If I was doing yard duty at my school, and some kid came to complain that another kid had torn up his homework, I would investigate. Even if that kid whose homework had been torn up was one who had trouble with his or her own behavior. The kid that did the tearing up would, at the very least, have to apologize. On our playground a simple "sorry" is not adequate. We need a whole sentence. There are plenty of times when this moment becomes confused with discussion of whatever transgression led to the homework being ripped up in the first place, but the apology takes precedence. After that, if there is a prior complaint, we can look into what happened to set the whole homework abuse experience in motion. There might even be an additional apology from the kid whose homework was destroyed. The bottom line is this: It's never okay to rip up someone's homework.
Why doesn't Rick Santorum or Newt Gingrich get this? Maybe they went to private schools where such matters were treated differently, but it is still hard for me to comprehend why these men believe that our President should not apologize for the accidental burning of a number of Qurans in a garbage pit on Bagram Air Base. This set off a wave of violence focused on American personnel in the area, resulting in the deaths of four U.S. soldiers. "The response needs to be apologized for by (President Hamid) Karzai and the Afghan people for attacking and killing our men and women in uniform and overreacting to this inadvertent mistake," Santorum said on NBC's "Meet the Press". "That is the real crime here, not what our soldiers did." Newt said, "It is an outrage that on the day an Afghan soldier murders two American troops, President Obama is the one apologizing." The fact that there were at least thirty Afghan deaths related to the unrest has gone without official mention.
Back when the principal was George W. Pinhead Bush, an American sniper in Afghanistan shot a Koran, peppering the Muslim holy book with bullet holes. At the time, White House spokeswoman Dana Perino had emphasized that it was important to show that the U.S. president "knew that this was wrong." Imagine a John Milius scenario in which Afghan troops invaded a small Colorado town and accidentally burned a few bibles in their garbage pit. I don't guess the Wolverines would stand for it. Unless they were on my playground.
Wednesday, February 29, 2012
Tuesday, February 28, 2012
Upon Further Review
Last year, I put off watching "127 Hours" until moments before the Oscar telecast. As a result, my Academy Predictions were skewed in such a way that only hindsight could correct. I am not a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, but I do pride myself on the number of nominated films that I take in each year before they start handing out little gold statues. This year my wife and I were very pleased with ourselves for having taken in eight of the nine nominated best pictures, but even with her insistence I kept putting off "Tree of Life." Like its namesake cereal, I felt it was just some movie, supposed to be good for me. I had heard how intense/ponderous it was. I had read how thoughtful/boring it was. I was afraid.
As it turns out, I needn't have been so full of dread. It had Brad Pitt. It wasn't "Moneyball," but it wasn't "Un Chien Andalou" either. It was a story of a family. Three sons rang a bell for me, even if the images of the birth of the universe and dinosaurs did not. Perhaps the fact that we chose to watch it in the morning, shortly after we had awakened helped keep the dreamlike imagery from overwhelming me. The flowing water and the vast expanses of sky kept it from spinning off into the void. Somewhere inside was buried a story of grief and reconciliation, but it wasn't going to be easy. Terence Malick doesn't do easy. That's okay. I studied film with Stan Brakhage. I've seen "Mothlight" more times than I can count. I've talked about it and his other non-narrative films knowingly and with gusto. I like the pretty lights and colors.
I confess that I also like a little story with my pretty lights and colors. That's why I was happily relieved when "Tree of Life" turned out to be a much more accessible film than I had anticipated. I'm happy my wife and I accessed it. It didn't cause me to re-evaluate my Oscar ballot, since there was no category for "Best Tone Poem." Maybe next year.
As it turns out, I needn't have been so full of dread. It had Brad Pitt. It wasn't "Moneyball," but it wasn't "Un Chien Andalou" either. It was a story of a family. Three sons rang a bell for me, even if the images of the birth of the universe and dinosaurs did not. Perhaps the fact that we chose to watch it in the morning, shortly after we had awakened helped keep the dreamlike imagery from overwhelming me. The flowing water and the vast expanses of sky kept it from spinning off into the void. Somewhere inside was buried a story of grief and reconciliation, but it wasn't going to be easy. Terence Malick doesn't do easy. That's okay. I studied film with Stan Brakhage. I've seen "Mothlight" more times than I can count. I've talked about it and his other non-narrative films knowingly and with gusto. I like the pretty lights and colors.
