The Lunatic Ravings of Greg J. Hipius

A short, discouraged rant

2006-12-01T11:02:00.000-05:00

I just don't get it. I'm trying very hard to understand, but I just don't get it.

I regularly defend my workplace to the world at large, because there is such an immense perception that an urban school is dangerous and populated by bad people, which is completely false. I've worked for several years now in one of our city high schools, and I have for years now freely stated that the vast majority of the students are great people and with as much promise as anyone else, and having also worked in the suburbs prior (allegedly so much safer and better), that the environment is as safe and amiable as any other.

However, I can't help but really feel let down over the past couple months. This same school I have defended, that I have said such great things about for so long, has in just two months hosted several thievings of my belongings (total value: several hundred dollars), some isolated but immense regular occurences of pandemonium where one can count on going to see unmonitored students acting extremely wildly, and a severely increasing trend of irresponsible and reckless behavior combined with a refusal to acknowledge their own actions. Over the past 24 hours, I have been hit by flying objects twice (once by accident by a thrown book, and once on purpose by a thrown AA battery to the back of my head) and observed several other instances... over the past 24 hours, the exact same lamp in my room has been upended and the bulb shattered twice (once by honest accident, and once by someone not paying attention to what they are doing pushing someone else into it)... over the past 24 hours, three students have related to me stories of having unprovoked violence visited upon them while simply traversing the halls.

It hurts because I really love most of these kids... the representation from the criminal element and the sociologically impaired element is still in the vast minority, but why does it have to be such a vocal minority? Why do so many great kids have to suffer for the transgressions of the small but very troubling and visible set of dispecable peers?

New Photospoofs

2006-11-04T13:00:00.000-05:00

As many of you know, I like to engage in "photospoofing", particularly in the context of the contests sponsored by Woot.com. My skill is very basic and so I can't really hope to compete for awards with the expert nerds that complement each other on fancy things like adding reflections and complex shadows, but it still is a good outlet for a creative sense of humor. Anyway, when I've got entries I'm especially proud of, I like to post them here too, for others to enjoy.

The contest this time was based on the old actor's adage "Never work with children or animals." The task was to adjust or create a film or television screenshot, recasting the key characters as children or animals. Predictably, most of the other entries have gone the route of placing monkey and kitten heads onto the bodies of well known human characters. I, however, felt there were two different, and I feel much more thoughtful and sophisticated, ways to take advantage of the humor potential. I put two entries together.

The first:

Admittedly, most people who aren't English teachers like me probably won't get it. The screen shot is of the character "Dill" in the film adaptation of Harper Lee's novel To Kill a Mockingbird. The relevance is that Harper Lee's book was a fictionalized partial autobiography, and indeed she did grow up close friends with Truman Capote, on whom she based the character "Dill".

Okay, so, realizing that was probably too oblique, I made one more generally accessible:

See, if I was a real nerd, I could have made the shadows on young Jodie Foster match the shadows of the lambs. But I'm a nerd in other areas, so I'm outta luck.

Anyway - I'm surprised I'm the only one so far who has made an entry attempting to capitalize on the idea of using a childhood picture of a former child actor to lampoon the context of a film in which that same actor performed as an adult. I guess I'm missing the "kitten heads on human bodies is cute" gene or something.

Re-Focusing Life

2006-10-09T16:38:00.000-04:00

It is a wonder how difficult it is to keep priorities straight in life... and equally a wonder how life eventually sets you straight.

I've been burning my candle at both ends for several years now... actually, that's inaccurate - I've been burning my candle at both ends while also roasting the wax in the middle for several years now. Basically, I've been taking responsibility for everything... I get involved everywhere, and in every case where I get involved, I have been making myself feel responsible for the widespread ultimate success.

In late summer, I suddenly had that revelation, and realized what I'd been doing. In the process, I'd been keeping myself deeply involved in activities and relationships that were no longer healthy for me, and blaming myself when they were imperfect... I'd been taking the successes I'd had, and flogging myself for every perceptible blemish... and I'd been not feeling at all good about most of what I'd been doing. It took a lot of both introspection and discussion with people close to me, but eventually a possible approach presented itself that I decided to experiment with: refocus where I feel I can have a healthy experience and make a positive difference, and embrace what I accomplish rather than bemoan what I don't.

What a difference.

Life demanded renovation, and it's coming, but it is really feeling good already. A few cases in point:

(A) Life Goals - What do I really want out of life anyway? Well, after thinking that question over a few times, I noticed that it is especially unusual that I spend 80% of my non-career hours in focus on a specific place not necessarily intrinsic to those goals, and very little of the remaining time on starting a family with my wife and on creating artwork I can share with the world. I've been paying a lot more attention to the two latter, which has made me much happier. I've also made another change... keep reading...

(B) Theatre - I realized that I was in an environment for my hobby that, for reasons I cannot control, has become partly toxic. It's not totally toxic, but the once well-founded and healthy loyalty that I held to the place I have been doing theatre for a decade is no longer warranted, nor is it healthy... and it is only getting me hurt, repeatedly. So, I declined to seek to continue as leader of that organization, and announced my retirement as a director there. I feel like a tremendous weight has been lifted from me, and it has actually helped me a great deal in enjoying the limited involvements that I do still have there, directing my last show last month, and helping out peripherally with the current one.

(C) Artistic Judgement - I had fallen into a trap that I have long consciouslly and vocally railed against, and hadn't noticed I had been ensnared by until quite some time had gone by in that trap: specifically, I cared a whole lot about what the sum total average response was to my arts from a judgemental aspect. I strongly object to that value, since I know I'd much rather have my art produce desired reactions on my audience than necessarily guarantee they all "approve" of it. The results were that I enjoyed this last directorial experience ten times more than the several that have preceeded it, even including last spring's revival of my best work from the past. I also feel, whether anyone else agrees or not, that it promoted circumstances that once again produced work I can be especially proud of, far more in line with my wishes for my art than I've been able to point to in years.

(D) Value Focus in Education - It is very easy to fall offtrack when a teacher of any art (or sports, for that matter) - since people's reaction to the work produced is a very visible, vocal, strong reaction... but, I have always really felt, it doesn't matter at ALL in a public school, except for how it contributes toward the real focus: growth, development, learning, and postive experience for the youth involved. Once I reaffirmed this for myself and re-committed myself to it, I found several decisions about this currently beginning school year presenting themselves that honestly surprised me... they were options I had been blind to, but which suited the real goals of my program far better than others. So far, response has been all positive, and I have directly observed plenty of good byproducts of those choices already... I hope this continues, and have a certain amount of confidence it will.

(E) Self Assuredness / Faith in Others - One other important thing happened in my life this year as the school year began... I am, this year, very confident that I know what my students need, that I know how to help them procure it, and that I am somebody worth having as a teacher. With that in mind, I also looked at my new students with eyes I haven't used before, and, if possible, I believed even more strongly than before that every last one of those who enter my room are capable of growing from the experience, enjoying being there, and ultimately achieving what their presence in my classroom is intended to prompt. This one is really strange to me, but honestly, I have been happier every day. I catch myself smiling a whole lot, compared to previous years... and I've felt healthier, too, with my usual health troubles not slowing me down or holding me back anywhere near as much... and I'm really happy to say that I even feel the truth of that faith in class each day - I really feel good about having those students there, and I feel that they are finding my classroom a good place to be and are progressing toward the goals we have together. If you're not a teacher, trust me - this is a really great feeling.

(F) Relationships - I had been really spending a lot of stress making things "work" in a few important relationships. Life has made things change in those relationships, and I was fighting it. However, over the past month or two, I've stopped fighting it and just "let it be." I'd like to say it was a conscious decision, and it is now, but it just sort of "happened" along the way to get there. The result is that I've found that I'm much happier just letting go of those relationships... sure, I'm not writing them off... but I'm not lamenting them either, because it is far more healthy and effective overall to focus on the good, healthy friendships I do have - and many of those have grown stronger for the effort.

It doesn't deserve its own lettered item, but I've even finally got some specific plan designs on getting things going in working on my weight. Only time will tell there.

If I ever need to refocus again, I just hope I can identify that need earlier - it is such a feeling of relief right now, and a bit disappointing only that I didn't do it sooner.

I'm in community theatre - guess I'm safe from the draft.

2006-08-07T15:14:00.000-04:00

*sigh*

I have tried sooooooooooooooo hard to refrain from just being political on my blog, especially after a random, anonymous radical lunatic stopped through many months ago proving that someone is reading my blog (if only random anonymous radical lunatics doing websearches for "War on Christmas" and becoming offended by my war on the War on Christmas)... but I just can't hack it at the moment. I'm sure it has a lot to do with the fact that I'm a teacher off for the summer, and so I've had more time than during the rest of the year to stay up on current events. But nonetheless, I think this would have affected me significantly at any time of year.

About a week ago, a news article reported on an Arab translator with the U.S. military, Bleu Copas, that has been drummed out of the service for that horrendous, contagious crime of being homosexual. The part of the article that just pushed me one step too far was this:

"On December 2, investigators formally interviewed Copas and asked if he understood the military's policy on homosexuals, if he had any close acquaintances who were gay, and if he was involved in community theater. He answered affirmatively."

Well. Hmm. I have a lot of different reactions to this, but first I need to finish describing my research, in the interest of full disclosure. Several independent reporters and bloggers found this to be as simply far beyond the realm of sense as I, and skeptically contacted Bleu Copas himself to verify it; to clarify, in all cases, Copas acknowledged that he is involved in community theatre (making this question less "arbitrary" than it sounds in a news report), but that the question was asked amidst interrogation attempting to find channels of evidence to reach the "outting" conclusion on his sexuality.

It's no secret that I'm very involved in community theatre, and straight and married; I will freely admit, however, that there is a significant representation of the homosexual community in community theatre. I don't know, though, that it's a larger percentage involvement, or just a larger percentage of involvement by people who feel they can be open and honest with their colleagues... community theatre is a hobby-level involvement that encourages a lot of great friendshps and overall inclusion and embracing of all types of people, so I've found that my community theatre colleagues tend to open up to those they are working with about all SORTS of secrets they wouldn't reveal elsewhere.

Now. I'm just guessing, because I am a physically weak person with a couple of personal issues about killing and have never served in the military (and have great respect and admiration for those who do, since they are doing necessary crucial work I cannot)... but shouldn't a profession like the military want to foster that same kind of no-holds-barred trust that COMMUNITY THEATRE fosters? But no, instead, infuriatingly pathetic homophobic bigots infest our government and military, and treat sexual preference like a disease, and persecute and ostracize those unlike themselves.

