Sorry Charlize

 How many times have I watched Charlize Theron die? Specifically, I wondered this as I watched her in Old Guard, an adaptation of a comic book in which she plays an immortal warrior. An immortal warrior who can be killed over and over, then rejuvenated and sent back into whatever fray history has them taking part. So here's your spoiler alert, of sorts: She and her compatriots are riddled with bullets in the first few minutes of the film. Really gory stuff. Charlize is laying flat with a bullet hole in her head, then slowly she blinks, shakes it off and the hole begins to heal. Moments later she is up and kicking and shooting and slashing her way through what we can only assume are "the bad guys." 

Then the movie goes on for another two hours or so, with plenty of blood spilled and limbs hacked at and bullets fired. But since she's the star, and an executive producer, we don't expect her to be part of the nameless pile of bodies that continues to stack up as the story progresses. Which led me to the next question: How many times have I watched Charlize Theron kill? 

Not as many as Arnold Schwarzenegger. Not as many as Bruce Willis. A whole lot fewer than Clint Eastwood. And yet, I was confounded by the notion that this is a way that we can announce that women are finally getting their due in Hollywood: body count. I know that I am thinking more about this since I started reading and thinking about our worship of guns and violence. More to the point, I was reconsidering my own place in the matter of guns and violence. I can remember feeling so clever when I was still quite young, pointing out to anyone who would listen, that this or that movie was unrealistic because the good guys never ran out of bullets. There was no reloading. That point has been addressed patiently and methodically in all manner of action movies since then. My wife noted that she had her own passing familiarity with how to reload a semi-automatic handgun from just watching characters in moview do it. Over and over. Thanks for the small arms training, Hollywood. 

Then there's the matter of the damage done by guns big and small. It used to be that simply clutching one's chest and falling down in a heap was enough evidence for us to believe that you were dead. Bullet holes have given way to exploding heads and exit wounds that have been deemed realistic by forensic specialists. Sure, it's make believe, but without a certain amount of guts spilled, you wouldn't ever believe that Charlize Theron had been shot in the head, and then got up to mangle those responsible for it. Maybe the romance of a sucking chest wound has diminished for me over time. 

I think this is a good thing. 

Keepin' It Real

 Sometimes I refer to myself as "the utility infielder" for my elementary school. For those of you unfamiliar with the inner workings of baseball, this is a player who shows competency at a number of different positions, giving coaches options when it comes to moving folks around. Over the course of my career, I have filled in at every grade level. I know where the kitchen is, and how to get the ladder out of the room where the water heater is. I have answered the phones and taken attendance. I have opened the gates and swept the floors. I have watched over recess and shooed stray dogs off the playground. I spent a few years teaching fourth grade, but mostly I have been the computer teacher. And lately, the PE teacher. 

It is probably because of all this moving around that, from time to time, I have not been included on notices for "real teachers." Not having a group of students that I supervise for most of the day leaves me with this asterisk that does not allow me to be eligible for some of the perks and information available to "real teachers." 

Which, over the years, I have learned is fine with me. I tend to prefer the big picture, and even though this tends to get me the kind of attention that requires me to be the guy who takes his keys downstairs to open the third grade room for the substitute when I would perhaps prefer to be sitting at my desk planning for the events in my own day, I can live with that. 

Because teachers burn out. Especially "real teachers." Some have moved on to other schools. Other careers. Some have gotten married and started families and left the grind of elementary education behind. What keeps me coming back is the way there is always something left to do. When it's time to go home for the day, or at the end of the week, or even at the end of the year, in my mind there is a to-do list that stretches on into the distance. We're going to need that ladder again. The lunch lady is out. A first grader threw up in the hallway. Somebody needs to cover first grade until the teacher gets there. 

And somebody's got to teach PE. And computers. There has never been a utility player named MVP, and that's fine with me. I'm not in it for the trophies. I'm in it for the chance to get up on the roof from time to time.

Danger, Will Robinson!

 It may be a pure coincidence that as I stumbled on this article about Tesla that, in the background, Billy Joel's song "Shameless" was playing. The story was about how Elon Musk's company wants an advocacy group take down videos of its vehicles striking child-size mannequins, alleging the footage is defamatory and misrepresents its most advanced driver-assistance software. 

So let's back up half a step. Tesla, along with a few other car manufacturers, have been working on developing software and hardware that will allow their vehicles to drive themselves. I am personally fond of the ones that have creates systems that enable hands-free parallel parking. That one portion of the driver's license test terrified me. Little did I know that my examiner would skip that portion of the exam and I would fail miserably because I turned from a one way street into oncoming traffic. I would imagine that a pinch of common sense would have saved me there. No need for auto-pilot. 

