The Tree of Life

So there are movies you watch where the entire theatre gasps at the end and wishes it hadn't ended, and you see people just looking at the screen, not talking. As they file out, they begin to talk about what a great film it was, etc.

THIS DID NOT HAPPEN WHEN WE SAW THE TREE OF LIFE.

Instead, after several people left the theatre to see how long it was going to be (some two and a half painful hours), someone blurted out, "oh, thank god that's over." This pretty much sums up the communal reaction to the film. A group of people sat in a theatre waiting for what was promised- a beautiful masterpiece, a stunning blah blah blah...; instead, what they saw was a lot of volcanoes and gauzy garments and reproducing cells and dinosaurs stepping on other dinosaur's heads, all swirled into some sort of pastiche- yeah, that's what it was, a pastiche. While that was going on there was a story about a family, but most of that was not really told as a story, but rather as another pastiche on top of or simultaneous to the other pastiche.

Oh, it could have been marvelous, I mean, you sort of got the idea from the big whispered philosophies of the mother- there are two kinds of approaches to life... a way of grace and a way of nature, and the wife seemed to be the one who could see these truths, but it didn't matter in the end because they all ended up in some sort of heaven (which was more of a sandbar).

The problem was that it wasn't marvelous. It has the epic feel of 2001 A Space Odyssey, but unlike its predecessor, it really doesn't work. If you've never seen Stanley Kubric's film, it's worth a try. It has at least a few memorable moments and if you get the whole evolution of man into ubermensch kind of thing going on, well, that helps.

But The Tree of Life fails to reach this level of coherence. It's sort of like a mash up of A Space Odyssey with Legends of a Fall and A River Runs Through It and a National Geographic episode on the earth/life. If you try (as my fellow theatre sufferers did) to put all this into some sort of coherent message or plot, forget it.

The plot is made incoherent by an overwrought sense of artiness that fails to help bring anything into focus. We learn a great deal about one of the sons in the family, and a bit about another, who, I think... died in the first plot scene, but otherwise, nothing. In fact, one of the brothers (not Cain or Abel) is so left out of anything, he is pretty much just a third entity without any purpose for being there. Our main character, later grown up to be Sean Penn who I think is an architect, is the Cain type, who wants to kill his father, and tortures his younger brother (a universal theme), only to lose him later on. Working into this loosely told story is a constant questioning of God and a reverberating reference to the book of Job, where God asks where were you when I created the world, and the characters in the movie turn this around, asking, where were you, God?

But as they experience this pain, they are supposed to come to see such questions as human, all too human, and if you can get past the pain, you'll see that it's all part of the circle of life. This kind of message was clearer in Lion King.

While you are trying to piece all this together, there are other boys in the neighborhood who get plopped into the action, including a kid with a patch of hair missing, like he'd been burned, but we never know how or why or whether it really matters to anything else in the movie.

Now, as we watched this mess, my wife was sure I would walk out of the theatre saying, wow, that was awesome. She was very relieved to hear me say that there goes two and a half hours I'll never get back. And I was not alone. Whoever writes these reviews of such movies with such glowing reviews should have their critics licences revoked. To be fair, there were some beautiful shots in the movie, and some film student will probably be amazed at the use of light or see the tremendous cinemetography, but if you are looking for a coherent work of art, steer away from this mess!

The end of collegiality

Look into your crystal ball. It's right there in your newspaper. You can see some things about what our schools will be like in ten years. Better yet, save this blog entry and see how close my crystal ball is when compared with New Yrok State in the coming years.

The idea of sharing ideas with fellow teachers will have faded into the old way of doing things. A willingness to take on the harder kids in a school... gone. Teachers will be jockeying for the classes that ensure their survival, and a bit like a Hobbesian state of nature, it will be teacher against teacher.

Why? Because 40 percent of our evaluation for APPR will be based on various standardized tests. These scores will be used to pit each teacher against another, district vs. district, etc. All of this is in line with Obama's terrible metaphor driving eduation philosophy. If you think No Child Left Behind had terrible effects on schools, wait for the long term implications of Race to the Top. Did you ever wonder how many people can get to the top first? Just one. Everyone else loses.

This Darwinian approach to what has been a borderline noble professoin through the years will make collegial sharing and cooperation will be dead. More on this later...

who shoiuld run for the republican nomination?

Newt... Newt... Newt

He is in favor of a loyalty oath for all members of his cabinet, especially the Muslims. Tim Pawlenty looks like a weasel and acts like one too. He is afraid of Mitt Romney when he is on stage with him, but talks behind his back. Who els can impress us? Perhaps Miss Palin could give us a run down on history and demonstrate her ability to deal with tough questions like, what did you learn?

For 18 months, we will now hear talking points and watch pretenders drop. Silly questions will be asked, and not answered. Especially if Ron Paul stays in the race. He thinks people's questions are not worth asking because they are all part of a left wing conspiracy to establish a nanny state.

The saving grace is that we only have to hear from these kooks and dissemblers from one party at a time. Oh, if only Ross Perot could return.

Here's an idea- maybe Obama should run for the Republican nomination! His policies haven't been exactly from the liberal playbook anyway. He might be able to make a dent. Better yet, let's see if we can get Andrew Cuomo to run for the Republican nomination. He's destroying New York's education system as well as any Republican could. He's given in to the millionaires as weell as any anti-tax conservative could.

Medi-share

Take a gander at the new possibilities our market economy has to offer. This is an actal ad I recieved this morning, and it got me to thinking...

"Medi-Share is Proven
For over 17 years, Medi-Share participants have been helping one another through medical bill sharing-over $500 million has been shared and discounted! It's God's way of helping His people care for one another while providing healthcare that works.
Medi-Share is Sensible
With options to fit every budget, and even an incentive available for our healthier participants, Medi-Share is a great option for Christians who don't want to be left alone to pay their medical bills.
Medi-Share is Good Stewardship
Medi-Share is Good Stewardship. Medi-Share is for Christians who want their healthcare dollars to help fellow believers who are living the same lifestyles they are, based on biblical principles and service to others."

Imagine if you will, a retelling of the Good Samaritan parable...

Jesus is talking with a young man about how to be "justified"-

He answered, “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind’[a]; and, ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’[b]”
28 “You have answered correctly,” Jesus replied. “Do this and you will live.”
29 But he wanted to justify himself, so he asked Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?”
30 In reply Jesus said: “A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, when he was attacked by robbers. They stripped him of his clothes, beat him and went away, leaving him half dead. 31 A priest happened to be going down the same road, and when he saw the man, he passed by on the other side. 32 So too, a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side. 33 But a Samaritan, as he traveled, came where the man was; and when he saw him, he took pity on him. 34 He went to him and bandaged his wounds, pouring on oil and wine. Then he put the man on his own donkey, brought him to an inn and took care of him. 35 The next day he took out two denarii[c] and gave them to the innkeeper. ‘Look after him,’ he said, ‘and when I return, I will reimburse you for any extra expense you may have.’
Unfortunately, the good samaritan had "Medi-share coverage", which wouldn't cover care for people outside his own sect of Judaism, and so he was denied coverage. The inn keeper had to sue him for failure to reimburse. The inn keeper called the 1 800 number and tried to explain about how the Samaratin had found the poor man and how he had been attacked. The associate on the help line explained that "we provide help only for those living the same lifestyles we live by, based on biblical principles and service to others like ourselves."
36 “Which of these three do you think was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of robbers?”
37 The expert in the law replied, "Medi-share is my choice for health insurance. They are excellent stewards of our money and and there's even an incentive available for our healthier participants!
Jesus wept.

