What Hath God Wrought?

On Thursday, we got to school and discovered there was no internet service in our buildings.  This was a challenge in terms of work and instruction, since many of us use iPads and Apple TV to teach.  Classroom teachers quickly adapted and school was basically school without Google, which is perfectly fine.  Our middle school students don’t use their phones during the school day; they had no idea that anything was amiss.

But the adults were a different story.  We wanted to know what was the matter.  Some of us speculated and then waited in the information darkness.  But most of us quickly pulled out our phones to dial up internet outage maps that showed the whole East Coast as down.  Because T is computer savvy, I knew those maps were nonsense generated by outage websites that are not valid.  Obviously, there was an outage in our immediate area, but it was not all of New Jersey, yet alone the mid-Atlantic corridor, as the faculty rumor mill insisted.  That evening I got home and looked for news stories that would note the outage, figuring that an east coast outage of the magnitude shown on the maps would be newsworthy. There were none.

Ahem.

The world of instant communication and information has seemed to leave its mark upon us all, even if we think otherwise.  We seek information even when there is none to be had.  We seem prepared to accept explanations that are clearly suspect or even bogus because we must know or because they provide confirmation of our experience.  To be sure, the internet world of instant knowledge can be quite useful.  But it can also be wrong.  It’s important to know the difference.

Real Life Conversations with the Wrestling Coach: Life Skills edition

The backstory:  I’ve written before about how much I like and respect JT’s wrestling coach.  One of the things I enjoy about him is his sense of humor, which is right up my alley.  The other day we had a conversation about Ultimate Fighting which, much to my dismay, JT has been known to enjoy watching.  

Me:  I don’t get it.  And I worry that JT will want to try it.  

Coach L:  Don’t worry. Wrestling is not a gateway sport.

He went on to assure me that getting hit in the face just once would cure a normal person of interest in Ultimate Fighting.  Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that.

Early Spring

April's blooms always make my heart sing.  Add in the twilight on an early Spring day and I am utterly charmed.  Around here, Spring blooms can get started and then pause when a cold snap comes our way.  That’s been the case in this past week, which was mostly cold and wet and found Spring on pause.  But the first Saturday in April was a bit warmer and in the early evening T and I went looking for some Spring peepers.  At Colonial Park, we found them singing their own celebration of this most lovely season.  

Dogwood Saturday: Week 2

This week’s college visits with my nephew have entailed a certain amount of driving and in the past few days I’ve been all over the place.  Travel just a little south and the spring blooms are a tad livelier with more green on the trees and brightly colored grass starting to get that unruly Spring look.

North is not quite so green, a slight difference but one noticeable to me, eager for all that Spring has to offer.  After an early warm start to the season, this week has brought a chill to the air and it seems as if the blooms are holding back, not sure that the season is ready for them.  My dogwood tree shows the same reserve.  Part of the limbs are in fuller sunlight, and that branch is ahead in the bloom sweepstakes.

The rest of the tree has delicate green leaves still holding off on blooms.

The view from a distance shows the subtle differences.  

And so we wait for the full display of blooming color.  Spring is so very tempting!

Real Life Conversations with KO: E-Mail In-box edition

The backstory: My sister and my nephew C flew in on a red eye flight on Wednesday night and early Thursday morning they piled in my car for a road trip to visit Gettysburg College.  I was the designated driver and my sister had my cell phone and was texting my son on my behalf when she noticed the number of unread e-mails on my phone.

KO:  You have over 17,000 e-mails on your phone.

Me:  I don’t read those.

KO: Yes, I think that’s clear.

I meant that I don’t read work e-mail on my phone but we all had a good laugh.  It’s nice to have my sarcastic sense-of-humor doppelgänger on my side of the country.