But are we really ready for artificial intelligence to take over our commutes? Isn't this precisely the scenario or which our robot overlords have been waiting? 

And while we're on the subject, I was reminded of a phrase I read earlier this week. A reporter was asked about the leaning toward catastrophe in media, to which he responded, "We don't go to the airport to cover landings." 

Brrrr.

Which is why a series of videos where expensive experimental robot cars running over child-size mannequins gets so much play. Supporters of Tesla have suggested recreating the demonstrations, sometimes involving real children, in an effort to show that Tesla's software does actually work.

What could go wrong? 

Well, once you know that the head of this "advocacy group" is none other than tech founder and billionaire Dan O'Dowd, whose own work in operating systems for planes and cars could be seen as direct competition for Tesla's. 

Or maybe Dan and Elon are both robots, and their plan proceeds apace. 

Stay tuned. 

Divine

 There is a scene early on in the movie Rocky where the titular character decides not to break the thumbs of a dock worker who has gotten behind on his payments to Rock's boss. He figures that if the dock worker's thumbs are broken, then there's no way he can repay his debt. Later, when he relates this to his boss, Mister Gazzo, he is berated for such an action. "Let me do the thinking," he is told just before he is left once again standing out on the curb. 

In this model, the dock worker is anyone being crushed by student loan debt, and Mister Gazzo is all those companies charging ridiculous interest on those loans. However, this time Rocky is Joe Biden and he happens to also be President of the United States. When he decided to forgive student loans, it's Mister Gazzo who is left standing out on the curb. 

The high cost of education is evidenced in the eighteen percent rise in tuition and fees over the past ten years. Interest rates for loans on those costs range from just over three percent to fourteen percent. The average student loan is paid off in twenty-one years. Companies that hand out these loans suggest that you could be out of the shadow of their loans in ten or eleven years. The reality is twice that. In true loan shark fashion, most institutions allow a six month grace period in which the newly minted college graduate looks for a job. If you're lucky you find a starting position somewhere that will pay you enough to compete with the interest rate they locked in when they started school. When they were a teenager, for the most part. 

So, there are some people who would like to blame the ones who took those loans in the first place. Like those who got themselves into home loans they couldn't afford before the housing bubble burst. Paying interest upon interest is a game only the house wins. College graduates enter the work world without any choice about stimulating the economy. They are, for give the allusion, stimulating Sallie Mae. Or any one of the multitude of creditors who are happy to sign you up to a lifetime of repayments. 

Then along comes Joe Biden, with an idea based on most every left-leaning type who has looked at the situation over the past twenty years. How about we just release these wage slaves, and get them back to living lives out of the shadow of their education? Of course, there are those who would argue against spending the money to hang these same people with a new rope who insist that it's not fair that some people paid off their student loans themselves, and there are plenty of people who didn't even need that assistance in the first place. What about them?

Well, as many people who have experienced this question, I can say, "So?" I was extremely fortunate. My parents were very clever with the extra money they had and negotiated two college degrees for their sons. The third went on tour with a rock band from his hometown, missing the trifecta. But that doesn't mean any of us view this move by the federal government as a slap in the face. It is a realization of the potential of our government and its power. Used for good. 

And we didn't have to break any thumbs. 

Leave

 Taking a sabbatical. That sounds nice, doesn't it? While mired in a life full of family, career and life expectations that are sometimes difficult to meet, take a break. For a month or two. Maybe a year. Whatever it takes to get your hash settled so that you can come back to your job feeling refreshed and ready to take on those challenges that made the wish for what comes next. 

Tom Brady, once and future quarterback for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers just did that for a couple weeks. Far from being the busiest time of the year, Tommy Touchdown left training camp in the second week of August, missing the first two of three preseason games. His coach insisted, “Tom has been excused today. He’ll be taking—he’ll be back somewhere around after Tennessee. He’s going to deal with some personal things.” He'll play in what is a formality of the last of the tune-ups before the games start to count. Will any of his teammates who had to suffer through all the practices, preparation and collisions that occurred during those trying weeks in their leader's absence? Time will tell. And speaking of time, it is important to keep in mind that at the ripe old age of forty-five, after twenty seasons of professional football he might just have this quarterback thing down. He decided to come out of a self-imposed retirement to play "one more" year. Everyone should be grateful, right?

If he wins another Super Bowl. Then this might become standard practice, or lack thereof. 