I do NOT respect a military leader who would treat another human being that way.

If you believe as I do, that sexual preference is not an issue of morality, there is no excuse to let it enter into other issues at all. But I do know that many do not believe as I do, that many believe it is somehow wrong or immoral... of those, there are two types: type A honestly believe that for religous reasons (and I can respect that while I disagree with it) - which would suggest that your religous beliefs ALSO tell you that it is the supreme being, NOT you, who is qualified to pass judgement on the morality of any person's actions, suggesting sexual preference is STILL no excuse to let it enter into other issues at all... type B are just demented, brainwashed fools, who believe it because it's all they have been told by the small-minded bigots they have been most exposed to in places of great power... and it is you that I am most afraid of in our country, as it is you whom have brought us to where we are today... and I am terrified that it is you whom are the majority, going to polls to cast your vote agaisnt gay marriage in 2004 and, while you're there, dooming us to another four years of the horror that is our current administration.

I went camping this weekend to Gettysburg with friends, and tried to put both this latest demonstration of the absurdity of those leading us out of my mind, but this morning as I awoke home again, I found it still resting on my chest, and just had to write about it.

I don't want to debate with you about if homosexuality is "right" or "wrong" (not right now, at least). That is simply not the issue. There are TONS of different choices people make that are considered to be "wrong" at different levels by others. I don't think there is an American that doesn't do something daily that another group of Americans think is "wrong." But... if that action is VICTIMLESS, such as sexual preference... or eating a cheeseburger... or using pants that have a zipper... our government and ALL its institutions have NO RIGHT to persecute the action!

I've only known very few examples of people who have had the nerve to suggest that not only is homosexuality "wrong", but that there are victims. There are always the people who still subscribe to the theory that they are depriving humanity of their offspring (in this day and age, and with overpopulation to boot? Give me a break!), but I remember one other time that I think represents a lot of the homophobia out there itself. Once, many years ago while I was still in high school, I remember going into a Blockbuster Video with a couple friends, and as I picked out videotapes, being loudly discussed (as were my friends, all male) by a couple of other young men hanging out in the store, making crude sexual comments. I remember one of my friends, after we left, saying that he "hates gay people because they do that, making others uncomfortable, and that's wrong." But here's the problem (and I'm ashamed to admit that I was too young to articulate it in response to my friend back then): using such excuses to indict homosexuality is like using the exact same scenario substituting a construction worker and a woman walking by to indict all construction workers (or construction work as a profession)... or any number of other things.

Here's a couple examples from my own beliefs. I truly hate it when people inconsiderately litter public areas like streets and parks, spoiling those common areas for the rest of us. One of the most common examples of this litter I see is the moron who tosses spent cigarette butts out his or her window while driving, because it's too inconvenient to cope with the messy and smelly leavings of their habit properly. But that doesn't make SMOKERS bad in general, nor does it make SMOKING "immoral" - it just means that there are some morons out there who demonstrate their self-centeredness through what they do with their cigarette butts, since some morons just happen to smoke. To spin it around: I like classical and jazz music a lot, and volume can really make a big difference in the enjoyement of some pieces... but you don't hear me tossing on the "Lieutenant Kije Suite" by Prokofiev at earsplitting volume in my car and then rolling my windows down as I drive through your neighborhood... but even if I did, it wouldn't make people who like classical music automatically bad... similarly, people who like rap and hip-hop should not be indicted for their tastes just because there happen to be some morons who will drive around with it at earsplitting volumes with their windows down.

It's all a big logic puzzle, you know... some objects are blue and some objects are cars, and there are sometimes blue cars, but that DOESN'T mean that all blue things are cars or all cars are blue.

It sounds soooooo easy when we say it that way, and even some of the most simple people can grasp it, so why can't they understand it the other way?

You know, that some people are attracted to the same sex, and some people are inconsiderate @$$35, and there are sometimes inconsiderate @$$35 who are attracted to the same sex, but that DOESN'T mean that all homosexuals are @$$35...

nor does it mean that all people who are @$$35 are homosexual...

...as proven by the @$$35 who are leading our military and our government and insist on this ongoing persecution, even as we have so many other issues to deal with that are ACTUALLY IMPORTANT.

Happy Birthday to Blooooooooog...

2006-06-18T16:06:00.000-04:00

Yay! Happy birthday to this, my first blog!

Okay, I admit, I missed it by a few weeks. It was actually the very beginning of June last year, and I'm not catching it until halfway through the month this year. But I think I've got a good excuse... see, the only reason I'm noticing that it's been a year since I started this blog is because of a bizarre and massive experience of deja vu. Today, it is well over 90 degrees out there in Syracuse... we've had a few hot days already, but this is the first ugly, humid, sweltering one that has made me consciously think to myself "I hate hot weather, and I can't stand being outside when it's over-hot like this", and hurriedly make plans to return to the comfort of my climate controlled home environment (A/C on strong right now, plus both the standalone fans and ceiling variety). Now, that made me feel deja-vu, because one of the very first rants I spewed forth onto this, my very first blog, was last year in June, when I took the opportunity to complain about how the rest of the world delights in calling this "good" weather, when I think it's some of the worst, and views rain and cool as "bad" weather, when it's what I'm longing for on a day like this.

So, anyway, I guess whatever the reason, happy birthday to blog! Yay! It's been an up and down year here, with some periods when I got a bit too busy to write, and some "feast" periods when I found something new to post almost daily. Of course, I've also begun several other blogs since then... a blog to reflect on my poker exploits, the Hold or Fold blog... a blog for discussing our regular poker tournament, the Poker Frog Blog... a blog for the extra-curricular theatre organization I run for the kids at the high school, the C.A.S.T. Blog... a sadly rarely used blog for recording my experiences in battling my weight (I hope I'll have more cause to post there this summer), entitled the Blubber Battle Blog... and even, most recently, a Relay Novel project for the Off On a Tangent comedy group, aptly entitled Off-On-A-Tangent Blog (tho nobody else has yet expanded on my story... *sigh*). Soon, I'll be posting a blog to support work on the Scene One summer show, too. Blogging has really turned out to be a great way to make it seem like I'm producing something... only if it's rarely read (though I have actually heard replies from THREE different people I know! How about that!!!).

Here's to you, blog... giving me someplace to rest my ranting insanity. Speaking of which... what is wrong with people? We went out to lunch today with my grandfather and my father (and lots of other family too) to celebrate Father's Day... and when we left the restaurant, my dad found his car had been hit in the parking lot by someone who just took off. Geesh... Happy Father's Day! May I someday have the ability to put things in calm perspective like he does...

A weekend with the gang

2006-06-13T21:37:00.000-04:00

I spent this past weekend on a short trip with some friends. We drove down to Lancaster, Pennsylvania on Saturday, went out to dinner at a local Ichiban, stayed overnight in a downtown hotel (where we enjoyed a fantastic evening swim in the pool, which we had all to ourselves), and then headed over on Sunday to the reason for the trip, a performance of the musical 1776 at the Dutch Apple Theater, before heading back to Syracuse sunday night (stopping at a Cracker Barrel on the way). It was a short, exhausting trip, and some of the best fun I've had in a long time.

I honestly, truly love going on trips with friends. While relaxing in the pool on Saturday, we ended up on the topic, and there really is a key truth to that statement, at least for me: it matters not much at all where the trip is headed, but rather that it is with friends. The chance to hop in a carful of friends and hit the road, chat for hours, share music, share relaxations, share experiences (no matter what they are) along the way, it's at the center of my most treasured memories.

This summer will be a really packed one for us - I'm busy almost every week and every weekend, each with different responsibilities. Still, I hope we can find the time to just get together and go places with some friends, preferably unhindered by it being connected with any specific formal group or responsibility. Now that's the way I unwind.

P.S. - On a side note, I just got home from another very cathartic experience, the final Corcoran Live! concert of the season, and the last significant event I had the opportunity to share with this year's seniors. More on this next post - I have to get the photos processed first.

Music Hunting

2006-06-05T11:56:00.000-04:00

I spent a chunk of my weekend burning new CDs to keep in the van, collections of favorite music and the like. That always has the potential to be a real time-killer for me, because it is so easy for me to get sidetracked by the search for different music that I've always wanted. Some of the searches that inadvertantly derailed me and ate up a few moments this weekend:

(1) A good recording of "Don't Fear the Reaper" by Blue Oyster Cult - I have never broken down and purchased a BOC CD, because the best I can tell Reaper is the only BOC song I care for. Instead, I've downloaded Reaper about a dozen times... and until now, every copy has stunk. It's something with the cymbals in the set - they have a tinny, wavy quality that is really distracting to the overall song. Anyway, I was actually successful in this one this weekend finally, as I found an extended version of Reaper from a live BOC album on iTunes. It's got the extra live performance blemishes in the performance you'd expect, but overall, I call it a "win".

(2) Classical Rock - No, NOT "classic rock", and that's the problem. What I particularly like, and have been looking for for years, are instrumental rock versions of classical music. It DOESN'T COUNT if someone sings anywhere in the song, so pop songs that rip off parts of classical melodies don't count. A few optimum examples: "A Fifth of Beethoven" (the '70s dance version of Beethoven's 5th symphony), or "Sprach Zachustra" a la the rock funk version from the soundtrack to the Peter Sellers movie "Being There". I love that stuff, and I KNOW there is a lot more of it out there, but can't for the life of me find it. I came across two imperfect solutions in my short continuation of the quest this weekend. First, there is a version of "Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring" that I noticed in the end of "The 40 Year Old Virgin" this weekend, according to the credits performed by a group that seems very promising from the 70s, but which iTunes does not carry at all, and which appears only to be available on CD as a purchase of an expensive import. Second, a much less close fit, but interesting nonetheless, is a British group of four female violists who perform dance rock arrangements of classical pieces. I listened to some samples on iTunes and they sound a bit TOO dancey for me (plus all the literature and album art turns me off because of the over-sexing of the performers, I guess on the mistaken assumption that they need to sell these women as sex objects rather than as musicians because so much of the pathetic, shallow pop industry already has that screwed up value), but I think I'll end up giving them a try too.

(3) Gregorian Chants, modernized - Sort of related to #2, I guess. I specifically remember sometime in the '90s a CD coming out and being popular featuring Gregorian chants, set to rock beats and with light bass and synth accompaniment. Now, all my searches either turn up straightforward and genuine Gregorian chants, or (believe it or not) Gregorian chant versions of pop songs (the exact photo negative of what I'm looking for).