On Wisconsin

By now you’ve have to be living under a rock to have missed out on the fact that Wisconsin primary voters are typically the sort to support the party leaders in their primary voting.  This is the responsible Midwest, after all.  But this year’s Wisconsin voter has had about enough of the nonsense that is the current GOP contest (see: responsible Midwest) and the state is expected to come in strong for Ted Cruz, as part of the state’s “anyone but Trump” sentiment.  The Cruz support is less about Cruz (he’s not exactly a moderate in the Wisconsin GOP tradition) and more an expression of the anti-Trump sentiment, an idea that has been sustained by the state’s still-popular Republican governor (and also-ran), Scott Walker.    T-rump will likely offer a terrific excuse for his unexpected loss to Lyin’ Ted and that may very well be the news of the evening.

Meanwhile, Democratic Badgers don’t wish to be left out of the unexpected news category and they are looking to come in for Bernie Sanders.  The Sanders support is likely a function of the state’s strong college student demographic, labor voters, and Sanders recent momentum, though I wouldn’t expect the victory to be overwhelming.

So let’s talk numbers.

I expect that Sanders will come up with a 3 point margin of victory, right around 51% to Clinton’s 48%.  Not exactly a burning victory, but enough to keep Sanders’ coffers full for the next few weeks as the two of them duke it out for victory in New York state on April 19.

Meanwhile, over in the party that Lincoln built (hard to believe….my condolences to Mr. Lincoln) Cruz will score a victory with 42% of the vote.  His opponents combined will be over 50%, with Kasich holding steady at 20% and Trump at 34%.  It’s notable that this is invariably the case for Republican voting this season; a sign that the party is truly balkanized.  New York voters (and their values!) are also the next step on the GOP crazy train.  

But until then, it’s your day, Wisconsin.  Pass around the cheese curds and let's see how this plays out.

Real Life Conversations at School: Searching for Hope edition

The backstory:  7th grade history curriculum covers the first half of U.S. history, from colonial settlement to the Battle of Gettysburg, which is the turning point of the Civil War.  8th grade starts with the Gettysburg Address, finishes out the Civil War and explores into the 20th century.  The 8th grade teacher and I planned our courses together so that mine informs what follows.  We identified a handful of central themes for the courses; race in the United States is central to our studies..

The period I teach is fully involved with slavery and though we will end just after the Emancipation Proclamation, that’s in May and it’s a very long time for 12 and 13 year olds to wait for some kind of happy ending to a pretty unpleasant story.  Moreover, the arc of the slavery story isn’t one that is always headed to the light.  From the moment I introduce the topic to the point where we explore the outbreak of the Civil War I remind my classes that, “slavery gets worse before it gets better.”

We’re currently studying the early Industrial Revolution (1820s or so) and the widespread use of the cotton gin.  That’s the point where both the institution of slavery and the rhetoric in support of it get a lot more hateful; the “worse” part of the story.  7th graders are notoriously self-absorbed and nearly all of their emotions are intense.  But they are also capable of stepping outside themselves to understand the world and because of this they are well-poised to spend some time with some very uncomfortable realities of our American story.    Last week, we were looking at the growth of slavery in the United States.  During this period, the population of enslaved people grew from 750,000 in 1789 to nearly 4 million by 1860 and this at a time when foreign importation of enslaved people had stopped.    Enter uncomfortable realities and my explanation, including the fact that children born to enslaved women were automatically considered slaves themselves.  And then I issued my usual reminder….

Me:  Remember, slavery gets worse before it gets better.

Student E (with annoyance in her voice):  You know, I’m just getting really tired of that phrase.

We all paused and smiled; E had spoken our collective mind.  Upon reflection I realized that E’s mixed race family, including a younger sister who is a different race than E, makes her especially aware of the nuances of race, birth, and identity.  Her honesty informed all of us and provided a much-needed moment of levity as we explored a painful topic.  But for me, it’s also a reminder that 12 and 13 year olds are looking for signs of hope.  They’ve yet to fully realize that they are the people who will get to write many of those hopeful and happy endings.  But I realize it and with young people like E in charge of our destiny, I know we’re going to be just fine.

