking about landscaping, money and sweat are expended in more or less inverse proportion. Two’ s worth it; jury’s still out on the mutt.

I find manual labor prime time for contemplation and I got to thinking about our house and what it means to us. Just because it’s been our place of residence for twenty years does not make it our home, to my way of thinking. You can build a house but you have to make a home. And a home’s not made of framing and plaster. It’s made of comfort and familiarity and security and love and trust and a whole bunch of other attributes that have nothing to do with construction materials.

Nor is a home necessarily the place where you spend the majority of your time. It is the place to which you will always return, no matter what else changes in your life. When A.E. Housman wrote the words “home is the sailor, home from the sea,” they resonated with folks wherever the words were read. They’ve been repeated and paraphrased in so many ways and by so many writers not because we all go to sea, but rather because coming home is an experience we all know or at least wish we could know. Because while your home and my home might be leagues apart and entirely different in physical ways, home is a concept upon which we can all agree. We don’t all see a windowless cabin or an Italianate manse or a tract or row house or a mud hut. But we do all see ‘home.’ And that word carries more congruence than diversity in terms of the parts of it we care about.

When Phil Ochs wrote “The Pleasures of the Harbor,” it didn’t matter which harbor. It didn’t matter if a particular listener’s home is anywhere near the sea. “The sea bids farewell. She waves in swells and sends them on their way…” The traveler has returned home. It matters not one whit whether there’s a coastline involved. ‘The sea’ is where we go when we’re in and of the world. ‘The harbor’ is home.

Mary and I are downsizing our ‘stuff’ just now (the same stuff of which I’ve written disparagingly in earlier posts) both as a de-cluttering program and also to prepare for the day when home will be differently located. We’ll eventually move to a different house, most likely in a different city or even state. But home will travel with us. It’s a place in one’s soul, not a spot on a map. We will know it as the place to which we and our daughters and others will always return.

A matter of trust, betrayed

The news is full of speculation as to the whereabouts of one Mr. Snowden, who apparently makes no bones about having stolen classified materials through his position as a contractor for the National Security Agency and the CIA, materials he then passed on to the Guardian, a British paper.

Let’s get the obvious out of the way – the information thus revealed has opened the door to a discussion of some things the government has apparently done that don’t make me particularly happy. Snowden has been quoted as saying his purpose was to “…inform the public as to that which is done in their name and that which is done against them. “  But his actions appear to reveal quite another motive.

Snowden is reveling in the limelight and globe-hopping from one anti-U.S. regime to another, thumbing his nose at U.S. attempts to bring him back for arrest and trial. His supporters have set him up on a pedestal, as though he’s some sort of hero.

He’s not a hero. He’s not even an honest guy. I’ve held a high level security clearance and I promise you that in the process of securing that clearance, this guy was well schooled in what it meant to be entrusted with this designation and then promised never to reveal classified information under penalty of prosecution.

Any sovereign nation has to be able to trust its operatives not to reveal state secrets. And every nation has some secrets that it doesn’t want its own citizens to uncover. I celebrate when our government is caught out in lies and forced to face the music. But that doesn’t make Snowden and the creeps who provide confidential information to WikiLeaks and their ilk heroic. What they are is liars and cheats and traitors.

And they need to be prosecuted.

In the interest of fairness

The Supremes should announce decisions this week in several areas critical to our view of ourselves as a land of equal opportunity.

Decisions regarding the Federal Defense of Marriage Act and California’s Prop 8 should go a long way toward restating our commitment to equal protection, even for folks whose orientation or lifestyle some consider ‘wrong’. In a larger sense, these rulings will send a message regarding the current Court’s ability to see beyond the sectarian arguments of the Christian Right and to reaffirm the fact that this is a pluralistic society in which preference and prejudice – even if seemingly aligned with the best interests of a majority in some states - cannot be allowed to trump the inclusion of all in the benefits of community. The whole gay marriage question will eventually be resolved on consideration of equal protection and full faith and credit, but we won’t get there without an appropriate ruling on each of the cases extant.

I’ve written plenty about this topic, so I won’t go farther in this post. And I won’t get into a discussion of the reconsideration of the Voter Rights Act because frankly, I can see both sides and it’s clear to me that no matter how they decide on the case extant, this won’t be the last word on the subject. No, it’s the other big ‘un slated to be announced this week that is in my mind pivotal to all other considerations of social justice.

Running up to the end of the session as we are, the Supremes are expected to rule on Fisher v. University of Texas at Austin, and it seems to me that the framing of the argument on both sides is misstated. In fact, I believe the wrong concept is being argued. (Abigail Fisher applied and was rejected in 2008 and has filed suit based on her assertion that the university's consideration of race didn't meet standards previously set by the high court.) The currently relevant ruling (2003, Grutter v. Bollinger), as a result of which the consideration of race is required to be part of a  ‘holistic’ approach to admissions decisions, was decided with Sandra Day O’Connor as the swing vote. Conservatives are taking another turn at bat now that O’Connor has retired.

While I could offer impassioned comments regarding the current case I won’t, because I think the whole question of racially-based college admissions misses the point in both ethical and practical terms. Also, because with Kagan having recused herself, it’s entirely possible that the Court will be split, anyhow, rendering the whole thing moot until a more clearly egregious abuse reaches the Court on a future calendar.