(4) The Foremen - Folk Political group that my friend Mark introduced me to, but whom broke up years ago, and now I can't find their albums, nor are they available on iTunes. Very funny stuff, and sorely needed in the current political climate.

(5) Rhapsodic, creatively instrumental music - Not solely instrumental here, but were talking a certain type of rock that I really enjoy, that has creative melody and musicality, non-adherence to the dull and overused conventions of common, static time signatures and melody patterns, and that feel more like a journey through several different melodies, rather than just a verse and a chorus over and over again. Some good examples: "Bat Out of Hell", "Paradise By the Dashboard Light", or "I Would Do Anything For Love" by Meatloaf; at least half of the greatest hits of Kansas; "Bohemian Rhapsody" or "Under Pressure" by Queen (lots others by them too). Maybe a couple things by Rush. I think it's really mostly a 70s anti-disco rock sound that does it, but I'm not sure. Anyone have anything good along those veins to recommend?

A disturbing sequence of thoughts...

2006-06-01T15:27:00.000-04:00

The following is intended as a truly non-politcal, non-partisan observation, which is equally disturbed by the same displays from both "sides of the aisle"... please don't take it as anti or pro war or right or left wing and flame at me in comments - I have thoroughly tired of debating my views, since only those whose minds are as equally made up as mine participate in the conversation, and neither of us are going to convince each other any time soon.

I am feeling very, very distraught about the most recent developments overseas. I specifically speak here of the news story yesterday about a pregnant Iraqi shot and killed by American troops during a tragic misunderstanding at a roadblock.

http://apnews.excite.com/article/20060601/D8HV5I8G0.html

This comes on top of the possible slaughter last fall in the village of Haditha (just currently coming to light through an investigation), as well every bit of anger, rage, and raw emotion feeding into violence that already existed.

I'm feeling distraught because, regardless of anyone's political belief about whether US troops should be in Iraq or what they should be doing, there can be no doubt that it is becoming more toxic by the minute to be in the US armed forces and serving in the middle east. Serving in the military is one job that I could never do myself; I have often thought about that fact, and how much more deserving our military is of real respect, concern, and care, more than those who politicize the troops to serve either side of the war debate actually afford them. It is so depressing to see the extremists of both sides abuse those people who serve in the military for politics, whether it is the horrifying display of someone choosing military barracks or a cemetery and military funeral (yes, this has actually happened... again and again...) to hold a demonstration against the war, or the equally horrifying display of people using blind, blanket "you don't support our troops" accusations against those who select and craft their show of objection in the most respectful and cautious of ways. Here in the U.S., we spend so much time on the outskirts of the issue that it seems we can't meet in the middle, even on Memorial Day, to just focus on how fortunate we are to have these people do for us what we can't do for ourselves. I did not see a single Memorial Day rememberance that was not abused and politicized to either praise or condemn the war.

And that's what we're doing to them at home. While in the middle east, they are experiencing all the worst parts of the same stereotyping and bigotry that contributed to the root problems, and which we spend so much of our effort here in the U.S. battling against and struggling with. The brother of the killed pregnant woman is quoted in the article saying "God take revenge on the Americans and those who brought them here." In that sentence is the language that shows the issue... the man has been charged by such sorrow, anger, and rage, that he has fallen under the blindfold of the stereotyping bigot... he didn't say he wanted revenge against the person responsible, he said he wanted "revenge on the Americans." Certainly, sympathize with his heartbreak, and allow him that anyone might say anything in the heat of that passion. But, to be fair, put the same situation in other contexts you can better understand. Imagine this version:

A caucasian man is driving his sister to the hospital, and cuts through an area of the city through which he wouldn't otherwise drive at fast speeds with little slowing down. After tearing down one particular street bearing the home of an African- American gang leader, thugs see the car barreling down the road and shout warnings that it turn around (imagining it to be a drive-by), and when it doesn't, they fire what they describe as warning shots to disable the vehicle, but instead shoot and kill the pregnant woman. Later, in the press, the brother is quoted as saying "God take revenge on the black people and those who put them into this impoverished neighborhood."

I've framed it with the racial choices (it could be vice-versa in races too, or even other races than Caucasion and African-American, but I chose that one because its racial charge is already so familiar to us) because it is a context we can relate to in America. The fundmental issue at the end is this... the man is so enraged with grief that he cannot see that this incident and others that involve African-Americans in urban areas are not automatically indicitive of the larger wholes, nor are they automatically limiting to the population subsets. Being African-American does not mean you live in the bricks, nor does living in the bricks mean you are a violent felon, nor certainly does it mean that being African-American makes you a violent felon... so it sounds absurd to want revenge on the whole of the race for the actions of one.

But somehow this is tolerated, and even encouraged, by this mindset we see again and again. An American soldier engaged in a fatal shooting... so all Americans are deserving of the revenge? It is more and more tragic because there have been a few other examples (Abu Gharib, Haditha, etc.) that make the perpetrator of the generalization feel even more justified... but again, even a hundred examples... or a thousand examples... in a total class size of 1.4 million (size of the total U.S. active duty armed forces - not including 1.3 million in reserves) does NOT justify making a generalization about the entire class that they are all deserving of revenge... and ESPECIALLY not in a class size of 281,422,000 (Americans, using the U.S. definition of the word, which is what the man intended). Ironically, encased in this discussion is the temptation (that must be quashed!) to retaliate with an equally poor generalization: that somehow all Islamic believers stereotype Americans (violent fundamentalists don't make up a large enough sample size to warrant the generalization, nor even do people who would make a statement similar to that one I cited from the article).

And so, armed with this generalization that all Americans (and especially military) are deserving of "revenge", on come more loonies wearing explosives or firing guns. And it all keeps on perpetuating.

Even though there are over a million of them, in some ways, being a U.S. soldier today has got to be one of the most lonely feelings in the world, like everyone is out to get you... ...or would that be another unsubstantiated generalization?

A Few Truly Random Short Musings...

2006-05-31T10:50:00.000-04:00

IRONY - Yesterday I spent a very long time writing an extensive essay about rage. See, I'd noticed that while I used to pride myself on being a particularly cool-headed person, I have been really heating up over things more and more. I extensively guessed about the root of this change (a situation and person who have pushed me farther than usual earlier this year), and expounded specifically on some of the little things that really agitate me. I explored at length the effects that all the unchecked anger were having on me, and hypothesized a practice to vent and release. The entire work took me two hours to write, edit, and save, and was a fairly significant, polished tome by the time I finished. I saved it to disk (on alternating days, I'm in a room here at the school whose PC isn't internet-capable) and brought it home to post... where I found, upon loading, that the file was corrupted and lost. Naturally, I was enraged. Only I can successfully enrage myself over losing a raging rant about how my own rage enrages me.
MY PLACE IN MY WORLD TODAY - Today, I am experiencing a constant parade of students coming into my room. They're all seniors, and each time, I think, "Oh! Students I haven't seen in awhile! I wonder what they're coming for!" And each time they just want my keys to go into the costume attic and select pieces to use for an English class project with a colleague. Kind of pathetic, I know... but somehow it keeps disappointing me. *sniff sniff* I see how it is. No, wait, strike that... as I was typing this, Molly and Haley stopped by, and not for costumes. They needed me to sign sheets for CAS hours. That's what I am... a resource unlocking autograph machine...
ENTROPY - My world is becoming far too entropic. My largest and most involved group of students are graduating and leaving in a few weeks... my last close bachelor friend is getting married... I just learned that two of my English teaching colleagues will be gone next year, one to a transfer and the other retiring... Things are breaking down, changing, moving on, and ending too fast to do enough building up and beginning to fill the voids. Is this what being old is? Yuck.
FATE'S NON-SEQUITORS - I've noticed that, just to make absolutely certain that I don't ever feel totally secure, fate makes sure that very non-sequitorial Twilight Zone-esque things happen in my life. Yesterday's contribution: I arrived at my classroom and heard what sounded like a circular saw in the direction of the back hallway. I ventured into that hallway (behind the auditorium), where I now revised my assessment of the noise to that of a "raging waterfall", and tracked it to the locked men's room. I investigated and found that, apparently completely on its own, the men's room toilet decided this weekend to begin flushing and not stop. The quantity of water also seemed slightly amended, perhaps to a tune of about four or five times the usual volume of a regular flush, and instead flying through the bowl in a constant stream. Weird. So, now I have no bathroom at work.
DODOS - Today, there is an annual health exhibit going on in the auditorium lobby. To me, this means one thing: a day of students who otherwise I am saved from being exposed to having a reason to venture down into my wing (the event is set up in the auditorium lobby) and further erode my belief in the intrinsic good of humankind. Are they that bad? The majority, no... but a select few, ones that usually never come down to the performing arts wing and from whom I am therefore usually insulated, are real pieces of work. Case in point: as I sit here in the pit of the auditorium typing this entry, some random fool ducked into the main door of the auditorium and threw, as hard as he could, a couple empty plastic bottles and empty snack food bags into the seating area, and then, dashed back out. Something is very, deeply wrong with people like that.
POINTLESS AUTHORSHIP - Isn't it incredible, the sheer quantity of people out here with websites writing pages and pages of text, explorations of all the areas their heart leads them... and I'm fairly certain that the vast majority of us are writing for an audience of barely a handful. I virtually did cartwheels when a student actually posted a comment on one of my other blogs, an online callboard for the school theatre group... prior to that comment, my last evidence of anyone actually reading any of my blogs was some person with severely divergent political beliefs to myself wasting his own time writing angry rebuttals to some of my old posts about the absurdity of the "War Against Christmas" nonsense and a hint (and just a hint, mind you) about my opinion of the current U.S. president. I think it would be safe to say that I'm writing this without an audience, and it is unlikely to suddenly spawn an audience after it is written, too. It feels a little like a variation on a famous axiom... "If a blogger types in the internet and there is no-one around to read it, does it make a difference?" And yet, I'm still typing... you know, I just don't get me sometimes.

My Midlife Crisis Begins?

2006-05-30T18:19:00.000-04:00

Each day, we all age 24 more hours. There are no 24 hours that we age that are any longer than the others - 24 hours is always 24 hours. But, when we age the 24 hours that bring our life total to 262801 hours, many of us react with dread, grief, loss, frustration, emptiness, and a re-examination of our life thus far.

Yeah, I turned 30 recently.

I know I’m not significantly older today than I was two weeks ago. But when I was twenty-something, the mental estimation that I had suggested there was still more ahead of me than behind me… now, my mind estimates that I could be crossing into a point any moment now where there is more time in my natural life behind me than that which is ahead of me… and there is no way to ever know when that moment is… or was.