Length does matter

This week a firestorm swept the CUNY system as honorary doctorate recipients looked for ways to return their awards. They did this in support of Tony Kushman, a now ex-recipient of an honorary doctorate from CUNY. The short version- a Pataki appointed chancellor or member convinced the rest of the short sighted members of the CUNY board that Kushman was an anti-semite and voila, honorary doctorate removed. Of course, there are numerous details and nuances one could look into, but who has the time?

This week another storm brewed as President Obama tried to make a dent in the armor of a conflict that has been waged since World War II. By mentioning a single date (1967), Obama was said to have "picked a fight with Israel." Today he begins to make in roads into repairing the damage, explaining that he didn't say anything earth shattering or unusual in his reference to those post war boundaries.

What do these two storms have in common? Israel, yes, but more importantly, taking a short view of things vs. a longer one.

The 'short view' in general is the quick decision without the research, the impulse buy at the store, the whim that can lead to heaven or hell. In both these cases regarding Isarael, had the agents involved stopped to think, maybe they'd be better off today. To whom does this warning apply? All of them. Tony Kushman probably may have been better off had he considered how his words would be taken out of context and used against him. The CUNY board should have looked into the situation before rescinding his award. In these two cases, political expediency trumped long and deliberate thought. Perhaps it was impossible for Kushman to think out the long term ramifications of his ideas, and the way our world now recycles and spins words and sound bites, they are little machines with teeth of their own. The CUNY board, trying to "get out in front" of the accusation that they were being anti-semitic, surely made their move without a conversation with Kushman.

Could Obama have had more conversations about this speech prior to this moment in order to calm the waters? Did he and his cabinet know the furor was coming? Perhaps. Perhaps not. I have come to see of late that we rarely see anything coming as clearly as we think we do. In hind sight, we see it all, and can assign motivations to every event. But in real time, I am surprised at every event that comes up.

We can all read the news as Harry Shearer does with a supercillious air, finding every news maker ludicrous and short minded. To be fair, it was Mr. Shearer who made me aware of the CUNY debacle in the first place. It was his show and his spin on the story that made me think, how could they dare do this?

As news consumers it is a very convenient place from which we judge the short sightedness of others. Still, there are decisions made that we can criticize as (in hind sight) really, really bad.

This past week, someone decided to layoff one of my family members. This is the short sighted view of the world at its worst. This short sighted person looked at what would "work" for her in the short run. Despite claiming that it was about the future of the company, she was really choosing what was convenient for her for now. If she had considered alternatives, and had conversations about the problem, the conflict might have been resolved. But who can have such conversations? Instead, we act fast, think decisively, and react to the catastrophes later.

One is often criticized as being too pensive, too cerebral, too wishy washy if one asks questions first. This is the classic attack on Hamlet, the prince who thought too much. I am more and more convinced of the importance of Nietzsche's observation that Hamlet did not think too much, but rather, that he thought too well. He thought too well because he could see the long term implications of every act he considered. This can lead to paralysis. One must eventually put on a le show or respond to a request...

Take a quick listen to the Harry Shearer show from Saturday. You will hear about...

Those who sell and buy FEMA trailers full of formaldahyde are desperate for cash and desperate for housing, respecively. Preston Mitchum plagiarizes a You Tube speech and later hopes it won't have an impact on his career as a lawyer... Another man blamed his Danish sense of humor for offending... well, everyone except his closest friends. von Trier said he sympathized with Hitler. He is now "persona non-grata." In an opening prayer, Bradley Dean attacks Obama's faith in the Minnesota house of representatives. GOP head Kurt Zellers denounced the words, but should he have seen it coming? James Frey (A Million Little Pieces) was apologized to by Oprah Winfrey this week because, she now explains, she hadn't thought about his side of the story. Someone named Hartge used the word "jewed" and then defended it by saying it was in the dictionary and that it was a business term. Jamie Diamond (of JP Morgan Chase) apologized for wrecking people's lives while the shares of JPM went up by 11%. Newt Gingrich apparently was "inartful" when he "appeared" to call Ryan's plan for destroying Medicare socialist. He now wants to work with him and are exchanging emails.

This list of short sighted folks is just the tip of the proverbial iceberg. Of course, the only way one can stay off such lists is to say nothing or do nothing... The long view takes too much time, and by the time you get the idea out, everyone is on to something else. We live in a very rapid world, where time is short and so is our attention span. Most of us cannot read anything longer than a paragraph or so. Length matters, and so does the long view, but it takes time we don't have?

On how to avoid despair

This week was tough in Averill Park. Suffice it to say, many of us feel a bit like ships without a star to guide us. We wandering barks have looked on tempests in the past, but the current one is more like a dead spot in the eye of a hurricane.

Many of my colleagues are beginning to ask very serious existential questions, primary among them: why am I doing this? Why should I care? What's the point? On a moment to moment basis I move between pragmatism and my old friend idealism. Pragmatist me has been winning of late.

The only solace I can offer them and myself is that it will pass. Having taught for almost a quarter century, I cannot easily answer the question my daughter offered up this afternoon: is this is the worst it's ever been? I can't remember it being worse, but I can't really trust my memory.

In the end, you can only control your own situation, and so I guess my advice is to continue to do what is meaningful to you. The things I've believed in still seem true to me, so I will continue to do the things that conform to those ideas. In my last class of the day today, I was leafing through my old copy of Knoblach and Brannon. For those of you did not do a masters degree on the writing side at SUNY Albany in the late 80s or early 90s, their book was the gold standard in the field of composition. Their first paragraph, which I read to my class (I doubt they got why I read it), demands of teachers that they be philosophers in the classroom, that they think about why they do what they do. That while they may be tempted to despair or tempted into the doldrums, every day should be a new chance to seek out the doing of things that conform to an intentional approach to the teaching of literature or composition.

It is important not to give in to abandoning one's principles and simply training kids in what is fashionable or comfortable or what sells. Being able to pull up a PBL document on a large screen is smexy in teacher world these days, but if one is doing such things to impress a principal or to satisfy one's sense that one has not become mired in the past, etc., let that go. Remember why you do what you do. I still believe that learning to be a great reader or writer comes when students are given a constant message: you are the author, you work within a real world on real ideas that must be taken seriously, writing to fill in boxes in an instructional plan is not learning- it is performing- it is dying.

So, if you want to avoid despair, return to your root principles- whatever they are, and like the Santiago you are, fight the fight. Go to the mattresses. Push the rock up the hill. It is all pointless in the end, but it's the only game in town.

References in the last paragraph (Hemingway, Puzo, Camus, Fish)

state aid to education up to 270 million

If the times union anti tax blogger/teacher hater/professional misanthropes are right, and I really am the greedy bastard they say I am, I am going to take my share of this huge windfall of cabbage and splurge all of it on... um... chocalate!