I confess that I also like a little story with my pretty lights and colors. That's why I was happily relieved when "Tree of Life" turned out to be a much more accessible film than I had anticipated. I'm happy my wife and I accessed it. It didn't cause me to re-evaluate my Oscar ballot, since there was no category for "Best Tone Poem." Maybe next year.
Monday, February 27, 2012
And The Devil Makes The Loudest Noise
I've been watching and reading with some interest lately about the role that Satan has in our current national debate. Specifically these words from a 2008 speech from the Republicans' chief sweater vest, Rick "Dickie" Santorum: "Satan has his sights on the United States of America! Satan is attacking the great institutions of America, using those great vices of pride, vanity, and sensuality as the root to attack all of the strong plants that has so deeply rooted in the American tradition." The 2012 model Santorum insists that he is a person of faith and the media's insistence of bringing up this bit of his past is merely a distraction from the real issues at hand.
Or is he possessed by demons?
Is that literal or figurative demons? Fifty-nine percent of Americans believe that Satan is a concept, not an actual personality. That would fit in well with the platform of a party that declared war on an abstract concept: terror. There is no doubt that Satan, in all his varied forms, could incite terror, after all. By contrast, non-Republican John Lennon once defined God as "a Concept by which we measure our pain." He goes on to list the things that he doesn't believe in, including Elvis and the Bible. Or magic or the I-Ching.
All of which brought me to this vision of Harvey Comics. It was easy enough to cast Mitt Romney as Richie Rich, and we can only assume that Hot Stuff would be Barack Obama. Newt Gingrich is Baby Huey, and that would leave Rick Santorum as the Holy Ghost, Casper sans sweater vest. John Lennon never mentioned comic books.
Or is he possessed by demons?
Is that literal or figurative demons? Fifty-nine percent of Americans believe that Satan is a concept, not an actual personality. That would fit in well with the platform of a party that declared war on an abstract concept: terror. There is no doubt that Satan, in all his varied forms, could incite terror, after all. By contrast, non-Republican John Lennon once defined God as "a Concept by which we measure our pain." He goes on to list the things that he doesn't believe in, including Elvis and the Bible. Or magic or the I-Ching.
All of which brought me to this vision of Harvey Comics. It was easy enough to cast Mitt Romney as Richie Rich, and we can only assume that Hot Stuff would be Barack Obama. Newt Gingrich is Baby Huey, and that would leave Rick Santorum as the Holy Ghost, Casper sans sweater vest. John Lennon never mentioned comic books.
Sunday, February 26, 2012
This Is A Dangerous Place
It was a tough couple of days for little girls. Savannah Hardin died after being forced to run for three hours as punishment for having lied to her grandmother about eating candy bars. Savannah's stepmother was also implicated in the death, brought on by seizures caused by severe dehydration. She won't be eating any more candy bars.
Savannah died in Alabama. Meanwhile, across the country in Washington, an eight year old girl was accidentally shot by a third grade classmate. No stolen candy in this one. Just happened to be in the wrong place when the purloined handgun went off. Their school went into lockdown immediately after the shooting, where first responders found Amina Kocer-Bowman and her clueless assailant safely ensconced.
Just down the coast and up the street from the school where I work, another elementary school was put on lockdown because there was a man roaming the neighborhood with a shotgun. In this case, no little girls or little boys were harmed. Physically. The bad guy was taken into custody.
It made me think about the first thing I was taught in teacher school, about how the primary need for kids to learn is safety. I wonder how much learning will take place up the street over the next week, now that the potential for lone gunman exists in that neighborhood. I wonder how the test scores of that school in Washington will be affected. I know how Savannah's report card will look. I know that we live in a scary world for boys and girls of all ages, but it does make me pine for the times when a kid could get in trouble for bringing Mad magazine to school. Nobody wanted to get paddled or spanked, but they didn't expect to die.
I know that everyone's going to get an extra water break after we run our laps this week in PE.
Savannah died in Alabama. Meanwhile, across the country in Washington, an eight year old girl was accidentally shot by a third grade classmate. No stolen candy in this one. Just happened to be in the wrong place when the purloined handgun went off. Their school went into lockdown immediately after the shooting, where first responders found Amina Kocer-Bowman and her clueless assailant safely ensconced.
Just down the coast and up the street from the school where I work, another elementary school was put on lockdown because there was a man roaming the neighborhood with a shotgun. In this case, no little girls or little boys were harmed. Physically. The bad guy was taken into custody.
