This Is A Test

 Here we go.

The big turn we take each year into the End of the Year: Spring Break.

When we come back in a week, we'll start all the motions that send a message to the staff and students that we are preparing to close up shop. This is nowhere more apparent than the preparations we make for our mandated state testing. 

Over the years I have become less agitated by the specifics of high stakes testing and more philosophical about the way we turn children into points of data after a year of treating them as individual intertwined successes and challenges, each one capable of so much in so many different ways, but lacking in others. But, sure as the days are getting longer and the pollen count goes up, we're going to toss them all into the centrifuge and see what the computer spits out. 

As the computer teacher I do my best to prepare our seemingly unsuspecting young victims for the onslaught that awaits them. We look at practice tests and take them for a spin in the simulations. We let them know that no matter how much we try to get them ready that week of sitting in front of a screen will most certainly have an impact on them. 

I'm not talking about "your permanent record here." I stopped believing in that a long time ago. Instead I try and prepare them for a reality in which the effort they put in will be expected and the impression that they care is what we are really looking at. It's those who idly click on random answers and finish in record time that upsets the whole apple cart. 

These are children, after all. They are part of the mass that looks up after writing a sentence and asks, "Is this enough?" They would like to believe that there is a bell somewhere that will ring, signaling time is up and they can move on to the next ridiculous task put in front of them by grownups. Or maybe recess?

But here we are all complicit. We know that the true measure of each student will not be found in those hours spent testing. It will come as a composite of all the hours spent in classrooms and on the playground and in the hallways and the cafeteria. 

But we still hope they do really well. 

Con-Sense

 My family and I drove across the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Maryland. Once. A long time ago. There was a small part of me that shuddered upon seeing the video of its collapse early Tuesday morning. A cargo ship lost power and crashed into one of the supports, bringing the entire structure down. Two people were rescued, and another six were feared lost as the connector for Baltimore's urban and suburban districts was gone in a matter of seconds. The victims were on the bridge. None of the cargo ship's crew were injured. 

It could have been much worse. Had the accident taken place during daylight hours. This branch of I-695 carried significant shipping traffic as well as commuters. Things could have been much worse. Which made me think about another bridge collapse a long time ago. 

When the Loma Prieta Earthquake struck the Bay Area back in 1989, the double-deck Cypress Street approach to the Bay Bridge pancaked, trapping motorists in their cars, and the Bay Bridge itself experienced a massive failure as a section of the top deck broke and fell down on the lower. Forty-two people died at the Cypress site, only one died as result of the Bay Bridge collapse. This loss of life would have been far greater had there not been a World Series game taking place in San Francisco at the time. People altered their commutes to avoid traffic or missing any part of the game between the Giants and the Athletics. 

That was in another time. No one suggested that the deep state was somehow to blame for the tragedy. No one claimed that government agencies had plotted together to make something happen to its own citizens. 

Welcome to 2024, when every catastrophe has a conspiracy lining. Utah State Representative Phil Lyman had this to say: "This is what happens when you have governors who prioritize diversity over the wellbeing and security of citizens." You would not be alone if you were left scratching your head in wonder about this assertion. Speaking of heads, the pointy heads that come up with this kind of malarkey have also suggested that Boeing's recent trouble has everything to do with Diversity, Equity and Inclusion and not corporate greed. 

Of course, they might have taken the opportunity to connect the once upon a time trip the author of this lefty blog took to the events in Maryland. That makes about as much sense. With apologies to sense. 

Down But Not Out

 I hurt my leg last Friday.

I did it bowling. 

Yes it hurts. 

For a while this past week I felt that I should get those three phrases printed on a T-shirt for me to wear in order to some of the caring but institutionally redundant questions about the brace on my left knee. The concern was legitimate, but over the course of a trip down a hallway I would be asked a dozen different times by a dozen different people, old and young about the limp I was showing as I hobbled from place to place. Several times, because of the attention span of your standard elementary school age child, I would answer the same questions from one bright upturned face just steps away from where I had given the exact same answers. 