Here are the three major thoughts that I found myself having on turning 30:

Can I really handle the great curse of my profession and philosophy for another 25 years or more? I teach upper end high school, and my particular philosophy is that I am teaching young adults who deserve to be treated as adults and who most benefit from a combination of adult colleague and coach, rather than any longer from the parent / authoritarian model for child students. I strongly feel that my students need people who will welcome them into the real world, seek to include them in adult life (and expect them to respond with adult responsibility), and are ready to be colleagues, friends, peers, and collaborators with them. I know that my philosophy is not popular, but I feel I have some particular success with my theatre arts students and my senior English students that can back up my choices. However, the result is that I am in a constant state of watching groups of people I view as colleagues, friends, peers, and collaborators move on to great things in the real world beyond, while I am destined to always remain here. The ride is great, and I am so very honored to make so many great acquaintances, colleauges, friends, etc., and even to feel that I have, in some small way, made contributions to the final adult they solidify to be in the world when they leave… but I miss so many of them a great deal. Certainly there are two or three whose path in life have led them to places where I still get to remain colleague/friend with them (Yay Meg! Yay Zack! etc.), but the vast majority are off, and that’s the way I do want it… that’s what we’re preparing them for, to be off and to fly… but still. It does hurt. I’m losing a very special group in a couple of weeks, including four or so that I find it difficult to even imagine my job without them as a daily part. I know, they weren’t around in year one for me, but it still feels like they’ve always been an important part of my world here at work, and I’m going to miss them quite a lot. Ironically, I don’t have such a good way of communicating those feelings as my colleagues who have a more authoritarian/parental relationship philosophy; similarly ironically, they tend to pass me over when doing things like distributing senior pictures - I received exactly one this entire year (although I also attribute this to being male and the misconception that somehow being male means I wouldn’t appreaciate nostalgic items like that). Well, this could turn into a blog of its own rather than just one point of three, so I’ll stop myself here…
Have I whistled away too much time… will I have major regrets before too long? No doubt, there are tons of things I want to do and accomplish, but have yet to do. I have several books started, none finished. I only just finished my first play this year, and it is a mediocre one act play that will likely never see the light of a stage. I have an army of websites that I gave a great start but now don’t update anywhere as often as I should (and besides, I have a sneaking suspicion that nobody is viewing or reading them anyway). There are things that I’ve done of which I’m proud, but they’re always on small-scale… I direct and produce plays - at a small community theater with an average attendance of 30… I write - things that few or no people ever read… I have developed and run a robust high school theatre program - at an urban school, and only for five years, and putting on exceptional work that only those within our school community ever see. Am I making a positive impact on my world? Am I doing enough? I expend an awful lot of time on myself and hobbies of latency - television and film, music, video games, poker… is it too much? Is it indulgence to the level of greed?
Is it too late already to pull out of the tailspin my health is in? I weigh over 350 lbs. I remember when I weighed 220 exiting high school and wished to lose weight so I could feel okay about my looks… I remember when I weighed 314 for the longest time while away at college, and set a minimum goal for myself to never weigh more than “pi”… I remember when I first had diabetes strike me upside the head a year ago, and I was just under 340… I started a blog related solely to my weight last year when I pledged to struggle, and at least stay under 350. I excitedly looked forward to finally having a treadmill and starting a major push, and finally had one set up and ready to use in the living room on Sunday. Then, on Monday, I puttered around the house doing errands before eating Chinese (worst weightloss choice possible) last night, then having leftover Chinese for lunch today along with leftover cheesefries from Zebbs this weekend, and I’ll be heading almost directly from school to go out to dinner at Ichiban tonight. My health already killed several dreams and experiences… I dropped quickly from my one try at a DCI level drum corps before aging out because I couldn’t keep up physically and would have been holding them back… I go to once-in-a-lifetime opportunity theatre shows and sporting events, and spend more time paying attention to the intense pain in my sides and legs due to the size of the seats compared to the size of me than I do to the show… I miss out on memories with friends when we go camping and I can’t make the hike, or when we go on vacation and I tire out from the walking by mid-day. I must be, on some subconscious level, such an embarassment for my wife. If we do eventually have kids, at this point, I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to do all the things a father should be able to do with them. I disgust myself, and it may be too late to do anything about it.

Wow. This is even a lot more pessimistic than I had any imagining it might be when I started. I hope I find a way out of it - we just paid for a new used van and major surgery for one of our pet ferrets… I can’t afford a midlife crisis toy like other men.

A Confused View of Law

2006-05-29T15:25:00.000-04:00

There is a great paradox that I see in many of my students, and it frightens me. I observe behaviors and overhear in their conversations attitudes that suggest they have somehow taken a personal behavior choice that is direly illegal and view it as normal, everyday, nothing-wrong-with-it behavior, and they have taken a common, everyday behavior choice (granted not universally accepted, but also not illegal) and view it as so direly wrong that it excuses and even necessitates illegal behaviors simply in response.

THIEVERY - I can’t get over it. It is the most common wrong that students engage in (in my observation), and it is incredibly pervasive. In my first five years of teaching, I have had two cell phones, an MP3 player, several props and costumes, and an entire backpack stolen, and that’s just what *I* own - students in my room have had a giant quantity of itemst stolen. When it happens, people act as if I am somehow strange for being so upset, rather than just accepting it nonchalantly and moving on. In other circumstances, I overhear conversations from students discussing things they have stolen, and expressing the worldview that everyone, literally everyone steals things, and that makes it okay. I have read many works of student writing that express this same worldview, both in recollections of personal experiences in stealing, and in opinions of hearing others having stolen things. Today, I actually watched a student, very bright and polite and (I thought) a model student and very trustworthy, place a baseball cap that was sitting on a table in my classroom in his bookbag, and then remain motionless and silent for a few seconds when the owner came around looking for it, waiting until I loudly made it clear that I knew someone in the room had taken it before he gave in and returned it to the table from his bag… and even after all that, his demeanor was smiling, sheepish playfulness, as if it was just a joke. So many of my students view theivery in the same frustrating light that many adults view speeding - there is nothing wrong with it bad enough to hold it against the perpertrator as long as they don’t get caught, or are willing to pay the “fine” when they do, almost like paying “dues” that allow them to freely break the law all the rest of the time.
HOMOSEXUALITY - This bothers me just as much, honestly maybe more. These same students who freely admit to theivery and consider it a normal thing everyone does that has nothing wrong with it view homosexuality - just being homosexual - as a transgression so heinous that it excuses some of the most disturbing behaviors in response. At least once in all of the past three years, I have overheard a student, when he didn’t realize others were listening and was relaxed and just swapping stories with a friend, brag about mugging someone they percieve to be a “homo.” In all four instances, the story never included any provokation from the victim - nothing said or done that hurt the perpetrator, not even the lousy excuse I’ve heard used on television before that the person acted or spoke in a manner to show personal interest in the perpetrator - but rather were instances when the victim was in circumstances when he had no reason to believe they were in danger and were completely blindsided (that they catch their victims by surprise is usually a note of boast for them). The perpetrators speak in frightening detail and with shocking pride and fond recollection of the physical harms that they visited upon their victim. And finally, the braggings always close with a statement that is an approximate conjugation of the phrase “He deserved the beating he received because he is a ‘homo’.”

What a terrifying world we live in where the sociology surrounding urban youth, combining economic desparation, deranged fundamentalism, and violence apologists, have produced a worldview where thievery is a daily norm for all people, but simply existing and having an interest in the same sex is grounds for public beatings.

"Overkill"

2006-05-23T11:25:00.000-04:00

Well, we're finally on the back of the wave of programming created for what the television calls "sweeps" and what I call intensely annoying. For the past month my DVR has been smoking with the friction of mad recording frenzy, as it struggles to keep up with the flurry of new episodes being aired by all programming as they close out their seasons (in most cases not to return until the fall).

Of course, I know that it felt so frenetic for me partly because May was a very busy time for me with my most recent show runnning at Appleseed, followed by the last show of the year at Corcoran. The result was that my poor DVR was usually weeping under the weight of the backlog of recordings we have yet to watch, and several times found itself shouting out warnings as we neared the 30 hour capacity with many hours in the queue to be filled the next night. We combatted it with several strategies, including a couple of surreal "we have to stay home and watch television tonight" plans, a couple of instances of sacrificing the least important recordings in the queue, and eventually the final surrendur to the knowledge that we can't watch it all before the space runs out, dubbing six of the final seven episodes of "The West Wing" onto an old fashioned VCR tape (the seventh is still on the DVR), a task that eventually ultimately convinced me to purchase a DVD-R.

But here's the main reason I'm writing - what really got me frustrated with the season finale sequences this year (at least 60% of which I still haven't seen and only know from the commercials) is the overkill. And here I don't just mean the usual overuse of cliffhangers, a phenomenon I've been frustrated with for years... I actually mean Over Kill. A ridiculously large percentage of the shows we watch decided this year that they have to place at least one primary character in a hospital under mortal peril, and an unreasonable number of them went ahead and killed off a character. Sure, it's got to be done occasionally to be realistic and support the plot, but the cumulative effect was draining and exhausting, both from the standpoint of an audience member engaged in the plot and an artistically based fan of television engaged in the quality performances of particular actors. The cumulative effect, also, is that it feels ultimately UNrealistic... when every story the television tells you in the same one month period puts people in the hospital and morgue. Sure, I know, it often feels (although this is a psychological illusion) that "fate" often delivers these tragedies in batches in real life, but not this pervasively.

I also can't help but mention that I think that the very sad real-life passing of John Spenser, the outstanding actor most recently playing Leo McGarrity on The West Wing, strongly contributed to my not caring for seeing other unnecessary television character offings, all of which feel sort of shallow and tacky next to The West Wing having no choice but to deal with death in its final episodes ever, simply out of necessity. It's how draining I'm percieving the final sequence of episodes of The West Wing will be that has made me thus far select it first for temporary relegation to videotape to save for later.