The state will say it's got this great package and that it's going to upstate schools, but mark my words... none of it will end up in Averill Park where I work or in Schodack where I pay taxes. Somehow, it never trickles down. Even with all that pandering I got NYSUT to do for me and all the brain washing I did to my students, it will come to nothing somehow... mark my words!

dead wood

In the last few days, I've heard many people talk about replacing the seniority system with a "merit" based system. What I will argue is what Stanley Fish used to argue before he became a university administrator: merit is a tricky term.

Essentially, the seniority system is a merit based system we all agree on when we enter into a field with those parameters. Your merit is added up year after year, and if you do your job well, your merit increases with each year you invest into the system. A newcomers understands that she must stay in the system to gain merit, and looks forward to the day when she can feel some sense of assurance that, as long as she does not stink up the place, her job is relatively secure.

In other systems, merit can be replaced by nepotism, political favoring, or complete whim. In the corporate, non-union world, one gets a job and knows that at any point, one can be asked to leave. Some think this tenuous situation is somehow good for productivity. What it is good for is keeping people in line and maintaining sycophantic obsequiousness.

Would you like your teachers to feel, as they grade the exam of a school board member's kid, that one false move, and I'm out? Would you like your teachers to have absolutely no voice in a faculty meeting about the new programs administrators want to create? Would you like your teachers to worry that if they stand up for what is right, they may pay the price by being tossed out the door?

Further, how many administrators can face the financial pressure of wanting to ditch highly experienced and effective teachers because they just cost too damn much? We think in polyannish ways about how we could just cut the dead wood, but what would happen to the trunk?

This dead wood comment came up from a relative of a young woman who will most likely lose her job this fall. I feel terrible, and I agree that she is doing a great job, but the new system may not save her either. The fact is that we want to keep our favorites and dump the dead wood. But frankly, one person's dead wood is another's treasure.

Are there those in the profession who would be better off elsewhere? Of course. But most of the really good teachers I know, who started out as really quality educators, have continued to be great right up to retirement. Very few of the teachers who will be retiring at the end of this year are dead wood- trust me. They are dedicated, experienced educators who have had the freedom to be courageous leaders in a difficult field.

Before you cut the branch you are looking at, see where you will land, folks!

Giving my 2% on education

Oh, yeah, that's supposed to be two cents. But 2% is what our school board is currently considering investing in our school district. A 2% increase "on the levy" comes to about $3 a month, or $40 a year for a modest home in Averill Park.

The joke is that the board will ask teachers like myself (and our board is not alone in such requests state wide) to "share the pain" so that we can save jobs. This would mean some sort of freeze on salary or other concessions for which we will be offered the empty promise of jobs saved somewhere in the district, and for only one year.

It sounds like my Ayn Rand factor is getting a little too high here, but I'm going to say it anyway- what's in it for me? The argument is a moral one that implies that when the going gets tough, we all pitch in to help out. Frankly, when these requests come out, we are not :all" pitching in to help, With a consistent anti-tax myopia, people look for the wrong mechanism to get us to all pitch in. Taxes are created for this very purpose.

The United States started federal taxes when our founding fathers found they could not afford to protect us from invasion or stop the pirates of the Barbary Coast or purchase a really nice piece of real estate to expand into without everyone pitching in a little. But in our current political arena, even so called Democrats like Cuomo are far more interested in helping and protecting millionaires than they are in getting us all to pitch in.

Yes, I know the rent and the taxes are already too damn high! But does that justify asking others to pay your taxes for you. When you ask people to give up their fairly negotiated salaries and working conditions without some remuneration, you are simply trying to redistribute my wealth to someone else who isn't willing to pay taxes.

Let's say a union gives up its new raise for a year. That might be a one or two thousand dollar hit. Some of us can deal with this without trouble, but for many others, this could mean losing a house or restricting the choice of schools their kid goes to. Of course, the other option is to increase revenuesl. The best way to do this is to establish a tax. Taxes (if there weren't so many exemptions and loop holes) are a fair and equitable way to share our burdens wiith each other.

If you want to save your schools, consider a %10 tax increase. Now we're talking about a $20 a month sacrifice for anyone in a modest home. That's about $240 a year. How many people living in decent homes with decent jobs will find it impossible to come up with $240? That's about 6 tanks of gas. That's 4 less dinners out in a year.

Of course, we haven't even considered the financial impact on those who are laid off. And for every lay off, that's one less person who can buy that gas or eat out at a local restaurant. If we increase taxes for everyone, we may still have enough to go out to eat, but those who are laid off are going to be eating pasta

John Hobbes and the YMCA

This afternoon at the Y, I had an opportunity to explore and consider the notion of a social contract. I also saw that many people don't really like to be told what to do.

If you haven't been to the East Greenbush Y, one can assume it looks pretty much like any other... though I have over heard some "y talk" in the whirlpool about which Y is best, and while the EGY is "not the cleanest" it is favored among many promiscious Y goers because it has the whole deal: sauna, whirlpool, steamroom, and pool.

Apparantly not all of them have the whole set. Besides, these Y affectionadoes arge, this one has a nice sense of community. This comment surprised me a bit because I haven't seen anyone singing kum ba ya in the rec room or anything. So, back to the story...

This morning we were testing the social code. I slid into the sauna and gave a brief kick to my conscience about bringing my damp towel into the sauna with me. You see a few weeks ago, a new sign was added to the door of the sauna saying "no towels" or the sauna is not for drying clothes, etc. In the good old days, there were thick wooden hooks on the wall, so everyone came in, draped their towels up there, and when they were done swimming, they could go into the sauna, sweat it up a bit, and hit the showers with a nice hot dry towel.

At some point they refabbed the sauna and the hooks were gone, so people started draping their towels on top of the sauna box. Not the safest thing in the world, but it worked. Then a few weeks ago, as I said, a sign went up. People ignore the signs. Especially the one that says you're supposed to take a shower between the various stations: sauna to whirlpool, etc. Almost no one wants to return to the locker room and shower. So it is ignored.

These social white lies we tell ourselves probably affect some of us more than others- some seem almost beyond guilt, but who can tell? I know I need to give my conscience a good kick to the curb when I pass a car on a double line, or turn aroud in a U turn, or fill in the blank with your own little social contract breaker.

So, as I said, I kicked mine to the curb as I headed into the sauna this morning, and I settled in for a quick sweat with my towel draped in front of me. Into the door walks an elderly Russian man and his soft spoken and soon to be embarassed wife. He declares as he enters- "there's a towel here!" Whose towel is this? Mine, I said. Now, I can't give you the exact text of the conversation, because his English was not great, but I could see that he meant business and he was angry, and.... yes, self righteous. As much as I am a pacifist in theory and teach non-violence to my students, and even went so far as to put a peace symbol on my PT Cruiser, I don't respond well to people telling me what to do. I responded to the old KGb agent (later I had wished I could have used that on him... this was in my... you should have told him blah blah blah stage), " what, are you the towel police?" He actually said yes to this, which only made the other fellas in the sauna laugh.

Had I pulled the KGB line, I would have felt guilty later, so I'm kind of glad I'm not so quick witted. I stood up and said I was leaving anyway, and as I walked out, another guy was exiting the sauna with me made a xenophobic crack about how he should learn the language. The guy said it to me to indicate that the Russian towel policeman was a nut and that I was not so bad. At least that's how I construed it. But as I walked toward the pool, I realized that of course, the KGB agent had been right. I had broken the rules. What I usually do in these cases is think of all the things I should of said. What I came up with after a few hundred soul searching crawl strokes was that I should have said he was right, but he shouldn't be such a douche bag.