What I will share with you is my belief that the whole idea of trying to correct years of educational inequalities at the level of college admissions is both tragic and ineffective. In fact, it’s tragic specifically because it’s so clearly ineffective.

As a quality trainer, I spend a lot of my work life helping folks understand how to make their business processes better. Frequently, I find myself emphasizing the basic concept that it’s easier to do things right in the first place than to correct them once the train has come off the track.

If a fairly low-level business trainer such as me understands this, why is this idea so apparently unreachable by our Federal and various state legislatures, our Federal and various state departments responsible for education, our school boards and the communities they serve? 

I’ve previously stated my belief that the first, inescapable duty and purpose of any government is to organize resources so as to provide for its citizens those things that are necessary collectively but unattainable individually. Surely, we can agree that education – in this country in which the framers identified an educated electorate as fundamental to a democracy – is the foundation upon which all else rests. But education itself rests on a progressive foundation that starts in kindergarten or first grade.

When a child has been forsaken by a system designed to move him along rather than ensuring the transfer of knowledge and building of skill sets, we end up with the current situation in which a student’s preparation for college is determined not as much by the student’s latent talent or even hard work as by the accident of birth that placed him or her in a particular school district. Yes, there are kids from the projects who shine and kids from gated communities who fail to reach their potential. But the exceptions in this case fall short of defining the rule.

In this case, I believe correlation and causation are one and the same. I don’t believe any kid starts school hoping to end up semi-literate and ill equipped for a successful adulthood. The kids who attend substandard schools by and large end up undereducated. A kid who’s never read a chapter book is probably not going to score 1300-plus on the SAT.

Our elementary and middle and secondary schools should be oases of learning, no matter where situated. Every kid should have a kindergarten teacher like Anne McDermott and a high school math teach like Mark Gingrich. Every school should look like the ones my daughters attended. And every student should have a fifth grade teacher like Amy Gottlieb and a mentor like Kim Herzog. My kids were blessed to attend the first twelve years of school in arguably the top public school district in the country. I wonder how we would have helped them access their dreams in a district with discouraged teachers, uninvolved parents and outdated, ratty books.

Mary and I worked our butts off to afford to live in this district and we were involved and encouraging and (we like to think) inspiring. But what if we weren’t those parents? Doesn’t this national community owe a stellar – or at the least, adequate – education to children who weren’t raised by the McDermotts? Or who didn’t have Marilyn or Anne or Pam or Cathy or Sindy or Sherree or… as parents? Isn’t this one of those areas that is enhanced by great parenting but in which we as a community must still deliver for the kid in the absence of a great home life?

Our great failure lies not in how we frame college admissions but rather in the horrific fact that many of our kids, arguably including some of our potentially best minds, are being wasted in a morass of failed programs and low expectations. Force-fitting a kid with inadequate preparation into a college program for which he or she is not prepared may arise from good intentions, but it should not be allowed to distract us from the inconvenient truth.

We fail the kid when we fail to prepare him or her, not in the finishing room. I believe that race-based college admissions are inescapably discriminatory, no matter how well intentioned. All applicants should be considered on the basis of preparation and innate ability. But in order for that approach to be fair, every kid has to be provided with the opportunity to arrive at the college steps ready to make the place his or her own.

A topical play

A couple of my friends and a number of other people who would probably be friends if I’d ever met them open tonight in a play called ‘8.’ I understand it deals with the overturning of Prop 8 in California which was designed to deny gay couples the right to marry.

I wish I could see the play. Heck, I wish I could have been in it. Because this is one of the singularly important issues being decided in the country as I type.

Mary and I attended a wedding a couple of weeks ago that would not have been legally sanctioned a year ago. And the couple could not have held the ceremony in Texas where they live, because it will be some time before it’s legal there.

Rest assured, it will be. Legal in Texas, that is. And in the other states that have yet to bow to logic and right thinking and practicality and simple social equity. Because no sane person will ultimately accept the argument that any identifiable subset of ‘us’ can reasonably be denied the rights and benefits that others enjoy on the basis of such specious arguments as have been mouthed by the religious right in the case at hand.

Even in the holdout states, there will come a time when a couple married elsewhere sues for their civil rights and when the thing makes it to the Supremes – assuming the ultra right religionists haven’t stacked the court at the moment in question – they’re going to lose against the overwhelming weight of ‘full faith and credit.’ Oh, they’ll piss and moan about states’ rights and the religious foundation of this country (really?) but you don’t need to be a constitutional law prof to understand that this dog just won’t hunt.

They’re gonna lose. And in doing so, they’re gonna win and win big. Just as the South ultimately won (although in many parts of the South they still don’t embrace their good fortune) when the Supremes decided the cases that came to be known collectively as Brown v Board of Education of Topeka, KS and Southern states gradually and grudgingly expanded their educational enterprise to include the rich resource represented in the young black minds that had formerly been relegated to day work and hard labor.

So Mary and I went to a dear friend’s ‘gay’ wedding and guess what? It felt like any other wedding. The only thing special about it was that it was friends getting married. And this from a guy who knows weddings, having sung for literally scores of them back in the day.

Anyway, this threatens to become a diatribe and really I started with the intention of simply congratulating Larry and Sindy and their buds on a timely theatrical presentation that I hope will come to be considered mainstream in the near term.