Four of the most frustrating mortal peril or death moments (remember, in isolation, any one of these might have been okay - but together in the same month, it's just too much and hurts all the shows in believability and entertainment value):

(1) LOST - Okay, Michael goes wacky and turns out to be acting for the moment as a double agent - I'm okay with that development. I even think I understand killing off Anna Lucia (in real life, the actress can't keep herself out of jail, which might be worrying the show's producers). But as a charter chubby member of the chubby hero fan club, of which Hurley is currently one of the favorites on all of television, they were developing a whole subplot involving Hurley and his place in the group, his struggle with friendships, his struggle with addiction, all largely built around the foil of his emerging "girlfriend" - so we're gonna kill her off too? I suppose it was getting too threatening that we might not be spending enough screen time on the pert little thin people. Ugh. I will prevail on the writers, while they are busy writing the next Star Trek movie during the offseason this summer (no joke there), to carefully consider where Hurley fits into this larger picture, and make sure he's not getting a demotion in favor of attractive, less interesting and less real characters. In the grand scheme of things, I will give the folks at Lost a "pass" on this one because I still appreciate their selection of the last victim, the most annoying whiney supermodely character in the main cast.

(2) GHOST WHISPERER - Now, I will grant you, isolated from the larger television context of many other deaths, the skillful writing of Angela's death was a real Shyamalan-worthy twist, normally a very difficult to execute device that I respect and adore. However, even so, this was perfect for the end of season four or five, not so early. Just long enough so far to really appreciate the character and performer, not long enough yet to feel it makes sense for the actress to move on or the show to need a "change". I now find myself with a dicotomy of a reaction to this development... on one hand, I don't want to see the actress written out of the show (likely to move on to a new, pathetic show - a-la Debra Messing moving from Prey to Will and Grace), but on the other hand, every plot development I can imagine now to deal with these circumstances cheapen a story that has thus far had such impressive writing as to make me continue to choke down Jennifer Love Hewitt performances on a weekly basis (no small feat, indeed!).

(3) CSI - I am very glad that they didn't do something really stupid in the end, but I don't mind sharing that I did not enjoy watching the two episodes following Lt. Brass' shooting much at all. Sure, it was suspense, but for me the suspense was more "I really hope these writers don't blow it because I'll be really pissed" than any artistic type of suspense. In the end, CSI simultaneously gets big demerits for wasting the final two episodes of the season like that, while it gets credit for dodging both the primary stupidity temptation to kill him off and the secondary stupidity temptation to make us wait until next season to find out.

(4) NCIS - I was very ticked when The West Wing first hired the very entertaining Mark Harmon on and fully developed him in the pretty interesting Secret Service agent role and subplot, then promptly killed him off. Now, I never watched JAG (where Harmon's NCIS character first began), but I gave NCIS a try solely as a Harmon fan, and wasn't disappointed. So, let me just say to the NCIS writers: putting Harmon in the same status as CSI had Lt. Brass for the last two episodes evoked only the following reply from me: I am not amused. Especially after you already have one giant strike against you for killing off Sasha Alexander ("Caitlyn") in a previous cliffhanger and replacing her the next season with the much less entertaining and rather contrived Cote de Pablo (Ziva), making me literally fear what stupidity in end-of-season writing you are capable of.

And remember, those are just the most notable of them, and the ones I've watched so far (I know for a fact I've got a few more waiting for me on the DVR.

So, television writers: stop trying to hold my viewership hostage by threatening the lives of my favorite characters! This TV terrorism has the same effect on me that real terrorism does on the general public - I turn against you rather than more to your side, and often it makes me even less interested in doing your desired outcome (in this case, watching your shows).

New Photospoofs - and possibly a new hobby?

2006-03-03T22:37:00.000-05:00

In my last post, I mentioned the site I was newly introduced to and its photospoofing contests, and I shared my first rather novice attempt. Well, although my submission wasn't award-worthy for that contest last week, I have to admit that I've now gotten a bit further interested in the art form, and that interest has been intensified by the next contest they announced. I came up with a few strong ideas late last night after it was announced, and then put two of them together tonight and uploaded them (sadly, my third idea was used by someone else before I could make it and post it... more on that later).

The contest was "to create the worst possible (imaginary) feature-film remake of an (actual) old TV show." There are a ton of very funny submissions up, and I encourage you to go take a look, but here are my ideas.

My actual primary submission is this:

Admittedly, it's got limited appeal - primarily only to people who are familiar with the old Dr. Who series (not just current one, but the old ones - particularly the Tom Baker ones - to which I was only myself introduced this year) and who are also familiar with the general trend of what American filmmakers and television producers tend to do to good British ideas... but I still am pretty darned proud of it, and think it is good for a laugh.

I also made a secondary submission, which I didn't officially submit in the end:

This one has more general appeal, and I'm pretty proud of it too. Unfortunately, the contest rather arbitrarily embargoes references to Brokeback Mountain (I think because some Woot.com executive somewhere is tired of that line of humor), and I didn't notice that until I'd put all the work into getting it right. I think it's significantly funny and worth the joke, regardless of how common humor references to Brokeback Mountain have been over the past month or so, so I was really sad to have to not submit it. I posted a little message in the contest board directing anyone looking through the submissions just for fun to it so that they might enjoy the laugh anyway, but I sadly doubt anyone will really see and enjoy it.

My third idea, which I didn't get to do because someone else turned it into reality and submitted it before I got home tonight to have a chance to work it up myself, was The Smurfs starring several various pop-culture pervasive film actors (just recolored blue for the fake DVD cover). Imagine my frustration when I looked through the newest submissions the minute I got home tonight and had a chance, and already saw someone having done a very good job of that idea. *sigh* Ah, well.

I hope someone out there has had a good laugh at these efforts...

My first pathetic attempt at photospoofing

2006-02-26T17:27:00.000-05:00

So, my friend Scott introduced me to an amusing site this weekend: Woot.com. On the surface, it's a simple overstock clearance site, where they choose one product someone is trying to unload a bunch of per day and put it up until they're all bought. That's not what makes the site especially fun, though. The product descriptions are all phrased in humorous ways - I killed a good hour browsing past product descriptions - and they have regular photo spoofing contests based on current products.

For example, right now, their contest is to put together a picture of the most ridiculous concept for a remote control feature possible. There are already scores of hilarious examples, far more skilled than I could ever hope to match - but I came up with my own submission, just for the fun and humor of it, and thought I'd like to share it here too. My reasoning: there isn't a sports fan alive who hasn't sat in the stands for his or her favorite team and desperately wished they had this remote.

"War on Christmas"?

2005-12-19T12:55:00.000-05:00

Have you heard? According to all sorts of frustrated, angry, flustered people, there is a war on... a war that shouldn't be happening, and they're out to protest until it stops. No, not the war in Iraq... it's the...

WAR AGAINST CHRISTMAS!!!
~ insert dramatic music here ~

Read the news article here.

Now, don't get me wrong... I have a lot of respect for people who are upset about an unjust, uncalled for war run by a maniacal power and feel they must speak out lest it go on and on. You might say I have a little experience in that particular field. But... take a look at this particular gripe: the folks picketing WalMart (and many others pervading our media this HOLIDAY season) are citing as the grounds for their fury that people and organizations are saying "Happy Holidays." Thier gripe? This MUST be because those people are trying to eliminate Christmas! Oh, the poor poor oppressed Christians... you can understand their exhasperation, as Christianity is such an oppressed minority in the world, right? Oh... sorry... my bad. I figured with the way they have been acting that they must be.

Here's what really gets me: choosing language like "Happy Holidays" does NOT say anything anti-Christian whatsoever - it just says "I understand there are many people who will read this message, some of them celebrate Hannakuah, Kwanza, or Ramendan (the Flying Spaghetti Monster Holiday, and I want all of them, as WELL as the Christians, to know that I hope they have a pleasant time celebrating their beliefs this month."

This protest itself is saying something, too. These protesters are really saying, "We will not be happy until we DOMINATE and DISCRIMINATE and ALIENATE those who do not hold the same beliefs as us." I'm a Christian, and these loudmouth buffoons sending that message give US a bad name. I'm not without seasonal spirit, though, so I'll spare this blog a full rant, and even extend to the Santa wannabe shown in the picture above a hearty HAPPY HOLIDAYS.

There is something to fear, though...

I just saw on the news last night, and again this morning, a business that is threatening the true meaning of the season. That new internet business is Toyswap.com. In an attempt to serve parents frustrated with the purchase of high cost toys every year while previous years' toys sit idle in the closet, this company allows registered users to list their available slightly used toys and match up with people looking to unload slightly used toys they would like. They then ship the toys to each other, and everyone's happy, right?

WRONG!

Children know... the true meaning of the holidays is the avarice-filled lust for acquisition of further objects to demonstrate high status. Not only does "swapping" fail to bring in the high-status evoking idolatry that children are clamoring to use as social ladder climbing tools when school reopens (this year's badge of middle class honor is an "XBox 360"), but it completely defeats the general purpose of acquisition of wealth! You don't accumulate candy canes by trading three cherry for three peppermint... you only accumulate candy canes by retaining your three cherry WHILE you ALSO snatch up an additional three peppermint. Have some holiday spirit, parents! Spend, spend, spend. Didn't you know that your kids won't know you love them unless you buy them a Dora the Explorer nosehair trimmer?

Lulled to Complacency?

2005-10-02T21:37:00.000-04:00

Well, the fall is upon us, and I'm back in town consistently enough to write again. This weekend, I went for a drive for fresh apples with my family, I took in a movie and dinner with some friends, I watched the backlog of television that I recorded over the past week, I cheered on both my favorite professional team and my own students in football wins, and I played several games of cards. That's a weekend in my life during the school year, unless I'm in the middle of a performance run (in which case, it's off to the theatre on Friday and Saturday nights).

So just what of value have I actually done this weekend?

I'm not quite sure.

Of course, time with my family and friends is important time well spent. That's not what I mean. But of all the things I do, and I think I'm not all that far off from "everyman America" in my weekend sample this weekend, what have I actually accomplished? Not much... not much at all.

I can't help but wonder at the diversions that we find so important and pour our hearts into within our culture. Certainly fan-ship of sports is one of the most common passtimes, as is taking in the pseudo-arts in mass media (movies, television). What do we take from these experiences? I watch people watching sports, and the activity seem so very vicarious to me - we cheer and rant and ride the emotional roller coaster with the team, sulk away after a loss and share high-fives after a win - but we didn't DO anything. The mass media even moreso - we observe these incarnations of theatre not as an artistic audience, but more as a patient, taking intravenous feeds of emotion from the stories we see on the screen.

Just what, do you suppose, is this doing to us? Sure, the crowd and the audience are important... and a bit of escapism is healthy for anyone... but I wonder if we don't all go too far. Instead of watching a game or two occasionally to appreciate the athleticism of our favorite practitioners, we watch every matchup, as if it were a religion; instead of discriminatingly taking in a movie or television show that we have reason to believe will be a work of art worth our time, we sit down to virtually tolerate mediocrity, and when there are works of artistic value, we are so grateful that we worship them weekly like a cult.