It made me think about the first thing I was taught in teacher school, about how the primary need for kids to learn is safety. I wonder how much learning will take place up the street over the next week, now that the potential for lone gunman exists in that neighborhood. I wonder how the test scores of that school in Washington will be affected. I know how Savannah's report card will look. I know that we live in a scary world for boys and girls of all ages, but it does make me pine for the times when a kid could get in trouble for bringing Mad magazine to school. Nobody wanted to get paddled or spanked, but they didn't expect to die.
I know that everyone's going to get an extra water break after we run our laps this week in PE.
Saturday, February 25, 2012
Songs My Father Sang To Me
"If you don't like my story, don't blame in on-a-me
for the one who wrote it is now far overseas."
As it turns out, the man who taught me the song is very far overseas. Like across the river Styx. But the synapses that hold the lyrics are still fused and they won't simply let go after all these years: "This morning when I woke up, I looked upon the wall. The cooties and the bedbugs were having a game of ball. The score was six to nothing. The bedbugs were ahead. I got so darned excited, I fell right out of bed." These words come to me in waves, and the tune follows close behind. Sometimes it comes when I think about breakfast. Sometimes it comes when I hear a sports reporter announce a score of six to nothing. Sometimes it just pops up because it's there.
"I went right down to breakfast, the meat - oh it was stale - the coffee tastes like tobacco juice from the old county jail." This may explain why I have never once had a cup of coffee in my life. "The Indian Rubber Beef Steak, the insulated cheese" were also on that menu. These are curious items, since in all the other versions I have heard of this particular ditty, my father is the only one to include them. The image of breakfast as a carnival of less-than-fresh food is one that has stayed with me for all of my days, and I hope that I won't soon encounter a "wiener doing a flip flop that lands right in the peas."
And this isn't the only melody that bounces around my head. There's the story of a cow that we once had us, oh the name of her was Gladys. The rest of the song explains why people used to stop and stare. And the ballad of poor Lilly White, whose teeth come out at night. They start to run into the bits I learned on the playground about Mary, who had a steamboat. The steamboat went to heaven, and Mary, she went to - Well, I hope my father is somewhere nicer than that, crooning along with anyone who will listen.
"He's fighting for our country, he's fighting for Uncle Sam
If you don't like my story, well I don't give a hokey-pokey-diddly-okey."
for the one who wrote it is now far overseas."
As it turns out, the man who taught me the song is very far overseas. Like across the river Styx. But the synapses that hold the lyrics are still fused and they won't simply let go after all these years: "This morning when I woke up, I looked upon the wall. The cooties and the bedbugs were having a game of ball. The score was six to nothing. The bedbugs were ahead. I got so darned excited, I fell right out of bed." These words come to me in waves, and the tune follows close behind. Sometimes it comes when I think about breakfast. Sometimes it comes when I hear a sports reporter announce a score of six to nothing. Sometimes it just pops up because it's there.
"I went right down to breakfast, the meat - oh it was stale - the coffee tastes like tobacco juice from the old county jail." This may explain why I have never once had a cup of coffee in my life. "The Indian Rubber Beef Steak, the insulated cheese" were also on that menu. These are curious items, since in all the other versions I have heard of this particular ditty, my father is the only one to include them. The image of breakfast as a carnival of less-than-fresh food is one that has stayed with me for all of my days, and I hope that I won't soon encounter a "wiener doing a flip flop that lands right in the peas."
And this isn't the only melody that bounces around my head. There's the story of a cow that we once had us, oh the name of her was Gladys. The rest of the song explains why people used to stop and stare. And the ballad of poor Lilly White, whose teeth come out at night. They start to run into the bits I learned on the playground about Mary, who had a steamboat. The steamboat went to heaven, and Mary, she went to - Well, I hope my father is somewhere nicer than that, crooning along with anyone who will listen.
"He's fighting for our country, he's fighting for Uncle Sam
If you don't like my story, well I don't give a hokey-pokey-diddly-okey."
Friday, February 24, 2012
Living In The Future
I will no longer be living in the future. After years of constantly looking forward, I have decided to plant my feet squarely in the present and face the world as it is. How did I accomplish this? I set my clock.
For years and years, the clock beside my bed had been set a few minutes ahead, in hopes of tricking my brain into lurching forward because it always appeared to be later than it appeared. I was easily fooled, since I was the one who pushed the "set" button in the first place. I was also the one who had to do the increasingly arcane math to determine the actual time. It also meant that anyone who saw that clock would immediately experience the terror of lost time without the comfort of the knowledge of setting that clock.