Later in the whirlpool, I thought, if I see the guy, I will apologize because, after I get angry with people I end up feeling like a total hypocrite. I often hope to have an opportunity to make it right. As it turns out, he and his submissively quiet wife (long suffering as well) were chatting behind me on a bench. While I stewed and hemmed and hawed with whether I would take my opportunity, he narced out another patron to a life guard. He actually went over to the guard, made her leave her post, and ask this other fella if he had brought a towel into the sauna. Now, realize this, I have my towel draped over the sauna almost every day, and the life guards pop their heads in to see if anyone has died, and they say nothing. But this towel nazi had to be sure the rules were followed.

I had missed my shot, I thought. But instead, he headed back into the sauna, where I was heading as well. I thought, okay, it's time. I headed in and said to him, you were right about the towels and the rules, but you need to be less confrontational. He seemed to appreciate this, but like most people of the self righteous and confrontationary manner, he went on to expound on how right he was. I insisted, yes, but do you understand what I mean by being less confrontational? At this point, the guy he had narced on and his buddy had come in for a little meditation time in the sauna.

Sparks commenced. These towel rebels were in no mood to hear from the KGB, and, like any red blooded American who doesn't want to hear it anymore, they told him he better shut his yap. KGB towel man just couldn't let it go. He went on about the health hazards, and how people in NYC allow this, and the Y here didn't allow him to bring in a scrub brush, and how it was so much better now that the towels weren't being hung up on the walls. I told him I liked the old days, and one of the angry guys said to the old man, you better shut up because I came in here to relax, and I'm thinking about cracking you in the head.

Now I started out thinking of John Hobbes and the social contract. We in the sauna were nearing a state of nature where life is nasty brutish and short. If the old towel nazi kept it up, I wanted to tell him, life would be short. The towel nazi says to the angry man, I am not talking to you. He was suggesting that I wanted to hear his opinion, which was marginally true. Into this breach, a genial felllow in the corner says, how about the super bowl this afternoon? He had broken the ice, and the towel nazi was done ranting, his betoweled wife had fled, and peace resumed.

In the end, I had managed that damn conscience of mine, but I could see that I was not alone in not wanting to be told what to do. Part of the social contract, I have come to see, is playing the angles and edges, doing what works, and making peace whenever possible. In that working out, there are those who make the game more challenging...

simplify, simplify

Laurel and I have agreed to write a husband and wife team article for an educational journal. The topic will be, and the argument will be, that we have made education far too complex. There are too many administrators and too many non-essentials going on these days. We could save a heap of money in education by ditching about half of our administrators. When I started working at Averill Park, there were maybe 10-15 admins...

Let's make some stuff

Obama is in Schenectady! I'm watching him now. Not starting well by giving props to a Republican like Cuomo. Yeah, I know, but he sounds like one. Brian Stratton got to ride on Air Force One today. Nice...

Chris Gibson... great! The guy who wants to repeal health care. You know the .... job killing bill. Wanna know what a job killing action is? See Cuomo's announcement about laying off thousands of state employees. No need to make an argument there about whether it's killing jobs to fire people.

Okay, so Obama is talking about technology. America is home to innovation we're so productive and we build stuff, and ya da yada yada. Entrepreneurs, etc. State of the art batteries. Renewable energy... 650 jobs.... Challenge is to harness this spirit, this potential. Make it easier to bring good things to life. Yeah, let's make it easy for GE, but hard on state workers. I get the picture.

GE invested 13 million, but they got it through a tax break. We have an ever increasingly shrinking world, and we need to export more goods. But do the people of China have money? We have a pretty high standard of living; I'm pretty sure we are the big consumers. So if we open markets up, we get all the cheap stuff from places with low wages. But these low wage countries can't buy our stuff, because they don't have any cash.

This plant in GE is part of his deal with China.... but they're sellling the turbines to Samlcote India. 1200 jobs in GE... woo hoo. He wants to double American exports. We're gonna keep sellin stuff all over the world. Accelerate growth. We want an economy based on Thomas Ediison's principles. Jeff Imelt of GE is going into Obama's cabinet.

Frankly, if the economy does come back into a somewhat healthy recovery by November of 2012, he can't lose, no matter what lies the uber right sling at him. Two years later... my recovery board.... a million jobs... business picking up... still looking for work. Hmmm pesky unemployment numbers. If only these pesky businesses would actually hire people and the government would stop firing people....

So far, by the way, we have a traditional jobless recovery....

Jeff has a wealth of experience. Jeff and others will get us into overdrive mode. Clean energy and other stuff. Fix the roads, educate the people. Hudson Valley gets some props... Um... you're right next to SCC, and they are doing some edumacating too, Barach...

Pioneering efforts is what America is all about... brighter days... spirit of innovation... American Dream.... come on Obama.... didn't you read Arthur Miller? Speech is wrapped up. Whoah that was fast. Jeff Lawrence... I know that guy. He's my Assistant Superintendent's husband.

National blueprint... icon... Edison is Obama's. Hudson Valley the only one with an apprentice program.... 18% exports....a big goal.

Jessica layton in the hand shaking arena. Out of the ballpark. Meeting with people. Hometown feel. Clear away the road blocks, like regulations against polluting, Beneatha? Why aren't businesses hiring? Jeff says it's because of political uncertainty. Oh, please. Doubts and fears. Please don't blame this on politicians. This is all on business. The government didn't drop the ball. Dr. Ron Seyb from Skidmore didn't get much face time. Abigail Bleck. Really needs to change her name. Bleck. We're here waiting outside for nothing, folks. Oh that was really insightful. Oh we can't do without Days of Our Lives....

Back to Ron. This is the tone we're going to hear. Danger is just old wine in a new bottle. What's new. Follow up. Why does the government need to follow up and help the economy improve? What happened to Laizzes Faire? I always wonder if Republicans who are so pro business ever realize that the Ron Pauls of the world are looking for less government involvement in business...

What happened to poor Ron. Back to Jessica Layton. So upbeat! Back to Bleck street. Erie Blvd is closed down. President might be on his way out. Who cares! To get a glimpse of his motorcade?

Timing was interesting, says Beneta. After the China trip... Lawrence says it's a stronger message due to the delay. Politics is like that? How deep Beneta. One tweeter says, Huzzah for upstate New York. Three dozen cars in the motorcade. Back to airport. Hoping Obama would stop for a slice of pizza!

Jeff Imelt's role. The committee... Ron gets to talk. New advisory panel. Imelt was a Republican contributor as well as to Hilary. Back from the brink... into overdrive. He wants to send a message that the worst times are over. Happy days are here again? GE employee. Jessica talks to Danielle someone. Clean energy is perfect for GE. About time.... capablity... yahoo!

Goals for the research center... excitement. Murfeld? Local pols get to tell people what they should take from the speech? Schenectady is trending on Twitter. Whatever that means. Back to Jeff. Back to China. Huge roadblocks to trade with China. Keeping interest rates low in China... Regulatory.... um things.... leveling the playing field is important. Nothing good ever happens until you sell something? Are you serious? If I sell a nuclear bomb....

