Full Of Oneder

 Sixty one-derful years. 

It has been my distinct pleasure to have spent most of my wife's life being her husband. 

If you were to track back into those hazy days of high school, you might find us there.

Strangers who grew up within a block of one another for a while. 

Those two years that separated us was an eternity. 

Now it's part of history. The history we have shared. 

Today marks another year on the road, for her, for me, for us. 

I don't want you to believe that there is no story without me. 

Every day there are adventures and triumphs and the occasional speed bump. 

We celebrate the roses and endure the thorns. 

We celebrate one another and endure one another. 

But mostly today we celebrate the entrée of Kristen upon this earth.

None of these things could have happened without that spark.

Without that light. 

We begin another of those highly anticipated trips around the sun.

Another beginning.

Another year. 

One-derful. 

Sense a la Common

 The Florida Department of Health has warning about the risks of drinking raw, unpasteurized milk. Twenty-one people in the Sunshine State including six children under the age of ten, became ill from E. coli and campylobacter bacteria linked to raw milk from the same farm. Seven people have been hospitalized. Two of them have severe complications. 

There's a lot to unpack in that paragraph, but let's start with the location: Florida. The setting for so very many punchlines, this is the place that tends to ban books and insists that you have a license to skateboard. Of course this is also the state where it is illegal to feed alligators, which makes some mild sense, which makes it all the more curious why they would promote their version of "Alcatraz" by suggesting that anyone who escapes from this prison camp for immigration detainees might end up doing just that. 

Now let's explore that "unpasteurized" part. In 1882, German chemist Franz von Soxhlet first suggested using pasteurization for milk. In 1893, American physician Henry L. Koplik advocated for pasteurization to prevent milk-borne diseases. By the early twentieth century, many United States municipalities made pasteurization of milk mandatory.  It's a little bit of public health that fell into practice to keep human beings from getting sick from drinking milk from cows. Most of us aren't used to seeing Pasteurizing spelled with a capital P. Because there was a time when this French scientist who coincidentally was named Pasteur figured out that germs cause disease. Not only that, but germs could grow spontaneously in sealed containers. Killing those germs before they are consumed in food or beverages was considered a clever bit of scientific progress. 

Which is where this bus stalls, especially in Florida. Mostly because of that whole "science" thing. Climate Change, Evolution, we all live on a ball flying through space, these are ideas that might fly somewhere like New York City, but don't try to peddle that kind of nonsense to Floridians. They can see that kind of highfalutin nonsense a mile away. If they're not doubled over in pain from attempting to feed a carnivorous reptile or from drinking rotten milk. 

This is why I am happy to congratulate the Florida Department of Health for taking the somewhat limited stand for science, and health, since it's in the title. 

Just don't tell them that this Pasteur guy also promoted vaccines to keep us safe from things like rabies and anthrax. That might upset the whole apple cart. Then we'd have to try to explain how fruit rots in the sun. And they've got a lot of both of those down there In Florida. 

I Saw It On TV

 "I know it's true, oh, so true 'cause I saw it on TV." - John Fogerty

Before Billy Joel denied starting the fire, Mister Fogerty wrote a song about the decades of news and pop culture that he witnessed via what was colloquially known as "The Idiot Box." In the first verse, he confesses, "Though I saw them all, I can't recall which cartoon were real."

You may recall that recently the convicted felon currently ignoring the US Constitution lauded his acting head of the Federal Emergency Management Administration for her efforts to reduce the suffering of those affected by the floods in Texas because he "saw her on TV." Not that she was actively pursuing any sort of rescue or reclamation efforts, but because she appeared in her best "take charge" costume and gave the impression that she was, in fact, in charge. Couple this with the rumor that swirled around a few months ago about a reality TV show being in development centering on the efforts of immigrants attempting to achieve citizenship. Given the reality that we have all witnessed on our screens, television and otherwise, it was determined that now might not be the best time to unleash this kind of "non-scripted" entertainment. 

It is certainly true that the line between what appears on television and reality has always been a sticky bit. In a previous century, after MTV tired of showing those little promotional films for pop music, somebody pitched the idea for a show called The Real World. This was not the first time that "reality" was trotted out for us to watch at home, but this was perhaps the most confounding use of the word "real" in television history. It is perhaps notable that the third season of this long-running series introduced us to Rachel Campos, a conservative voice in a house filled with a bunch of liberal twenty-somethings who had an ax to grind about all manner of thins. When she grew up, she got a job on Fox News. 