It started innocently enough, back when I was in high school. Back then, I padded my day with four extra minutes, even though back then I was prone to waking minutes before any alarm I set. It gave me an air of superiority: master of time. I knew that no matter what the situation, I would always have an extra four minutes to deal with it.
By the time I got married, had a kid, changed jobs, those four minutes didn't seem enough cushion. I pressed the button forward and landed, after a few short stops, at twenty minutes. As a person who routinely shows up to events fifteen minutes early, one third of an hour became a burden. What could I possibly do with all that time? This was especially true when I added in the time that I used each week to discuss or navigate the time zones in my house. With two very analog clocks in the living room and kitchen that require constant winding and adjustment to keep up with the passage of time, the fabric of reality was being stretched to a breaking point.
I know what time it is. I'm not kidding myself anymore. If I'm making up for lost time, at least I'll be doing it the old fashioned way: by rushing about.
For years and years, the clock beside my bed had been set a few minutes ahead, in hopes of tricking my brain into lurching forward because it always appeared to be later than it appeared. I was easily fooled, since I was the one who pushed the "set" button in the first place. I was also the one who had to do the increasingly arcane math to determine the actual time. It also meant that anyone who saw that clock would immediately experience the terror of lost time without the comfort of the knowledge of setting that clock.
It started innocently enough, back when I was in high school. Back then, I padded my day with four extra minutes, even though back then I was prone to waking minutes before any alarm I set. It gave me an air of superiority: master of time. I knew that no matter what the situation, I would always have an extra four minutes to deal with it.
By the time I got married, had a kid, changed jobs, those four minutes didn't seem enough cushion. I pressed the button forward and landed, after a few short stops, at twenty minutes. As a person who routinely shows up to events fifteen minutes early, one third of an hour became a burden. What could I possibly do with all that time? This was especially true when I added in the time that I used each week to discuss or navigate the time zones in my house. With two very analog clocks in the living room and kitchen that require constant winding and adjustment to keep up with the passage of time, the fabric of reality was being stretched to a breaking point.
I know what time it is. I'm not kidding myself anymore. If I'm making up for lost time, at least I'll be doing it the old fashioned way: by rushing about.
Thursday, February 23, 2012
Clothes Make The Man
Mitt "En" Romney just can't seem to put a stake through the heart of the Republican Presidential Nomination. It could be because he's a Mormon. It could be because he's rich, as in "filthy." It could be because he teeters on the verge of being a social conservative without ever quite committing to that sensibility. It could be a combination of all of these, but whatever the case, we find ourselves less than nine months away from an election without a clear choice for a side on which to be.
Or not. A number of clever pundit-types have been suggesting that people, many of them voters, are seeking out Rick "Don't Ask" Santorum because "he's a candidate like them." Not a Mormon. A social conservative. And even if he is rich, it's not the filthy version. Rick wears a sweater vest. What could speak more loudly about a man's convictions than his choice of outer garments? Sure, he's committed to keeping his core warm, but he's not about to get his arms all tangled up in those pesky sleeves that keep other candidates' gestures from fully expressing their deepest meaning. When Mitt wears jeans, he looks uncomfortable without a blazer to top it off. We're a shirtsleeves nation, and we're fiercely proud of it. Rick's dad was a coal miner, who probably wore a sweater vest way down there in the dark. Mitt's dad wasn't a coal miner, but he was born in Mexico. Maybe he wore a serape. This may be the sleeveless angle for which the Romney campaign has been searching.
Until Ron Paul shows up in a dashiki, that is.
Or not. A number of clever pundit-types have been suggesting that people, many of them voters, are seeking out Rick "Don't Ask" Santorum because "he's a candidate like them." Not a Mormon. A social conservative. And even if he is rich, it's not the filthy version. Rick wears a sweater vest. What could speak more loudly about a man's convictions than his choice of outer garments? Sure, he's committed to keeping his core warm, but he's not about to get his arms all tangled up in those pesky sleeves that keep other candidates' gestures from fully expressing their deepest meaning. When Mitt wears jeans, he looks uncomfortable without a blazer to top it off. We're a shirtsleeves nation, and we're fiercely proud of it. Rick's dad was a coal miner, who probably wore a sweater vest way down there in the dark. Mitt's dad wasn't a coal miner, but he was born in Mexico. Maybe he wore a serape. This may be the sleeveless angle for which the Romney campaign has been searching.
Until Ron Paul shows up in a dashiki, that is.
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