And stuff

Economy back to basics? Who says what basics are? When were we at this elusive base? Low pay in China- five years from now. More pay for Chinese workers? Do you really think so? Now to the airport with Sabrina Dhammi. Woman in tears from meet and greet with Obama. Okay... Peter Gordon tweet. Markets today.... positive? Hold your breath everyone. Here's a new saying.... Nothing good ever happens until someone gets a good paying job with good working conditions and some job stability. He's at the airport already. That was quick. Probably could have gone up RT 7 and stoppped at the diner for some souvlaki.

235,000 new jobs. How do you get these figures. Jeff hasn't done the math. Sales dollars per job. What's the ratio? Ron on China and India. Does Ron know that India's rich and poor are growing apart at an alarming rate... just wondering. Jeff back to innovation. Ooh these tweets are so insightful (not).

GE is divesting and getting back to making stuff and selling things. Divesting from GE Capital- one of my least favorite corporations. What we thought was the motorcade was the prep for the motorcade. I thought that was a bit fast, even for a motorcade on closed roads. Looks like the airport is no longer a hindrance to people coming to the capital district.

From Stratton Airbase to GE- very close, but too many side streets. Obama has to go outside to get on his plane... How sad. Here comes Obama. Talking to someone.... Up the steps and off he goes. No enterage. How does he feel about his speech? Jeff says he feels good connecting themes. Oh, not Jeff... Ron. What comes next? White House happy. Media is mercurial. Republicans will be diplomatically cynical.

Sabrina was warned by secret service about jet wash. Press Corp and staff go in the back of the plane. LIke clock work. 2 pm departure. One hour to Washington. 6:30 to go to Democratic Issues Conference. Can he walk the talk? Really? Wheels of the ground at 2:10 pm. Motorcade travels in a plane too. Cool.

The business of manufacturing. More jobs in Schenectady. Bodes well for the area. Moving out and taking off... what will the pundits say? Aren't they pundits? A major address. Pointed to a larger audience. Good lame duck session. Two year anniversary.... stars aligning. Edison in the state of the union address? Could Schenectady become a national metaphor? Let's make some stuff.

4th largest corporation in America. We're back! Reganesque optimism? American worker. What did Regan do for American workers? Um... destroyed unions.... deregulated industries so that workers could be laid off... hmmm Oh, now a story on how to fly a 747. Here it goes.... is this really worth covering unless it blows up? Wheels off the ground at 2:06. Thanks to Ron, and Jeff Lawrence Center for Economic Growth (whatever that is). Assessment exercise is big i higher education. Plane gone, story over. Wait.... we have a little more plane shot... the end.

Things I hate on the telie

Let's face it- we could each of us do a blog on this box over here and how much stupid stuff comes up. We have ourselves to blame of course. And like everything else, one man's art is another one's refuse.

Still, there is some pretty stupid stuff you just can't forget. Today, the Bongo and hoogey show... you know Bongo and Kathy lee Gifford... The show is no worse than any other morning show, but the last two guests were just worthless. The first was a woman who said we should worry about shrinkage in the winter. So much so that she thought we should all get baby powder to sprinkle into the cracks in our hardwood floors. But then don't vacuum it... just leave it there. My question- doesn't dirt do the same thing? And she wants us to stuff our ug shoes with newspapers and clean them with milk. Yeah. Milk. The second woman was supposed to be giving us some new taste sensations. Her first was pumpkin pancakes. They had to show us how to make pancakes! Who can't make pancakes. This wasn't sesame street or some kids' show. These were grown women sitting around a fake kitchen oohing and ahhing over plopping some pumpkin pie mix into your pancake batter and... ooh cooking it. Then the Bongo lady (whatever her name is) plopped her spatula on top of her cake! This is a no no among pancake makers. People do that with hamburgers too, and it's like, hey can I squeeze the juiciness out of this here burger for you? For pancakes... hey, they're cakes, right? Caky? You don't press the air out of your cakes do you? And it wasn't over This "cook" says, take some toasted hot dog rolls, put jam in them, and some butter, and bacon, and voila, you have this great snack. Are you serious? It's toast with bacon on the side, only you stick the bacon into your toast. This is a recipe? I made this kind of stuff after a long night of drinking in college (back in the day).

So if you have anything stupider than this, let me know. By the way, one of my students recently doubted whether stupider was a word. I said yes, and then checked on line, and one site said it was a word, but it was kind of an ugly word. Then I read it in a book this week. There it was... stupider!

Kafka on education in the 21rst Century

What would Kafka say about American education in the current era? That is our question for the evening. I just started the introductory material on an edition of the Metamorphosis and other stories, and as I read it, I started to understand what the writer meant by the universality of his major theme.

As any good reader of Wikipedia can discover, Kafka explored the notion of alienation. Alienation from the self, from the world, from all of it- whatever it is. However, built into any good look at Kafka is a bit of Marx and a sprinkling of Nietzsche, who Kafka read early on.

By the way, did you know that Kafka's sister divorced her Aryan husband so that she could be taken into custody with her other sisters by the Nazis and died in Auschvitz? Remarkable.

So, as I muse on Kafka, I think to myself, education has become, in Marxist terms, an assembly line of production. As a worker on the assembly line, I no longer have any ownership of the product. My worth is calculated based on how much value I add to my product. It is no longer valuable for a teacher to enlighten, to inspire, etc. It is nice if he does this, but not valuable. The only thing valuable any more is to add value to the commodity we call the cohort of students we process through the machine. Of course, the value is determined in any number of ways. If I can demonstrate that my students improved in some measurable way over the course of study, I can demonstrate added value. By reducing students to conglomerate sets of scores and by reducing their humanity to aggregated data, the process of education becomes far less complicated, and much more in line with corporate models of success.

There are a handful of companies out there who actually want their employees to become more creative for the sake of creativity. The bottom line is... well.... the bottom line. Creativity takes only a secondary or perhaps tertiary role in the process. The goal is not creation, the goal is added value. If being creative leads to a better bottom line, then creativity is fine. If it doesn't lead to improved test scores on a standardized test, the enlightenment thing is just a... mental state.

Now, granted, the current push for 21rst century skills gives lip service to creativity. It may even be one of our 'four cs' along with collaboration and competence. But the ability to come up with creative solutions to complex problems is now a skill. Creativity is not a goal, but a means to an end. In other words, the creativity itself is valued only if it leads to something of substance, a measurable outcome.

What can we expect, right? Who pays for enlightenment? We want results. If I hand you a paycheck with numbers on it, I want a report back that has numbers on it. Of course the absurdity of it is that we create these standardized tests that attach a number to a person's competence in a field of study, but we all know that the number is a merely a sign, a metaphor for something else.

Just as IQ tests create a numerical symbol for an elusive thing we call intelligence, standardized tests are really parables for the real thing. If I get an A in Mr. Fairchild's class, what does that mean? If I get a 98 on the ELA, what does that mean? Frankly both can be compared to ratings on wines....

We need to know many things to interpret these letter and number symbols. The A in my class represents many things. For some students, it represents their best effort. For others it represents something less than their best, but compared to the others in the class, it is excellent. Does the A represent how much the student learned, or does it represent how much the student handed in? Usually the latter. Does an A in a Regents class mean the same as an A in an Honors class?