All of which speaks to the relative excitement generated by the smallest tweak in Elementary School Reality. Most often this is found in the reactions students have to haircuts. Over the weekend someone shows up with bangs, or a fade, it's big news. And seemingly everlasting torment for the child who was simply trying to improve their personal grooming. 

As for my knee, it's kind of an old story. It's the same one that I wrecked nearly forty years ago by jumping out of a swing. That cautionary tale was apparently not enough to get me to consider just how vigorous I needed to be when it came to our faculty bowling night. When I woke up the morning after, the stabbing pain I felt around my tibial plateau was a reminiscence I did not need. Nevertheless,  I persevered. I went to school, but left for an hour to go see a doctor. 

Put through my paces over the course of a brief but thorough examination, it was determined that I had a sprain. No permanent damage. Just a reminder of that once upon a time when I thought I was indestructible. 

I'm not. And now I'm paying the price for believing that I was. 

Every time I limp down the hall. 

Rules Of Engagement

 You know me and massacres. I try not to miss an opportunity to ring the "guns are bad" bell. 

There was a shooting last Friday that left at least one hundred thirty-three dead and scores more wounded. This was not the act of a lone gunman. The motive in this particular case was clear, a departure from the standard. And this one didn't occur in a mall or a church or a school in the heartland of America. 

It didn't happen in America. 

It happened in suburban Russia. At a concert hall, packed with people. A number of gunmen, as yet undetermined, burst in and sprayed the crowd with automatic gunfire. On the way out, the assailants set fire to the place, hampering rescue efforts and creating even more chaos. 

Firearms are allowed for private citizens over eighteen with a registered permit in Russia. Of course if the bad guys with guns are from Isis, originating in Afghanistan, those rules don't matter as much. Contrary to many of the U.S. shootings, officials were quick to make the link between the massacre and terrorism. The war in Ukraine is now in its third year, so government types in both Moscow and Kyiv were quick to point fingers at one another in spite of the Isis statement on Saturday in which they said the attack had come in the “the natural framework” of the ongoing war between the extremist group and countries they accuse of fighting Islam. 

You may remember Isis as the bad guys in the United States' decade-long slog through Iraq. U.S. intelligence types had been monitoring potential retaliation by the group after a series of airstrikes by Russia. These were not considered terrorist attacks. These were attacks on terrorists. These are the justifications made for killing during wartime. 

Meanwhile, over here in the relative calm of these United States, we continue to average a hundred men, women, and children dying from gun violence each day. Sometimes the motives are known. Sometimes the assailants are terrorists, or act like them. Russia doesn't tend to keep score the same way we do, but the last time data was extracted, they came in at about one tenth the number here in America. 

So we mourn the dead and wait for the day when the killing stops.

Everywhere.

 For any reason. 

Missing Link

 Looking back, I wonder if my life would have been radically different if I had participated in either the Boy Scouts or Little League. Certainly for many young men, these were rites of passage when I was coming of age. But not for me. 

The Boy Scouts were deemed unnecessary by me because of my participation in Y Indian Guides. This group was founded on the father-son bond, which was very strong in my family. My dad was invested enough to take all three of his sons with different tribes through this experience, and eventually became a big chief of cultural appropriation, wearing a feathered headdress and everything. My older brother was a Boy Scout. He was way into all the wilderness and knots and so forth. I was far too much of a homebody, not willing to spend weekends away from mom and dad to go out and pitch a tent. If I was going to do that, I would just as soon do it a few dozen yards away from the back door of our mountain cabin. Where the comic books were. 

It was that same mountain cabin that worked against any of us participating in Little League as well. We spent our summers tucked away in the woods, living that somewhat pioneer life and taking time out for practices and games with a thirty mile round trip each time would have done absolutely nothing for the isolation vibe we were trying to instill. I suppose had any one of us three boys shown a predilection toward baseball that my parents would have made the sacrifice. My mom was a champion room mother and both mom and dad were band parents in the extreme. They sewed uniforms and sold concessions at the football and basketball games. They showed up and turned out. They were devoted to their sons' extracurriculars. Baseball just didn't fit in that mix. I was, myself, prone to dropping the very occasional pop fly that might find its way to right field where I was inevitably assigned due to my almost criminal lack of ability. 