We're pretty weird, huh?

I just wonder, if you compare our culture to those around the world, if what you might find might be that other cultures balance their escapism as a minority of their time, offset by a majority share in their life of active striving toward achievement. And I don't just mean work, here... I mean in free time too. It's as if the masses would all rather watch the success of the few shining stars, somehow feeling that they "share" in their accomplishments and victories, gaining a false sense of achievement from their achievements. We even have ways to provide ourselves with a sense of achievement for achieving a largely meaningless goal (heard of video games?).

Now, I'm not trying to be depressing here... actually, I'm feeling kind of excited. A few hours ago, this all hit me, and I started doing rather than watching. I finally worked toward a few projects I've been putting off for months, and even completed two, with results of which I'm particularly proud. And guess what? I haven't felt this good in many days. I feel energy, motivation, and optimism I haven't had in me for quite some time. I rather frightened my wife with my mood several times today.

One step further... how much is the world missing out on because we are letting ourselves be lulled into that complacent trance? How many inventions, how many victories, and how many miracles have been waived unknowingly by someone instead letting their life pass them on a screen? And how much more could we do, collectively, if we all broke out of the trance... if we all stretched our potential... if we all applied our minutes and hours to making dreams into realities rather than being content with the dreams?

It's a lot to wrap my mind around, but I'm looking forward to trying.

But for now, I'm going to go watch some TV before bed.

What Ever Happened to Conversation?

2005-06-09T11:13:00.000-04:00

I just had a disturbing experience about an hour ago. I was stopped in the hallway by a co-worker with whom I have recently had a disagreement (the underlying situation isn't important for this topic). I listened calmly and quietly as she expressed a series of views from her perspective of our situation. I responded first with a statement that verified my reception and comprehension of what she had said, and then with statements that presented views from my perspective of the situation. After one repetition of this process, when it was my second turn to express thoughts and perspective, she began interrupting me with her own perspective. After two attempts to complete my thought, I said "While I have listened to what you had to say, your interruptions have made it apparent that you are not interested in hearing what I have to say. This conversation is over, and I must admit that this really disturbs me." and I walked away.

I don't understand what has happened to conversation. Dictionary definitions of conversation may vary in wording, but all contain one particular word or its equivalent: EXCHANGE (as in "an exchange of verbal communication"). Well, an exchange means that elements are given from both sides... and I am increasingly concerned that this element of the modern conversation is an endangered species. My frustrating experience with my co-worker is a scenario I have witnessed between students, between colleagues, between strangers... the "conversation" becomes abandoned when at least one party (and sometimes both) cease to act as a recipient of communication, and insist on acting only as a contributor. This makes it stop being a conversation, and largely stop being an exercise of any value whatsoever.

How often do we fail to solve problems and disagreements because conversation is not actually occurring? I really feel it is probably astoundingly common - likely a majority of problems that are never resolved because of this. Sometimes, there is likely a solution that can be identified and enacted, if only both contributors are also acting as open recipients. Sometimes there may be no solution - but I am convinced that these problems are exacerbated and promogated to cause pain and stress much longer than they need be because of a conversation deficit... when one party feels that they are unheard, it becomes more difficult to let the situation go, while just knowing that you have been heard can be enough to bring closure, even when a "solution" isn't available.

It is all the more disturbing because it sometimes isn't in anger. I can almost understand when this happens because of rising emotions... but there are people who fail to act as recipients even when completely calm. Could this be some sort of a disability? Or is it something they have somehow never learned?

Personally, I end up feeling very guilty in situations such as these. See, I'm a rather sizeable man, and I have been told in the past that I can seem very intimidating for that reason, even when completely calm and personable - so I imagine that I can seem extremely intimidating when agitated, and so I work hard to maintain my temper and to avoid circumstances in which I anticipate potentially experiencing inputs that can agitate me. I don't apologize for who I am, but I try to be very considerate of others, and make certain that those who experience me in an agitated state only do so because there has genuinely been a legitimate and severe reason substantiating it. SO... when I realize I am in a conversation where I have been acting as both recipient and contributor but the other person has shifted into solely contributor mode, I respond by quickly ending the conversation, for caution's sake. Indeed, it contributes to the conversation deficit... but in these cases, the conversation (in particularly, the exchange element that qualifies it as a conversation) has already long since passed away.

Out of the Frying Pan: a Meteorological Rant

2005-06-08T09:13:00.000-04:00

I'm fairly stubborn and opinionated, so it is a pretty notable and unusual event to come across an opinion topic for which I don't know my own best answer. Increasingly of late, one such question is "what is your favorite season?" I've gone through quite a change over time, with my opinion going through at least three shifts. In my youngest years, the answer was the summer, due solely to my dislike for school (I was socially... um... "awkward"... and enjoyed the option of isolation that summer offered)... by high school, it had shifted to the fall, by virtue of the field music seasons placing my favorite hobbies there (drum corps and marching bands)... after high school, my opinion really finally shifts to the weather I like best, the winter (I love the cold and absolutely can't abide heat)... for a time at the beginning of my teaching career, I came full circle to enjoying the summer again, by virtue of the vacation time.

Today, though, I'm somewhat torn - I still excitedly anticipate the summer and the large body of free time it brings, but my tolerance for heat continues to become even less and less, making it difficult to enjoy the free time. I'm not sure why that tolerance has continued to decrease so. If I had to guess, I'd say it's partly due to becoming "spoiled" by my own technology (finally owning a home these past few years has, at last, allowed me greater control over the climate of my living surroundings) and perhaps partly due to diabetes II (I noted a few seemingly consistent and permanent little changes after initial onset a year ago, one of which was an even greater sensitivity to the heat). Whatever the reason, though, I just can't hack the heat.

And I don't know that I'm all that alone. Already only in early June my students are all freely grousing as loud as I about the rising temperatures, and I often hear colleagues and peers saying the same. So why, then, does the media - the television and the radio - insist on taunting me so?!? What do I hear every morning on the radio? Some bouncy fool jauntily quipping, "Mmmmm! It's gonna be one nice day out there today, with a high in the lower 90s... just beautiful!" Yeah, bozo, just beautiful for YOU, because you get to sit all day in an air conditioned booth getting paid to listen to music and heckle the rest of us that have to actually walk around outside in that disgusting atmospheric soup!

Okay, okay, fine... different strokes for different folks. Well, I put up with your icky weather, and then that's not enough - you need to spoil my favorite weather types by lamenting them and belaboring you bellyaching!

I see a day with beautiful, clear blue skies dotted with puffy wisps of bleach white clouds floating lazily on a gentle but firm breeze that sweeps across the skin and whistles softly through the foliage, and cools you down enouch to enjoy the embrace of the sun like a warm hug amidst the flowing coolness.

... but the fool on the radio assures us, "Hang in there! W.U.S.S. meteorologist Harry Moldblossom says we can expect the weather to improve steadily all this week, to cut through the chill in the upper 70s and set up a beautiful 90 degree weekend."

I see a cool, refreshing shower relieving the parched, cracked earth, hissing a soft, relaxing lull of falling water, laying down the audial baseline over which the skies occasionally punctuate the show with a dynamic flash, the natural fireworks presenting the awesome power of nature in a demonstration for our entertainment.

... but the fool on the radio singlemindedly laments, "unfortunately, we can expect the continued showers to remain for much of the weekend, with only the occasional break in the clouds to provide any relief. Oh, well, I guess our plants need the moisture." Gee, thanks for that little concession.

One of my very favorite memories from early youth is sitting in front of the large living room window (a large one, covering more than half that wall) with the air conditioner on in mid-summer, enjoying the carefully regulated temperature inside and rocking in a chair with my mother eating half a canteloupe, watching outside as the rain poured down on the yard and street beyond, and the sky lit up with flashes of lightning.

Or lying outside my high school on a patch of grass in the back long after everyone else has left, waiting for a late ride but not minding the wait, looking up to the edge of the sky where the tops of the trees wave and flow in the currents on the blue backdrop of the sky beyond, feeling the mild coolness of the gentle breeze relieving the surface of my skin from the heat of the sun.

Both of those, to say nothing of the scores of memories of the electric buzz within the crisp chill of an October night as the scent of hot dogs wafts through a football stadium, or the soft, almost imperceptible crackle of snow drifting weightlessly to the ground and accumulating in the still frozen landscape of an early frost in December.

Sure, I have happy memories in the heat too... many related to special vacations with treasured family and friends... but in most cases, they hare happy memories *in spite of* the weather. Ah, well... different strokes for different folks... but please, do leave me my moments too!

Has Grade Inflation Prompted a Grade Recession?

2005-06-07T08:02:00.000-04:00

In the education industry, one common topic of angst amongst some teachers is a phenomenon that has come to be known as "grade inflation." Like so many difficult to define social phenomenon problems, it is expressed in metaphorical terms to help the layperson quickly understand it.

What is Grade Inflation?

Not too terribly long ago, grading based on a 100 point scale, often considered percentile grading, was universally aligned so that tasks students complete to earn those points produce percentiles based on student achievement that would accurately indicate student performance based on the following continuum:

90 - 100: Performance close to perfect, exceptionally proficient, a small number of students best at the craft

80 - 90: Performance at or just above average performance, a large number of students comfortably proficient at the craft

70 - 80: Performance at or just below average performance, a large number of students performing adequately at the craft but who should benefit from continued strengthening to reach at least a comfort level

60 - 70: Borderline performance demonstrating some real question to whether the student understands and can apply successfully to the craft, about half of whom could be assumed to barely pass minimal ability but should definitely warrant further growth

50 - 60: Students demonstrating enough craft familiarity to beat the "random odds" of someone purely guessing, but not at all grasping the craft well enough to be considered a practitioner and pass.

50 and below: Students who make an attempt at their craft, even an honest and complete attempt, but who fail to grasp enough familiarity with its features to beat the "random odds" of someone purely guessing.

This was a good way to do things, because it meant that the numerical score a student is achieving can be interpreted by any outside observer to gain insight into their level of proficiency in the desired craft. However, in recent decades, a phenomenon has occurred in which grades have gradually increased and increased, and student expectations of the grade their work has garnered has likewise increased in concert; today, students link their grades too often to effort rather than skill proficiency, and expect a grade in the 90s (or at least upper 80s) when completing an assignment, regardless of quality, just because they completed it.