The 98 on the ELA represents any number of things. First, one must know what year the student took the exam. For it to have meaning, one must know how that student did in relation to other students who took the test. If the test was scored out using a typical bell curve, that student should be in fairly rarefied air. However, this is really up to the state and how they decide to curve or distribute the scores. They will play with "cut scores" and crunch numbers to fit whatever they feel is appropriate, but all of it will come down to a corporate goal and all individual variables will be subsumed for the larger goal of the whole body.

This is the absurd moment. One suddenly realizes that the grades one has gotten, the acolades one has received, the pats on the back for a job well done, are all arbitrary and meaningless. This is the Kafka moment. When our main man wakes up to the nightmare that he is not a human, but a vermin.... The absurdity of the moment becomes unbearable.

The system does not want us to see this absurdity. It wants us to remain comfortably numb in our comfortably modern understanding of statistics and justified results. By way of these artificial signs of success, the funding continues, and the system coughs back to life on the way to whereever it is going.

Like I said, creativity is nice in this system, as long as it can be measured and calibrated.

things we thought were true

Tonight in the news... astrology has been off for some 3000 years. Not by a lot, just a smidge. Turns out there are 13 signs, not 12. For some reason it doesn't matter to us because of something to do with the fact that we figure things out seasonally. Still, it seems likely that the precise mathematical calculations made by astrologers must have been... well, wrong.

Last week we talked about new discoveries regarding Pluto and its fellow dwarf planet, Aris. We thought we knew what we meant by planet, and then... we looked at it a new way, and suddenly it was something else. Phenomenology rocks! If you've never read the preface to the play Doubt, it is really worth checking out John Patrick Shanley really embraces the notion of doubt and argues that it while it is uncomfortable, it is an essential part of being human.

Today in class we wrote on a quote I lifted from Shanley's opening to the text of the play from the book of Ecclesiastes. The gist of it is that too much wisdom brings one to sorrow. How true, I suppose, but how pointless. While it may be nice to ignore the news and other inconvenient truths, one cannot simply not know something, unless one is willing to lie to oneself and to others.

Although, I think most big astrology fans and experts will simply readjust their readings based on the new information, while maintaining that the old readings were just fine. The same adjustments were made by those who supported a Ptolemaic view of the solar system. Until it fell apart under the weight of excess data collected by better and better telescopes. But the old system held on for as long as it could, desperately readjusting without throwing out the old wine skins of an earth centered solar system.

Scientists brag that that's what makes science superior to other modes of inquiry. They argue that they are always making progress by creating new paradigms based on new data. Of course, they can't see that their methodology is a paradigm as well, one that does not always work. In other words, science is sometimes not pragmatic. Pragmatism insists on making shortcuts if it looks like it will help. Science rarely takes short cuts.

And yet this past week, a scholarly scientific journal published a study on ESP. Many of the scientists interviewed in response were offended that such non-scientific theories were being proffered as science. Their complaint was the traditional one- hard to falsify, etc. Still, it was published, and now the jury gets to decide.

One wonders if we will see science returning to a new form of scholasticism or even a neo platonism. Stranger things have happened.

Blood libel

I pulled this off a website to read:

In saying her critics "manufactured a blood libel," Sarah Palindeployed a phrase linked to the false accusations made for centuries against Jews, often to malign them as child murderers who coveted the blood of Christian children.

Blood libel has been a central fable of anti-Semitism in which Jews have been accused of using the blood of gentile children for medicinal purposes or to mix in with matzo, the unleavened bread traditionally eaten at Passover.

The spreading of the blood libel dates back to the Middle Ages — and perhaps even further — and those allegations have led to massacres of Jewish communities for just as long.

The term "blood libel" carries particular power in the Jewish community, though it has taken on other shades of meaning. Abraham Foxman, national director of the Anti-Defamation League, said Wednesday that "while the term 'blood libel' has become part of the English parlance to refer to someone being falsely accused, we wish that Palin had used another phrase, instead of one so fraught with pain in Jewish history."

What I see here is that Foxman wants to distance himself and his people from Palin; one can hardly blame him. It is laughable when powerful people purporting to be such independent thinkers, sporting deer rifles and talking about their toughness and strength reach back for tea and sympathy from the public when they are falsely accused or maligned by the media.

By comparing herself to the jews, Palin is drawing on a new victimhood in conservative christianity. Many evangelical christians bathe in the martyrdom of a perceived persecution by the society they live in. They often preach Paul's comforting words: be in the world, not of the world. But most of us christians are not exactly persecuted. It is pretty easy being part of the moral majority these days, but for many evangelicals, it is a rallying point to see yourself as under attack by the worldly forces.

This is the kind of picture Palin and her advisors want to paint by referring to a blood libel. If they can get us to see her as a victim of the very prejudices we liberals decry as immoral, we lose our moral high ground. Of course, if we see it for what it is, we can see that Palin shares in the guilt of false accusations and persecutions of her detractors.

come together

Most remarkable in Sarah Palin's response to the furor over the shooting in Arizona and the subsequent blame game played in the aftermath was that she attempted to separate almost everything and everyone. We are individuals, she explains; it is not a city that committed the crime, only the shooter; anyone who tries to share the blame is practicing blood something or other....

The key message or perhaps her subtext was that we do not commit crimes and we should not be held responsible for the unexplainable actions of a madman. This is true, I suppose, to a point.

On the other hand, almost everyone has suggested that we should come together to grieve and share our grief. We as a country will heal from this, we will pray together... So the grieving is a group activity, but the blame should not be shared? Part of what makes us human is that we recognize that when another person suffers, we suffer. This is called empathy. I think blame can be shared too.

In fact, Palin and her two buddies from the right have been trying to share the blame of extremist rhetoric with her opponents on the left. They did it too, so I am not to blame for my cross hairs on the woman who now has been taken off a breathing machine and is delicately holding up her two fingers in either a peace sign or a victory signal.

But while they want to share blame put on them by others, they want to suggest that any connections made by their opponents are part of a persecutory witch hunt. When anyone attempts to ask Palin or Limbaugh to take on some of the guilt and sin of a fellow human being, their reaction is that we are persecuting them.... Metaphorically, she is tying this blaming of her (an innocent bystander) to the blame put on the Jews. In a sense, we are supposed to see her as one of them.

And yet, juxtaposed against this trope of common suffering, she stands by the core of every libertarian. One of the primary philosophies of the libertarian right is an Emersonian "I am a rock, I am an island" (Simonian?) view of man. Americans have often fallen back on this kind of 'go it alone' view for many years, and that approach to the world is strongest in parts of the country where people are most fiercely independent- the wild west.

New information about the killer from Tucson tells a classic story of growing independence leading to its sinister brother: alienation. He was apparently a very nice kid who slowly moved from being a saxophone player in a band to a guy who played dark and nerdy games with friends to a guy no one wanted to play with anymore. One of his old friends said it made him nervous when he would invite him to go out into the desert to shoot guns. People started to make excuses, and the girls didn't really want to date him any more. It is of course counter-intuitive for us to begin to understand and sympathize with a person like him. However, being human means being empathetic. One of the chilling reports was from a neighbor of the family- they said if a ball rolled into their yard, they'd leave it there rather than retrieve it. Bad vibes they all said. They were the Radleys of Macomb.

I have had neighbors like this, and I have known people who have begun to alienate themselves and allow the drift of uneasiness into their lives. These people have been allowed to become islands, not because they are powerful Emersonian idealists, or Nietzschean Ubermench, but because they find it easier to be on their own than to deal with others.