Around that same time, somebody got the clever idea of making a showcase for America's worst boss, who spent the bulk of his time on screen bellowing, "You're fired." This buffoon never managed to have his own show on Fox, but he did manage to find his way into the Oval Office. Twice. Under the guise of being "president." This is the guy who set about hiring a great many of the "stars" of Fox News to sit on his cabinet. What better qualification could there be for this tiny-brained slumlord than to look for the best and brightest based on their appearances on "the idiot box?"

Most recently, this adjudicated rapist declared his appreciation for recently confirmed US Prosecutor for Washington DC, Jeanine Pirro: “Don’t forget, Jeanine Pirro was a great judge and a great prosecutor. Because she was so good, they drafted her into show business, and she did fantastic. You know, The Five was the number-one show, etc., etc.”

Never mind that Judge Jeanine's political career was cut short by a scandal that had her attempting to bug the boat of her philandering husband. 

I know all of this because I saw it on TV. 

God help us all. 

And don't forget to turn it off when you leave. 

And One

 Shouldn't the guy who has been ruthlessly cutting programs and jobs in the public sector be glad to hear that more people are out of work? Apparently not, since the Orange Buffoon decided to throw a hissy fit after the July jobs report suggested that economic growth had slowed significantly. His response? Firing the  the head of the Bureau of Labor Statistics, Erika McEntarfer. 

The counterintuitive nature of this action is obvious to anyone who has spent any time at all in their life counting. If you're three years old, you pretty much expect to be four on your next birthday. You might also get a little flummoxed when it comes to numbers bigger than ten, but at least you comprehend the natural progression of things. This tangerine chucklehead has a history of misunderstanding these kinds of things. We give pictures of objects for Kindergartners to compare and ask them, "Which one has more?" Why would we expect a self-professed billionaire to be able to reckon on that level?

When things don't go his way, this convicted felon tends to make up numbers. Which it would seem is what he expects others will do. He insists that the July report numbers ""were RIGGED in order to make the Republicans, and ME, look bad." Well, let's take a look at some other numbers that seem to float around in the former game show host's tiny brain: He claimed that he would  drive down drug prices by as much as 1,500 percent. A magical precedent, since the most a price can actually go down would be one hundred percent. That would mean that the consumer would now pay nothing. Or perhaps you've been out driving around searching in vain for the $1.99 gasoline that existed in "five states." A little hint for you scam-watchers: If they don't mention which states, it probably isn't true. 

If yo're a student of recent history, you may recall a years-long baseless challenge to the vote tally of the 2020 election. This is a guy who bankrupted casinos. Not by winning at games of chance, but by running them into the ground. This very stable genius does have something on his side: He doesn't have to be good at math. He just has to be better than the pinheads who hang on his every utterance. 

MTPTFA! Make Two Plus Two Five Again.

Measure For Measure

 Football season is upon us. 

I know this because there was a news item about how the National Football League used their first preseason game to test out their "virtual first down system." For those of you who don't follow the game of American Football or are simply waiting for the games to count, you may have missed this event. 

After more than a century of using two sticks and a chain between them to determine just how far ten yards is, science has provided a way to do that same thing with some very fancy and expensive new cameras. You may have been thinking that the 4K TV you have in your living room is a pretty amazing piece of technology, but Sony has 8K which gives twice as many Ks as your TV. This allows the game to be monitored from above by machines that can pinpoint the placement of the ball on the field and allow the game to progress without those lengthy time-outs for measurement. Since games can be won or lost based on a few inches here or there, this comes as a boon to those of us who have held our breath while that chain has been stretched and then that far stick is somewhat ceremoniously put down to show once again just how far ten yards is. 

No kinks in the chain. No "friendly measurement." No excuses to nip out to the kitchen for more chips while the best union in the world continues to hold sway in the twenty-first century. 

For decades now, people like me have wondered why there wasn't a chip placed in the ball with sensors on the field that could detect whether or not the line to gain had been reached. Still more adults across the globe have wondered why this matters so much. Meanwhile, those three guys with their orange vest and sticks have had job security more than anyone else in the league. These folks are getting paid the princely sum of seventy-five to one hundred fifty dollars per game. This feels like a pittance compared to the responsibility these stalwart keepers of the yards carry on their shoulders. My guess is that the Hawk-Eye camera system will be quite a bit more expensive to operate and maintain. 

And starts to meander in the direction of Artificial Intelligence. "Hey Google, was that a first down?"

"I'm sorry Dave. I don't think I can help you with that right now. Why don't you take a stress pill?"