This is largely the fault by educators, who promogate this problem by awarding grades under that bizarre philosophy. Don't be too angry with us, though - there are reasons for this. One of the largest relates to the simple quantity of work submitted... I know from personal experience in the past and from my colleagues that, in the settings of some classes, it is not unusual for large portions of a class to not even complete an assignment, meaning that a teacher is automatically "failing" a third of the class before grading one assignment, and then feels the need to reward students who try with high grades. Within the grading scales of a great many educators these days are portions of grade credit given for attendance or basic participation in manners that do not demonstrate any skill or achievement.

So, What is a Grade Recession?

Following the metaphor, one can compare the effect of devalued grades to the effect of devalued currency. In both cases, output drops off and opportunities stagnate. In grade inflation, the end result "recession" is that grades no longer reflect who is proficient, who is very good, and who is outstanding, leaving no way to differentiate. Of course, a second result is that some inexperienced educators, I believe, allow expectations overall for their students to drop and drop and drop until they meet student performance, rather than demanding that student performance rise and rise and rise until it meets expectations.

Last year, one Ivy League college tried to combat grade inflation (to very limited success) by enacting a strange quota measure in which teachers were to make sure that their grades fit, within a certain limited for deviation, within a desired range and proportion - they expected a certain percentage of As, Bs, Cs, Ds, and Fs. While I disagree that this is a reasonable approach (nobody's class is "average," and it puts undue pressure on teachers who turn out to have a great class one year to unethically mis-serve them by artificially devaluing the grades of some), I appreciate the underlying frustration, and I am glad that it prompted, for a time, open discussion of this phenomenon and problem.

The Only Fix: A Steel Will

Sadly, it is my opinion that there is only one way to correct this problem, and the measure is both difficult (because it will be painful for educators) and impractical (because it requires committed unity amongst educators). The measure: agree, as a profession, to re-committ our grading scale to something more stringent, which awards the average majority of proficiency only a 75 - 85, and reserves the higher grades for the exceptional few.

There are plenty of challenges that make this so difficult. First, it requires the cooperation of your colleagues, who can be (at times) stubborn in their ways). Why the cooperation need? Because if your average students are working equally proficiently in your class and in others, but their grades show 90s in their other classes and an 80 in yours, it is you whom will receive the wrath and backlash. A large part of the equation are parents, who need to understand and change their reactions to grades accordingly as well - this reform would yet never work if all else happens but parents are visiting undue stress on their children for achieving an 83 (in the case of average students, of course).

On a limited basis, the microchosm of a single school community, given complete cooperation and buy-in by staff, students, and parents, could make the transition of this type of reform... but then find their students mis-served through injustices beyond their own school, as colleges compare their hard earned 85 to the "soft" 90 of inferiorily skilled peers at other schools, and choose the other candidate.

The school in which I currently work has some classes which are allowing this reform by virtue of another, almost unrelated development. Now running the International Baccalaureate program, our school "weights" the grades given in those classes. This is intended to free educators to hold high expectations of their students without worrying that those high expectations will unduely hurt their grade in comparison to others; the effect is that educators teaching one of these classes are also now freed, to a certain extent, to change the grading philosophy with their students, at least on a limited basis, so that their students know to expect only an average grade for average skill proficiency. It isn't easy, though - as a teacher of one such course, I have to constantly remind myself to maintain high expectations despite lower student grades, reminding myself that I am not "hurting" my students by doing so, but rather helping them to get a more accurate and honest assessment of their skills.

A Puzzle I Can't Solve

Honestly, though, I'm perplexed. I don't know, in a realistic sense, just what can be done. How can we make high grades mean something again (other than a pulse and a willingness to put in effort)? Is it even important enough to change? Who knows. All I do know is that, at this rate, following the metaphor, I can't help but imagine that if grades did work just like currency, te maximum grade would have been increased to 135 by now.

End of the Free Lunch (Is Television Doomed?)

2005-06-06T11:10:00.000-04:00

As someone who, for both hobby and career, follows closely matters of importance in the entertainment industry, I have been alarmed for some time about the future of television programming. What I've got to say, I've been told, sounds very much like chicken little warning us all that "the sky is falling!" and yet, I remain convinced that there is real reason for significant concern.

First, a little bit of important background, history, and economics:

The early television programming was delivered to consumers purely over the airwaves, and could be received free of direct charge by anyone with a television antenna. We all know that, in a society driven by a free market, the providers of goods and services only do so in exchange for a profit of some sort, and those who make television programs are no different. Since they could not realistically charge consumers for watching their show (everyone could receive their product automatically on the airwaves), their profit had to be derived from some source, and so sponsorships were initiated. Building on the models established in the radio industry, advertisers were solicited to pay the production costs plus a profit margin for a show, and in exchange, they were given careful and conspicuous mention before and after the program to the "captive audience" of program consumers, as well as (in some cases) placement within the content of the show itself.

What began in 1948 as an attempt to bring local Philadelphia station broadcasts to consumers whose signal was blocked by nearby mountains became the next major transition in the industry: cable television. The ability to bring out-of-market stations thereby allowing a greater selection of programming was the first creative application of that technology, and it wasn't long before it was realized that a provider of these signals through CATV could include channels not available by airwave broadcast and charge a price for the service. This developed into the two additional relationships programming might have with consumers: first, stations that charge a miniscule, nominal fee to cover the cost of the cable transmission technology, but which earn their production costs and profit margin like broadcast (using advertising); second, premium stations that charge a significant fee covering transmission costs, production costs, and the profit margin, allowing sponsor and advertising-free programming. The latter have slowly grown in popularity and breadth of programming, but still only provide some alternatives, and never truly threaten the "free", advertising based system; in recent years, "on demand" programming over digital cable lines has been another advance in this arena, but continues to not truly threaten the mainstream.

So how is the sky falling?

A more recent advance in only the past decades, satellite television, developed technology that has become more and more common with the development in recent years of digital cable, allowing selected programming to be recorded onto a hard drive for playback at a later date. Hand in hand with this technology are the natural controls over that playback, allowing pause, rewind, and fast-forward. The result, as I have seen evidenced in the changing habits within my household and most of those around me who also have digital cable, is that programs are seldom viewed at the time of broadcast, since the patience to wait until after the program is recorded rewards the consumer with the ability to fast-forward through the advertising.

This will eventually be a BIG problem. A problem that may change the entire complexion of the economics of this industry. Consider: a television network derives funding for production costs and the profit margin fron one place only: advertising. If the "fast-forwarding" practice eventually becomes so pervasive that a majority of consumers are bypassing the advertising, the value of that advertising will drop, eventually to almost nothing. This robs networks of their only income, and therefore makes it impossible to produce and deliver programming. Do not be fooled into thinking that the situation is any less dire for non-broadcast cable networks - they too derive their only income from advertising (your "cable bill" pays only for the technology and power to deliver their product to you, the "shipping and handling", so to speak). Indeed, only one construct exists in the current television industry that can survive this apocolypse: the premium program (such as a pay station like HBO or a pay-per-viewing service like InDemand).

So, imagine this: as income from advertising plummets to nothing, the cable television networks each become a premium network one by one... Comedy Central... The SciFi Channel... The Discovery Channel... followed, eventually, by even the national broadcast networks, which all either collapse and fold or convert into premium networks... ABC, CBS, NBC, FOX, WB, even PAX... all gone. The world now looks like this: those who can afford $5/month can subscribe to a station... those who can afford $500/month can still afford their 100 channel basic cable, while all the rest must choose what FOUR channels their $20/month will now afford... if you can afford none of this premium programming, all is not lost, you can still pick up a channel on your antenna: PBS, funded through charity grants, fund drives, and government assistance. Hope you like PBS.

Can you see the sky falling now?

Some hope to cling to...

Okay, okay... even I don't think it will come to that. But we are fooling ourselves to think that things will stay the way they are now; as far as "free" programming goes like that on broadcast network or cable networks goes, the system will need to evolve to survive. Some of the possibilities I have heard about recently include the following:

...technological patches incorporated into the data of a program that forces display of the advertising in order to display the desired portion... unfortunately, because the technology that enforces such viewing is unlikely to be able to do so one topic at a time (advertising, then program, then advertising, as we're accustomed today) as it would require defeating simple vcr control functionality, the alternative is much more reminiscent of the internet approach, wherein banner advertisements are shown concurrent with the content on the same page simultaneously. Ick.
...more creative, direct incorporation of advertising directly within the content itself. Remember the scene in the movie Wayne's World with rampant product placement? Bingo. It might not be quite so bad as that, though - some fairly unintrusive product placement is already a common paid advertising practice today and we barely notice. But it always begs the question: will the art itself suffer significantly because plot and cinematography have to be written specially to cater to these sleazy but necessary motives?
...more creative, interesting advertising that people actually choose to watch. Ridiculous, right? Well, there exists some evidence already today to suggest that this isn't so far fetched. First, a great many people look forward to watching the commercials during the Super Bowl because of the very clear intent that advertisers show to make the ads entertaining. By lengthening ad time and adding engaging plot and/or humor of real quality (rather than the insultingly mindless gimmicky stuff most common today), a few prime examples have already proven it possible to gain an audience, such as the Jerry Seinfeld / Superman short films from American Express (downloaded in droves when released), or a recent bizarrely successful spoof of soft pornography actually advertising a seat cushion (actually ordered by the thousands by hotel patrons on their in-room movie system). Would it be so bad if commercials were generally that entertaining, and if they took up 15 minutes all at once before the beginning of a regular hour long program, then presented in its 45 minute entirety without interruption?
...pay-per-view on an immensely grand scale, at ultimately minimalized prices... would you pay to watch your favorite programs each week, commercial free, as many times as you want, for $0.25 per episode? The idea has been floated... but there is no question that this would greatly limit productions, since only the sure-fire programming would get produced. Oh, wonderful... a million different shows all staring the talentless trainwreck that is Paris Hilton.

If no movement happens the alternative is grim!

Whichever options the industry decides to pursue and experiment with, I desperately hope that they move quickly, because the default evolution right now is, perhaps, the worst option of all: more and more reality programing and pseudosport events. That's right, one of the reasons all those horrendous reality programs survive season after season without being cancelled while quality shows are tossed left and right is because of this conundrum. Not only do reality shows cost much less to produce (requiring much less advertising income to recoup those costs and turn a profit), but, put very simply, live "event" programming is the only kind of programming that transcends the DVR, because people want to watch it live. Nobody wants to have to hear at work about what deplorably unforgiveable thing enemy-to-humanity Simon said to the last American Idol contestant last night - they need to see it now. The same goes for any reality program, or sports as well (hence the expansion and invention of genre after genre of never-heard-of-before pseudosports), since we all want to see the big game live.