T-Rump

There’s a quote about Thomas Jefferson that I have long found informative.  Over time, I’m forgotten both the source and the exact language but the general idea is something like this:  “The problem with Jefferson is that he believes the things he says about democracy.”  The idea is a response to Jefferson’s faith in the common man, which many of his philosophical peers found naive.  In fact, there wasn’t much democracy in the original American constitution.  Presidents and members of the Senate were chosen indirectly, by the Electoral College and state legislatures respectively.  There was no direct democratic input in the selection of judges.   The people did directly select members of the House of Representatives, but that’s only half of one branch out of the three that makes up the federal government.  There was more direct democratic influence in the American government than any other nation circa 1792, but it wasn’t all that much.  The founders weren’t as confident in the common man as we think.  

Jefferson did have that confidence and I’ve always found it both charming and prescient on his part.  As our nation has grown, the franchise was extended, and the voters had greater democratic influence, our citizens have mostly risen to the demands of self-government.  And make no mistake, self-government does make demands on the people.  Then along comes a presidential candidate like Donald J. Trump and my inner elitist hears the voice of Alexander Hamilton and wonders what the hell Jefferson could have been thinking.

A good friend of mine has taken to referring to Donald Trump as simply T-Rump, which has the virtue of conveying exactly what kind of jackass we’re dealing with.  I was among the many political observers who felt that the T-Rump candidacy would flame out just in time for the Republican mainstream to swoop in and select their usual candidate; someone like Jeb Bush, Scott Walker, or even Marco Rubio seemed the likely outcome.  None of those candidates were pleasing to me, largely because their policy views don’t mesh with mine.  But they were at least leaders grounded in ideas.

T-Rump is a whole other kind of animal.  His demonstrated understanding of the economic and political system is virtually nonexistent; his life of privilege has enabled him to believe that working hard is all it takes to enjoy success in America.  His ideas about women are horrifying.  I actually do think that he cares for his fellow citizens, but only to the extant that they worship him in return.  That isn’t leadership, it’s the stroking of a helium-filled ego.  Moreover, it’s dangerous in a nation that requires self-governance.  Democracy in a republic of our size and diversity requires compromise and consideration of alternatives in the form of well thought-out ideas.  That’s not easy and it can be derailed if one side opts for a win at all costs mentality, as the Republican party has chosen for the last dozen years.   They are now reaping the consequences of that brand of leadership in the form of candidate T-Rump, who is stirring up 30% of Republican voters in a frenzy of incoherent demands that cannot possibly be met.

The rest of us —— the 70% of Republicans who don’t support T-Rump and the 100% of Democrats staring on in horror, will be left to sort out the challenge of self-government.  And here it’s worth reminding Republicans what Jefferson knew: real leadership requires the voicing of objections in a thoughtful and coherent fashion and then moving forward to find common ground.  It means taking the risk that you will lose power but retain principle, because you said what needs to be said for the good of the republic.  It means understanding that America is only as great as its ability to work together and compromise.

Dogwood Saturday: Week 1

My slow-to-bloom amaryllis took us through March getting ready to bloom and the flowers have begun to fade.  But there’s no time to fret about that because the Spring show has begun in my backyard and the dogwood is moving quickly.

The slender green leaves are opening up into the flowers that start off delicate and them become profuse.

For the next few Saturdays, the dogwood is going to show off and I’ll be here to record the changes.  

Spring is happy!

In the Backyard Neighborhood: April 1

We are headed into the most glorious part of Spring, when there are new flowers emerging from the soil nearly every day as the buds on trees open with a bright flourish and the leaves and grass green right up as we watch.  But first, you have to look closely to find Spring's achievements.

This development is a little earlier than usual, thanks to a mild Winter and some early Spring warmth and rain.  There are still some chilly days to come, of course, but I have my toes in the air and I’m ready for the seasonal change. I can hear the birds chirping outside each the morning and the sound is glorious; as if they are chirping a chorus to cheer on the blooming flowers and help us celebrate the lengthening daylight hours.

Spring is always a heady season for me; a reminder that Mother Nature is a powerful force in my world.  There is beauty and hope in the blooms and warm air; the light on these days feels as if it is glowing with possibility.