Speaking of stress, you don't have to feel bad about those poles and vests and so forth. They will continue to show up for this season anyway. They'll be there to remind us just how important ten yards really is. 

Did You Miss Me?

 Go away for a few days and, well, things continue their downward spiral. 

My wife and I wandered off on a short trip to the Central Coast for a respite before the new school year springs to life with all its myriad complexity and challenge. In preparation, I wrote a series of blog posts that would fill the void for you, dear reader, while I was gone. 

This also allowed me to focus on anything but the "breaking news" that flows in torrents from our nation's capitol. 

The Corporation for Public Broadcasting is shutting its doors. Not a surprise exactly, but one that confirms the mission of Project 2025 continues apace. 

The convicted felon plans to spend two hundred million dollars building a grand ballroom as a part of his scheme to recreate his own personal Versailles. This regime will be different from Louis XVI's in that they won't even bother bringing up serving the peasants "cake." Gotta save the cake for washing down with Diet Coke. 

That same convicted felon is doing a favor for another convicted felon, Ghislaine Maxwell, who will be moved from a maximum security prison in Florida to a more relaxed setting in Texas: a prison "camp" in the Lone Star State. Here she will be hobnobbing with celebrity felons such as Elizabeth Holmes and Jen Shah. Here she will no doubt be awaiting her day in court or a pardon from the guy who claims to have little or no knowledge of anybody connected to (checks list) Jeffery Epstein. 

You may not remember Ms. Holmes or Ms. Shah, but you probably remember Mr. Epstein. He's the guy who may or may not have killed himself in jail. Subsequently, all the charges of sex trafficking against him were dropped, which turned the spotlight on his right hand trafficker, Ms. Maxwell. 

Meanwhile, the felon who is tearing up the White House just recalled that his relationship with Mr. Epstein fell apart after the sex trafficker "stole employees" from Mar-A-Lago. "He took people, I say 'don't do it anymore', you know they work for me... beyond that, he took some others. Once he did that, that was the end of him." One of these purloined employees was Virginia Giuffre, who had said she began working at Mar-a-Lago in the summer of 2000, when she was sixteen. 

If the name Virginia Giuffre sounds familiar, it could be because you have heard the story about how she was procured for Prince Andrew by Mr. Epstein and later sought to bring charges against her traffickers, Maxwell and Epstein. You may also recall that Ms. Giuffre committed suicide back in April. 

And if you didn't remember all of this, please try and remember that the same guy who is wreaking havoc with our public media and the People's House is also the one who would like you to forget any and all of the details I have just laid out here. 

I should have stayed on vacation. 

First Day

 My son was just a few months old when I went to my first day of school as a teacher. To say that we have both grown up a lot over the course of the past twenty-eight years would be a massive understatement. When I first reported to Horace Mann Elementary, I was a brand new hire. I had been assured a position through the internship program the district was running in concert with Cal State Hayward. As the summer turned into fall, I waited for word, and with just a week or two left before the new school year was going to begin, I got the notice: I would be the prep teacher at this year-round school in east Oakland. 

Oh, and didn't you say that you knew "a lot" about computers? 

Back in those days, I was going to school in the evenings to learn how to be a teacher and then trying things out the following day. Each morning was an opportunity to start fresh. It was terrifying. I was learning to be a father at the same time, and there were certainly moments when I thought that maybe I was taking on too much. There was not, however, a pause button on my life at that point. I was, to quote the song, running to stand still. 

That was back in the twentieth century. Before the shootings at Columbine. Before 9/11. Before COVID. Before I had fully surrendered to the idea that this would be my career, my calling. Over the past three decades, there have been times when I thought there might be a place for me somewhere else. I considered becoming a middle school math teacher. At least the kids might get a few more of my very funny jokes. This was after I had sampled teaching a fourth grade class of my own for a few years. I liked the mildly autonomous feeling, but I missed being connected to every kid in the school. 

Now I've been doing this job for (checks watch) ever. I am headed in for the warmup week during which we all get together to talk about how we're going to do many things new, but some of them just the same. I get anxious around this time, just like I used to when I was a student. What fresh challenges await me when that front gate opens up for real a week from today? 

Will I be ready?

Well, it just so happens that I know the answer to that one: It doesn't matter. The gate will open and we will start this new year with the same mix of excitement and dread that we have all those years prior. My son will most likely reach out, having left behind those first day jitters once he graduated from college. He'll aske me how it went. And I'll tell him a story about how this year started.