Please, television industry, I'm begging you. Before too much more of your programming is absorbed by the social cancer that is reality shows, look up, and see that the sky is falling - and work to see how we can save the henhouse.

Pranking Etiquette

2005-06-03T07:57:00.000-04:00

Each year, as with many other schools, the seniors here at the high school at which I work devise and execute a senior prank. Unfortunately, pranks, as a breed, far too often tend to come at the expense of a victim's property, time, or dignity. As for this year, at 3:30 AM this morning, they came to the high school and set up a mock camp with tents and the like in the commons out front, then changed the sign on the board to read "Camp Seniors"; I've also heard that they also placed little yellow stickies on the principal's car, each coming personally from a senior, and bearing a memory for him from their years at the school.

Now, mind you, I don't condone any prank, and there is probably no perfect prank. As for today, I do know of several people mentioned having to find alternative parking spaces this morning (and as I type this, I'm listening to the administrative chatter on the walkie talkies, relating problems with students not coming in to class and blocking traffic now that the school day has begun), and no doubt the principal had to take a few minutes to remove the yellow stickies from his car. However, at least this prank was farther down the continuum toward the benign. I wish that pranks more often steered themselves farther toward these qualities. If the point of a prank is to do something unexpected that creates humor, doesn't it make sense that you want a prank that will make the most people possible laugh? Certainly, anyone who is hurt by a prank isn't laughing, and that suggests logically that the most successful prank is one that comes at *no one's* expense, since it leaves everyone available to laugh at it.

On a sidenote, I really hope that people will take something else away from this experience: an appreciation for the principal at this school. There are not many principals with the sense of humor, good sportsmanship, and genuninely pragmatic and caring approach of ours. His reaction and handling of this morning's circumstances are representative of the norm, and so many clearly benefitted from it. I truly hope that these seniors appreciate him (and how differently this morning could have played out under the vast majority of other high school principals).

Last, I am currently sitting in my first block senior English class with the five students that attended today. While I personally take no exception by this (my students all have their final portfolio directions and know when it is due), the first two of these students to arrive had some very wise observations about their peers currently outside. They pointed out to each other that being a senior, at its core, is, of course, about graduating... and today, there is an in-class final exam in one of the classes a vast majority of seniors are taking, calling into real question whether remaining outside rather than attending class today might be making some of these seniors potentially no longer graduating. In fact, these students noted that several of the seniors that they saw outside today are most definitely not graduating any time soon, and yet they are partaking of festivities celebrating that which they have not achieved, as those festivities themselves are potentially setting them farther back away from that unachieved goal... I'm not certain, but that seems like at least a double irony.

>>> NOTE ADDED: Since posting the above, I've heard rumor that there were some who got carried away with elaboration, in such manners as windowpainting vehicles not their own, and filling a portion of the parking lot with sand. The window painting moves the whole situation back down the continuum away from the harmless and a few steps toward the wrong kind of prank, as it does come at an inconvenience to a "victim," and unless they also have the decency to wash it off, at the cost of money and time as well. The sand, meanwhile, could still go either way, and we must wait to see - it really depends all on how vigilant these creative pranksters are in considerately cleaning up after themselves this afternoon; I do honestly hope they clear the lot, as removal of all that sand would likely be a really time consuming and potentially costly headache to someone. Let's hope they keep this prank toward the "positive" end of the continuum by seeing it through all the way to clean-up.

Myth of the Bulletproof Vest

2005-06-02T11:30:00.000-04:00

I am nearing the end of my fifth year as a teacher; I spent my first year at a suburban / rural middle school, and then the last four at an urban high school. When I made the transition, I heard the same reaction from so many friends and colleagues, almost always phrased with the same perceived humor, all thinking that they are the first ever to think of the jab:

"Hm... I suppose you'll be buying a bullet proof vest then, huh?"

I will freely admit it: This comment seemed an appropriate one and an applicable one to me at the time, before I began working here. As time has worn on and I have become experienced here in this setting, though, the same comment has come to mean something very different to me, a symbol of the frustrating prejudice and misinformation that my students deal with on a daily basis.

I truly love my school and my students. These young men and women are far more tolerant of those around them than their counterparts at the suburban setting at which I was previously. They are resilient, knowing that they will encounter frustrations and obstacles, and that they are best served moving past them at full force rather than perserverating upon them. The students that graduate are independent and self-reliant. As they relate to the educational process, these students are equally receptive and capable as their counterparts elsewhere.

My school is a safe, supportive place. Violence is not the norm, as the conventional wisdom seems to suggest. Certainly, there are incidents, offenders who get into a fight or are caught with a minor weapon; they are the vast, vast minority, however - the tiny, miniscule portion-of-a-percent of the population... and yet, sadly, they get the vast majority of the attention and press coverage. The result is that people see a school populated with young men and women from the city, they hear of a fight or a confiscated knife, and they allow their mind to extrapolate a "haven of scum and villainry" akin to Star Wars' Tatooine Cantina. Because the stories lack the enthralling excitement of conflict, they take no note of our students' achievements and victories. They do not share in what our students create, build, explore, and perform.

Indeed, we do have troubles. Certainly, as with any commonly held falsehood, there is a kernel or aspect of truth from which the lie has spawned. But that truth, in a way, is yet one more reason to praise our students. They come from backgrounds, areas, and circumstances that, far too often, are rife with obstacles, distractions, and hazards. Violence, gangs, drug use, and other elements are daily components of their life *outside* the school... many are fortunate to benefit from parents or family that struggle with them to keep those aspects from intruding on their lives, but a significant portion of the students are not so fortunate and must face these things alone.

A couple of years ago, I had a student whom needed to work from home for a short time at the end of her senior year, and therefore had her work brought to her by a homebound teacher. I would like to share with you what that homebound teacher shared with me. Each day, she would visit this student's home to drop off work and answer any questions, and while the student greeted her warmly and appreciatively, the mother was cold and unaccommodating. Day after day, she would work with an enthusiastic young woman, as her mother hovered angrily around. Only on one day did the routine temporarily break, when the mother was too stoned to be cold, and indeed made her only offer of hospitality to the teacher: a joint. She noted that the only food in the house was cold cereal, which the mother bought for many children and from which she expected them all to feed themselves all meals; the homebound teacher realized that hunger often proved a distration to the student, and one day brought a pizza, which the student very gratefully partook of, but only after taking a few moments to share a piece with each of her siblings and several neighbors. After a few weeks, as the year drew to a close (the student would need summer school yet to graduate), one of the last visits gave witness to a verbal fight, as the mother suddenly exploded at the daughter, saying "I can't believe you are wasting your time with all this! You're working on homework night after night when you should be out trying to get you a man. If you don't find yourself a man and get yourself pregnant, you won't have any way to be supported."

This, friends, is the world in which so many of our students daily operate. All this, and IN SPITE of it all, they are in school each day, trying. They come to school to leave all these elements behind... and then the outside world inflicts them intellectually upon them anyway.

This is why, when people hear I teach here, and they reply "do you wear a bulletproof vest?", I can't help but feel sad, both for my students and for the speaker. I feel bad for my students because they are being stereotyped, pigeonholed, and limited even after all they do to overcome the troubles around them. I feel bad for the speaker because I pesonally know hundreds of talented, fun, promising young men and women that they are likely never to have the honor or pleasure of meeting.

Hail to the Chief Buffoon

2005-06-01T18:09:00.000-04:00

I really wonder sometimes whether journalists are looking for opportunities to mismatch pictures and the associated articles and then play dumb. Of course, there are so many of these opportunities in particular relation to President Bush because he is notably apt at making them through his own buffoonery and antics. This one, to his credit, is probably more of a out-of-context mismatch than genuine inappropriateness, but one still cannot resist laughing (click on the link to see it directly).

On Memorial Day, I opened my browser, which has excite.com set as its homepage, and was greeted by the following article appropriate to the solemn occasion:

Bush Lays Wreath at Tomb of the Unknowns

ARLINGTON, Va. (AP) - In a solemn ceremony, President Bush laid a large red, white and blue wreath at the Tomb of the Unknowns in Arlington National Cemetery. The Memorial Day tradition took place under bright sunshine,
just outside of Washington.
After placing the wreath, Bush bowed his head and paused before the tomb. A bugler then slowly played "Taps" and the president stood with his hand over his heart.

Then, accompanying this article, the following picture was comically mismated:

Choose your own insult here...

Mmm. Yah, he sure does look solemn, doesn't he.
"Ooo, look! A shiny thing! Ooo pretty shiny thing!"
"Wow, man... I'm soooooo trippin'..."

Ladies and gentlemen, your commander in chief.

Attack of the Blog

2005-06-01T03:02:00.000-04:00

Does everybody really have something important to say? Honestly, I think the question really does bear mentioning. Technology has made publishing easier and easier at a rate I have been "fortunate" to directly see in my own lifetime...

The world of my early youth was one when people could still only hope to publish themselves at great expense in a book, or in terse, vastly limited formats in the back page of the local paper...
While I was in elementary school, personal computers gave people the tools to set down their words in boxy, dot matrix fashion, but still limited the reach of their written voice to the hands in which they could plant a stack of those pages...
When I moved on to middle school, desktop publishing and vastly improved printers made our thoughts look much more attractive, albiet yet still to the same small audience...
In high school, I participated in the earlier days of the internet, as those of us not dumbed down by AOL's early travesties in user interface limitations flocked to simple dialup BBS systems and posted our thoughts in communities, suddenly with small but growing audiences reading and replying...
By the time I moved on to college, web publishing was beginning to become accessible to the more motivated and technically savvy, exponentially increasing the audience base for our textual musings...
And now, today, one cannot watch half an hour of news without seeing the direct impact of these blogs, web logs maintained by, seemingly everyone, as well as their alter egos and pets.

So, now, entire universes of human thought are being set to text and formatted to the web each moment. Many movers and shakers have weblogs, as do those that wish to have their voice heard in their favored controversies. Topical hobbyists spew expertise and factoids. Even my high school students, in alarming popularity, set down what used to be kept in a diary or journal within the pages of a web log for their friends to read and reply.

We all seem to think we have something important to say, right? Or else... why are we doing this? If not for the belief that what we write today will be read and prompt thought or action from someone else, whether in a few minutes or a few days or a few years, why bother?

I have a theory about these "blogs." What proportion of them actually do get a reading? Certainly, the top thinkers and writers have followings... but how many more of us are just writing for an unknown audience that may be much smaller than we imagine?

How many of us are writing for an audience of ourselves alone?

And does that make it not worthwhile?