Sarah Palin's instincts that come from an anti-socialist ideology right out of an Ayn Rand novel are demonstrated by her remarks in which she distances herself from the shooter. Rush Limbaugh continued to help draw out this distance by pointing out that Sarah Palin was no where near Tucson on the day of the shooting.

Of course, many people with less ice in their veins have begun to feel guilty that they did nothing to stop this horrible event. The cop who pulled the shooter over for going through a red light, the taxi driver who drove him to the store, a friend who knew him when.... all these people who came into contact with him will now begin to ask a simple question- how could I have made a difference?

This is about a shared humanity. We are guilty of this attack, because another human committed the atrocity. Just as I would feel guilty if a member of my family caused a tragedy, and if it were a member of my town, I would feel some remorse, we can all feel a trace of guilt in the things that went down that day in the sun drenched parking lot of a Tucson grocery store.

Palin is desperately trying to distance herself from this event. I'm sure the NRA will have no comment on the event for quite some time. Many gun owners are running as fast as they can from this event to buy bigger clips for their guns in fear that the 30bullet clips may be outlawed. Perhaps they can all get together at the doorway of their local gun shop to say a prayer for the victims.

But instead, most will buy more guns so that they can feel safer (though statistically this is idiocy), more bullets so they can keep themselves safer. Protecting oneself by clinging to one's Glock is not really the best way to "come together." I'll leave you all with one more Beatle's lyric: "Happiness is a Warm Gun."

science is not so wonderful as you think

The other day, two of my ex-students came back for a visit to the alma mater. One, a literature major, the other, chem. Lindsay tried to apologize for Carrie's deleterious view of fine arts in general.

"It's all so made up," Carrie had complained.

"Of course it is," I responded, "isn't that what makes it interesting?"

"No," she retorted. "That just makes it bullshit (or something to that effect."

"How is chemistry any different?"

"We have facts and real things to look at."

"So do we- books are real, right? Ink on pages... all real."

At that point, Lindsay tried to explain to me that Chemistry majors don't really get any of this stuff I was talking about. That was about how deep your average science major wants to go philosophically.

This encounter was followed by one I had with one Peter Bertram, chemistry teacher. I have begun to see where this dogmatic notion of science stems. He was reflecting on how ambiguous and challenging the questions on the ELA he had just proctored for me were. I agreed with him and his lock step mind concluded that there was clearly one superior answer, but it was pretty easy to see how a student would pick the lesser of the two "right" answers.

Now this is a big area of interest for me, and like my blog says, be ready to take some time if you want to talk about this with me. I am a reader response guy through and through. Philosophically, I am as pragmatic as they come in practice, but in theory, I am a phenomenologist somewhere between Kant and Husserl, or more in line, Heidegger. Which is to say I generally admit that reality is what I am conscious of and that when one claims to be holding on to a firm grasp of what "is," I smile and know you are a damned villain. You have no more claim to it than I do, and I've been looking most of my life.

So, when Mr. Bertram said he had the right answer, I began to query:

"What do you mean by 'the right answer'?"

"Well, there were two answers, but one is the one they are looking for."

"Ah, so the writers of the questions are the source of what is right?"

You can imagine how far we got... about that far. Just like Carrie...

And after the exam was over, this issue reared its head again as we discussed why the ELA was being given on the 11th and would not be actually determined (as far as scores go) until a week or so later. We English teachers explained to each other that this way the state can determine what the standard is based on how kids performed on this test. It is a new test, so there is no base line data. What they will do in subsequent exams is unclear.

Matt thought this was a bit disconcerting. I explained that there are two ways of evaluating: the American and the Danish system. In the Danish system (as in the way 4-H rates their kids), a criteria is established, and you either meet it (blue ribbon), or you don't (red ribbon). That means out of 10 kids, all 10 could get blues and 0 could get reds (fail). In the American system, your success is determined by whether someone in the contest out performs you. You get a blue ribbon only if you are the best. You could all suck, but if you suck the least, you get a blue ribbon.

I would argue that while the Danish system sounds more scientific and more stable, its competitor is more in line with how values are determined in the "real world." When we grade papers, we look over the papers and put them in piles. The ones that perform really well get the As, etc. Honestly, if I get a pile of papers that are really a pile of .... ahem.... I will not give any As, but getting my pile of lousy papers tells me one of three or four things. Either my assignment was beyond my students, or they are a bunch of doofuses, or I was not clear what I wanted in the papers, or there was a big concert that weekend, and 50% of them got stoned instead of really working on the paper.

In job pursuits, the American system prevails as well. When you go to a job interview where you are competing against the best and the brightest, you better be better than the last guy who went in for the interview. If you go out lookin for love in all the wrong places, it is easier to find someone when it gets close to quittin' time. Yes, I suppose in each of these cases, one has minimum standards we have to meet. I am not going to hire an unqualified person simply because he sucks the least, and most of us will not date someone with several teeth missing, but, hey, if you're desperate....

So, it is quite pragmatic to say that grades and values are determined ultimately by comparison with each other and not with any rock solid standard. In fact, one of the reasons we continue to be in a crisis mode in education is not that we are doing worse at meeting our current goals, but it is because we are not keeping up with the Dutch and the Danish and half of the other industrialized countries when it comes to math and other skills.

So, back to my science discussions. The scientists think they are working with absolutely static and measurable facts and that their field of inquiry is about finding truth. This brings me to my final move- what is Pluto? Planet or dwarf? In the NYT this week, there's an article that explains that the dwarf planet they found some time ago is smaller than they thought it was. Due to new methods of determining such things, they may go back to calling Pluto the 9th planet. Thus, the utterance "Pluto is the 9th planet in our solar system." Was meaningless for centuries, then it gained some credence, and then it was accepted as fact, then doubted and then called wrong, and now may be returned to a status somewhere near true.

Here we have the work of scientists- what makes a planet a planet? Who decided whether it was or wasn't planet worthy? All valuations (as Nietzsche would cry) are arbitrary!

In the end, scientists and English professors are doing the same things- trying to make meaning of the chaos. My right answer works for me, and I will be sure of this for at least another two minutes or so.

Peter Bertram

Pluto vs. Aris

Responsible Speech

Of course the buzz is all about the political discourse that "created" the shooter and the shooting in Arizona. The reverse buzz from the loud mouths (Beck and Rush) is that it's not their fault. Well of course not. You didn't pull the trigger, Rush. Glen, you're a swell guy with nothing but good things to say about everyone.

Ya'll are off the hook. We all know is was Sarah that started the fire in the first place. Consistent with a biblical view, we should just blame Eve.

Frankly, there is plenty of blame to go around when a maniac gets a gun and lets loose in a crowd of politicians. We can blame our gun crazed culture, our lack of help for the mentally ill, a lack of health care for said mentally ill person, and throw violent video games into the mix for a perfect ending to the list.

The reason we are all blaming the right is that the victim (of note) is a Democrat. A centrist Democrat and a popular one by most accounts. She was put in the cross hairs of Palin's unbridled enthusiasm to wage a metaphoric war on liberalism, even though she is no Teddy Kennedy. In her all or nothing view of the world, our victim was fair game.