Meanwhile, back here in the Oakland Unified School District, the financially strapped and always challenging organization for which I work, our Superintendent is taking a three month sabbatical. A three month sabbatical that happens to coincide with the beginning of this school year. As OUSD continues to find its financial footing, with the plan to close schools, and a global pandemic that has not "just gone away," the School Board has sent Dr. Kyla Johnson-Trammell off on some good old fashioned paid time off. The board states that this break is necessary to keep her from being burned out by the pressures that inherent with the job. They want to make sure that she will come back invigorated and enthused to meet the rest of her contract. The one the board just extended through June of 2025. The hope, according to the Board, is to increase "leadership stability." And you may wonder if this wish for stability extends beyond the Superintendent. 

Meanwhile, the board plans to close down our school. The substitute Superintendent, who is receiving a bump in pay to take on the extra responsibilities, probably won't have much to say on that matter. As long as we end up winning another Super Bowl. 

Fill A Hole

 There is an organization, based out of Colorado Springs and Philadelphia, called RAWTools. They are in the business of beating swords into plowshares. Or, more accurately, turning guns into garden tools. They take donated guns, melt them down, and pound them into shapes better used to cultivate than mutilate. They wrote a book, too. It's called Beating Guns. I was sent a copy with a nice note from one of the authors and founders of this movement. 

I read this book. More to the point, I contemplated this book. There are not a lot of thoughts between the covers that have not occurred to me over the course of the years I have been writing in this corner of Al Gore's Internet about America's gun problem. First of all, the problem is not a matter of supply. Back in 2018, there were nearly four hundred billion guns in the United States. There are not four hundred million people living in the United States. I don't own a gun. I don't know very many people who own guns. That means that there are a lot of people in our country who own more than one gun. Millions of new guns are made every year here in the land of the fearful and home of the factory that makes them. 

Which seems to suggest that people are snapping up those guns because America is such a rough town. Things are getting more dangerous all the time. Not exactly. Since 2010, violent crime rates have done a rollercoaster decline. And somehow, gun deaths over that same period have increased. Steadily. Maybe that's because there are so many "good guys with guns" out there taking care of business. 

Or maybe more guns just means more death. Good, bad, young, old. Guns don't discriminate. Guns don't kill. Try telling that to any of the parents of the children who were killed at Sandy Hook. Or Uvalde. Or I could go on and on. These machines were made for killing, or to quote the poet, "Ain't good for nothin But put a man six feet in a hole." 

Which brings me back to Shane and Michael, the minds behind RAWTools. Instead of an semiautomatic weapon that could be used for murder, how about we melt that bad boy down and turn it into a spade. For turning earth. For planting trees. For creating life instead of taking it away. Donate your guns today. If you own one. Better yet, if you don't own a gun.

Don't buy one. 

Start Again

 While I continue on the odyssey that is the 2022-23 school year here in Oakland, California, teachers in Ohio are walking the picket lines. The Columbus Education Association says, “This strike is about our students who deserve a commitment to modern schools with heating and air conditioning, smaller class sizes, and a well-rounded curriculum that includes art, music and P.E."  

The district's statement insists, “We offered a generous compensation package for teachers and provisions that would have a positive impact on classrooms." 

Somewhere in there is what Strother Martin might refer to as "a failure to communicate." Which is about the time when people who have access to a keyboard, like myself, begin to toss around opinions and platitudes about when they were children. Retired teachers share war stories. Parents complain about how this kind of disruption will affect their kids. And their ten fifteen Pilates class. Then there's the rank and file union members who are looking for a little relief. Some will tell you that it's the paycheck, and how their salary doesn't cover the cost of living in a metropolitan area, or it will never include the money the spend out of pocket for the supplies their students need. The supplies the district is unable to provide because they are, once again, in a period of budget cuts to meet the new reality of making public education a profit center. 

And at the end of the day, when both sides push away from the bargaining table, they can be happy that they are not in Florida. In the Sunshine State, the "governor" is rejecting dictionaries for use in classrooms in his battle to eliminate "wokeness." This is the same guy who feels that teaching credential requirements are "too rigid," and he would like to have military veterans who served four years and have an honorable or medical discharge from the armed services be plugged right into the educational system. Tough for me to argue, since I came into the business of education thanks to an intern program. Which is one of my chief professional regrets. I would much rather have had the opportunity to be fully trained before stepping in front of a group of kids the first time. Alone.

Because as much as we like to say "it takes a village," and it does, it takes a certain set of strengths to get up there and teach. Maybe that comes from being battle tested. Maybe that comes from being properly compensated. Maybe that comes from not feeling overwhelmed by all those fresh faces and all that knowledge that needs to find its way into their heads. It's not a job. It's an adventure that has its challenges and stresses and it would be great to feel the support of one's community while you were attempting to prepare the next generation to take over for us. 

I really wish it wasn't so hard to convince everyone of that.