Which didn't stop us from playing a lot of softball down in the meadow. The whole family would amble on down the driveway from the cabin to the sloping green field where we would take turns bashing the ball that would eventually be retrieved by one of the neighbor dogs who made their way over the hill to see what all the fuss was about. We knew that it was time for a break when the golden lab who was our most persistent outfielder wandered off with the ball in his mouth to lounge in the creek. 

So maybe I didn't miss much after all. Maybe all those pledges and uniforms. And all that potential ridicule and hazing. 

Not that much at all. 

Long, Sad Trip

 Apparently there are a bunch of folks up in arms about the way things went down around the turn of the century at Nickelodeon Studios. For those of you unfamiliar, Nickelodeon is a cable TV channel catering primarily to younger viewers. Maybe you watched some of these shows: Drake and Josh, All That, Boy Meets World, The Amanda Show. A new documentary has brought to light a great many unsettling behind the scenes experiences that would not fit in the category of "safe for kids." 

In the late 1990s and early 2000s, making those funs shows for a youth audience was anything but safe for the kids who were manipulated and preyed upon by producers and other adults left "in charge" of this group of young people. All manner of harassment and unsafe work environment accusations are coming to light as the victims, now adults, are coming forward to shed light on the pitfalls and struggles of young performers at the turn of the century. 

But it's not exactly news, is it? My mother told me stories of the horrible ways Judy Garland was treated when she was just a little girl. A little girl with a dream of someday flying over the rainbow. Instead she was put through a mill and ground up until she couldn't sing anymore. Her onscreen pal Mickey Rooney wasn't treated much better, given pills and shots to keep him up and working, then more drugs to get him to sleep at night. And then the cycle would start right back up again. 

Then there's the story of Michael Jackson, whose talents were wrung from him all while being kept in isolation without ever being given a chance at a real childhood. Who or what he might have become if he had been allowed to live life outside the bubble created for him by his parents and his handlers will never be known. And it takes a special kind of torment to turn a member of the Mickey Mouse Club into the freak show that would become Britney Spears. 

Toss in a little Tatum O'Neal and Drew Barrymore, and you've got a pretty compelling case against children ever being allowed anywhere near showbiz. Ironically, Patty Duke's "coming of age" was on the big screen in the form of Valley of the Dolls, and what would have been Judy Garland's last film appearance. From which Judy was fired because "she couldn't keep up with the pace." 

What a long, sad trip it's been. 

Awful

 Change is bad. 

I am very unhappy that the closest In 'N' Out to my house is closing. It's closing because of crime in the area. The Taco Bell in my neighborhood is now closed to dine-in patrons. Only drive thru, thank you very much crime in the area. I can still drive not too far out of my way to get a Double-Double, and if the charm of Taco Bell was found in its dining area, I must have missed something along the line. 

So that will have to be. 

But now I understand that they are coming for my Chips Ahoy. According to reports, the bakers of one of America's favorite cookies are "reimagining their ingredients." 

Sorry folks, but I live through the New Coke debacle of 1985. This was back when Coca Cola was a staple of my bachelor diet, and when it was announced that there would be no return to "old Coke," it made me want to do something radical, like writing a strongly worded letter. Happily, before things got too far out of hand, there was Coke Classic, and then the final surrender to the relegation of New Coke to the stuff of nightmares and furniture refinishing. 

I retired from swilling Coke by the liter some time ago, and my peanut M&M habit was mitigated by substituting Chips Ahoy. Which his why this development stings. I bake my own chocolate chip cookies from scratch, so I know how they are supposed to taste. Not like Chips Ahoy. They are the McDonald's version of the cheeseburger. It is referential to the one you might make at home, but the vaguely graham cracker aftertaste and the chips are mostly there to break up the monotony of the cookie. They taste more like Chips Ahoy than they taste like chocolate chip cookies. 

Which is fine with me. Because that is how they have always tasted. Now some Gen Z executive is going to refine the cocoa and introduce Madagascar vanilla into my sea of sameness. 

Why? Aren't things confusing enough? It's enough to turn a guy to a life crime, breaking into Taco Bell dining rooms to have a cheeseburger.