The other reason we blame Palin and her cheerleaders (frightening image- Rush or Beck in a little skirt with pom poms) is that they are the ones fomenting anger. The right kicks back like so many children in a dysfunctional household, yelling "you yell too!" Palin's email to her buddy (from deep inside her bunker) sounded like a pathetic child arguing that if we blame her, somehow we'll all lose our right to free speech. She joins the laudable ranks of folks like Rod Blogoyovich and Larry Flint.

The right now wants to remind us of the leftist nut jobs who foment hatred. Ooh, like Reverend Wright and that guy they kept trying to remind us of during the election who we had forgotten about.... what was his name? Ayers?

The difference between Ayers and Beck is that no one ever considered Ayers as Time's Person of the year. And Reverend Wright has never come even close to being POTUS. And that is the thing these guys have not come to realize. They are blessed with the gift of rhetoric and a certain charm. They have also been lucky enough to have found an audience. Neither Palin nor Rush, nor Beck has realized the important role they play, or they feel that they are so right about what they envision for us in America that they can take the risks they take every day.

The other difference between the right and left is that "our" mouth pieces (Rachel Maddow?) are neither household names, nor are they inflamatory. The most famous left wing name caller we have is Michael Moore. It is quite a reach to say that he preaches hate. He may be a socialist and he may "hate America" as his opponents argue, but he is certainly not riling up would be anti-capitalists for a surge on the Bastille. The worst radical lefty I can think of is Noam Chomsky. How many Americans know who he is?

Left wing radicals of the strength and vitriol of Beck and Rush have not existed since the French and Russian Revolutions. Okay. There was Mao too. But in America today, there is not much of a chance of the gay straight alliance taking a pot shot at a congressman. Really. There's not. There are some radical PETA people, but throwing blood on people's fur coats is not the same as packing a Glock in your sock and going to a rally to mix it up with the people.

So, let me recap. The right wing loud mouths need to see that they have a lot of power. Such power needs to be used judiciously. In freedom begins responsibility.

Does it mean anything?

Somehow, I stumbled on a website that actually cited my blog entry on Plato, Aristotle, and the Soul of Education. I have no idea how it got there, but if you go to Yasni.com and type in Jasper Neel, somewhere way down on the sites, when you get to the blogs that mention him, my blog might come up on your screen. I tried to get my wife to look at it on her computer, but it didn't work, so I had to carry Whit's computer over to her and show it to her. She was not impressed.

However, having looked at the post again, I realized that I had used the wrong first name for one of my mentor teachers of all time. When I wrote the piece long ago, I had said his name was Anthony, but I now realize that is his brother (whom I also see from time to time). Well, it took me a half hour just to remember how to edit my pages. I have now done the edit, and for anyone who happens to stumble on it, it is now correct.

I ran into Kevin McCann recently at the East Greenbush library, and he hadn't seemed to have changed a lick. He is still as sharp as ever and he still remembered my sister's name after many many years. I will count myself lucky if I can still remember a student after some forty years or so when I have retired. Simply for this, Mr. McCann deserves to get credit in my blog instead of his brother....

We aren't Arizona, but...

If you have ever thought to yourself, wow I am so glad I don't live in Beirut or Dublin or Tel Aviv or... insert a place in history where violence has occurred in the name of extreme politics and or religion... you can now add Arizona. This event just goes to show that anarchists are just under the patina of a society that only gives lip service to virtues like compassion and belief in true democracy. Next time you hear a politician say something like "Don't retreat, reload" just say no- you cannot get me to turn against others to further your lunacy. We need more peace, not stones to throw.

I wrote this in response to an article on today's shooting of an Arizona congresswoman. She was a centrist politician who supported the health care bill but also favored the unpopular law against people of color that has made Arizona famous for racism of late. I often hear people in check out lines, at automotive shops, at the barber... how people are tired of living in New York. The taxes, the dysfunctional government, the weather....

And yet I could never stand to live in a place like Kansas or Arizona or Texas. This is not to say that we are somehow superior to Arizona- we have nuts here too. And the politics in a barber shop in Poestenkill aren't much removed from the climate in Kansas or Arizona or Texas. Still.... there are enough sane people in the northeast to make nut cases like this shooter realize that... well....they're nuts.

Still, such people of the Timothy McVeigh ilk continue in upstate New York, Michigan, Vermont, Wisconsin. They are here and they need to get a simple message preached to them. You may be angry and you may disagree with others, but killing or threatening people is not the way. In class, we have just finished up reading the Rebel. In it, Camus addresses these people who have reached the edge and cannot help themselves but to rebel and lash out. His consistent lesson is to remember that you belong to the human race. You are not a god. You do not have the right to take the life of another simply because you judge that person immoral and even ungodly. You cannot preach messages like the ones Sarah Palin has preached and behave the way she behaves without the lunatics coming out and putting into practice her thinly veiled attitudes.

Clearly, Sarah Palin is not guilty of this crime. However, you will see that the blogoshere has already linked her to this event. She puts targets on politicians. How much brain power does it take to see that this might lead to violence? I wonder if she is tweeting today about this tragedy. Is she privately beginning to question her poor choice of words and the sporting of her hunting garb for the media?

To be fair, this is not about her. It is about those who have held power for hundreds of years in this country now seeing their power ebb. They are angry at change, angry at the audacity of hope, and angry at anyone who opposes their way of life. This anger is poisonous and the more we allow our neighbors to wink and nod at racism, homophobia, discrimination toward women, and a slew of other "progressive" ideas, the more we allow ourselves to be drawn into these old tribal patterns.

The next time you hear someone make a joke about using a gun to silence someone, or a quip about someone of color, or a joke that ends with something like, "we don't need their kind in our town..."... stand up and say "that's enough." No yelling, no anger. Just say no.

Today's news is about Arizona. Tomorrow it could be here. Say no.

Piece of pie anyone?

So today in the news... they are announcing cuts to the military. Can you believe it? I even heard that they may increase the contributions military personell will make to their health insurance. This after the President said he would freeze the wages of all federal employees except active duty personel.

I am going to make a bold prediction that these cuts to our brave service men and women have as much chance of sticking as the Republicans have of repealing Obamacare. While we're on that topic, did you ever wonder how words like welfare and Obamacare could come to be terms of derision or have negative connotations? How did we get to a point where looking out for the welfare or the health care of people was a bad thing?

So the federal government wants to tighten the grenade belts of our active duty folks? The argument you will hear is that we should make an exception for them, after all, they are on the front lines and they put themselves in harm's way for our freedom, and they make it so that we can be safe at home, and...

I wonder why the same argument isn't made for maintaining the salaries of social workers. They are on the front lines as well. They take care of people we don't want to deal with on a daily basis too. Now, they don't shoot those people- they help them. But social work, I dare say, may have as much to do with saving our country from disaster as the military does. What did you say? How can you compare social work to invading foreign countries? That's like comparing apples and oranges.

Okay, what about police and firefighters? Don't they put their lives on the line too right? Should we continue to be incredibly generous with their pensions or should we start to tighten their vests and coats a bit too?

Have we left anyone out in this squeeze? There's those pesky nurses I suppose. They are on the front lines, taking care of us as well. Should they be an exception to this universal belt tightening? Teachers? Garbage removers? Waitresses?

Which special interest group do you favor?

When the cuts come down on the military and really stick- I mean, if we actually see the federal military budget go down in any significant way, then we know that the country is really ready to cut the deficit. Until then, it's just one special interest group against another for their piece of the pie.