No, I'm serious. I'll get back to this thing eventually. I've been kicking around a bunch of great 'blog ideas including the latest rant on left lane losers, but the two things that have been bugging me the most and that will appear here before 2008 for sure are:
1. Public Healthcare - Why even Republicans will eventually come around
To put it simply, big business will fail if it doesn't offer health plans to get and keep good workers. GM's latest union contracts are proving that even the biggest businesses can no longer afford it. When it becomes a problem for big business, even the Republicans will begin to question why we're the only developed country in the world without public health care. Nevermind the fact that my new employer, Veterans Health Administration, has proven that a government sponsored and administered health care plan can be one of the best systems around. (That's kind of a different topic, but there are some connections)(Oh and another related but different topic has to do with free markets and the lack thereof in health care.)
2. Is there a god? I'm beginning to wonder, but in my quest I've become convinced that organized religion does way more harm than good. (You can't argue with the history!)
Those two topics should put everyone's mind at rest until I get some time to write enough to put you to sleep, eh?
Smell ya later,
Luth.
Thursday, October 25, 2007
Thursday, September 27, 2007
Mandatory Public Service
I work with a guy who is in his second attempt at college. He's paying his own way this time, living on his own, and from the time I met him, struck me as one of the more mature twenty-something's I'd ever met. Instead of blaming anyone or making excuses about his first attempt at college (in-residence at an Ohio university famous for its rabble-rousing) he readily admits to, as he puts it, "lighting $20,000.00 of my dad's money on fire." I only mention this to establish him as a fairly normal young adult who has reached one of those maturity epiphanies, therefore placing him above average on the "insight" scale among the twenty-something's I've dealt with.
The other day we were talking about the state of the world when he asked me how I felt, as a former teacher, about the people you see on things like "Jay Walking" who have absolutely no clue about the world around them. I told him I didn't put much stock in those isolated, perhaps, staged "interviews," but he said that's not really what he meant. I don't remember his exact wording, but it was something along the lines of, "I can't believe how much stuff we sweep under the rug in this country... how much people don't learn in school."
When I asked him to clarify, he rattled off a few events like Japanese interment or McCarthyism or Watergate and I interrupted with "the rationale for the war in Iraq." He agreed, but then stipulated that that particular event is the result of what he's talking about, but not necessarily a direct example of what he's talking about.
I told him that I thought one of the reasons for that was the growing emphasis of public education on VOcation over EDUcation. I went on to add that it's one of the reasons I use to rationalize leaving a profession that I, for the most part, loved. I then added that I figured I gravitated toward English in college for some very related reasons because, as I saw it, Literature was one of the few areas where real issues, including bad things good people have actually done, still get debated and discussed thoroughly. That just doesn't happen anymore in the world of Fox vs. CNN. Thanks to that kind of polarization, it doesn't happen in bars or at sporting events and it surely doesn't happen in schools anymore because standardized test prep doesn't leave any time for actual debate or learning how to learn, or formulating arguments and consider those of others
Shortly after that, I was talking with another co-worker about the lack of commitment of younger folks these days. We cited specific examples of people we'd known who promised to do something that affected many other people, events, schedules, etc. and the then just flaked out and didn't deliver but didn't show any sign whatsoever of any remorse or even acknowledgment of having even remotely inconvenienced anyone. Now I won't ever go so far as to say this never happens among older folks, but they, more times than not, at least pretend to feel guilty about it.
As we discussed it, I recalled that last few times I'd taught Romeo and Juliet. One of my favorite lessons involved the responsibility that Friar Laurence gave to Friar John to take the news of the plan to the banished Romeo. (Juliet would fake her own death in order to get out of marrying Paris). Friar Laurence knew that if the message didn't get through, and the "news"of Juliet's "death" made it to Romeo, our young lover would probably rather take his own life than live without his Juliet. Friar Laurence told Friar John how important this mission was and assumed John would take care of it.
The lesson I taught ended in debating, writing about, etc. the degree to which Friar John contributed to the deaths of the main characters. I was increasingly surprised each year as more and more students argued that John bore little responsibility in the situation. "He was quarantined in that house, he couldn't leave. It wasn't HIS fault he didn't get the message to Romeo." they would argue. And that's true. It wasn't his fault that he couldn't leave the quarantined house, but it was HIS responsibility to get the message delivered and in spite of the obstacles that prevented HIM from leaving that house, HE still accepted the responsibility freely, thus leading others to depend on him making good on those expectations.
So let's call the two perspectives on this situation the Responsibility perspective that older folks generally levitate toward, and the Obstacles perspective that younger folks cling to. The Responsibility argument follows the "Letter to Garcia" story by Elbert Hubbard, wherein a sailor accepts an order to deliver a letter without question and makes good on the order in spite of the incredible efforts it requires. He doesn't ask where to find Garcia. He doesn't balk when he learns that Garcia is deep in a dangerous jungle, he just delivers. Because he said he would. And that's great.
The Obstacle perspective relies on the idea that when obstacles beyond one's control get in the way, then one is absolved of previous responsibilities directly prevented by those obstacles.
The truth is, both are reasonable perspectives. Certainly we must apply degrees of reasonableness to each situation, but it doesn't take a lot of imagination to come up situations in which both can be understood. If the Letter to Garcia carried news along the lines of "I changed the kitty litter," then the messenger's efforts seem a little extreme. If the obstacles that get in the way of, say, picking up a quart of Ben and Jerry's involve events that may trigger one's life insurance policy, then one would likely be absolved of the responsibility of delivering said ice cream. No problem.
What's sad is that the best explanation I can come up with for the differing perspectives and the divergent views on reliability as a hiring trait completely shoot down my underlying theory on education. The quickest argument older folks in the Responsibility perspective group will likely make is that no one would want to hire anyone who gave up as easily as Friar John, or, conversely, that employers would pay good money to keep someone like the guy who delivered the Letter to Garcia. So the common argument is based on VOcation, not education.
On the other hand, younger folks, or anyone who favors the reasonable application of the Obstacles argument might point out that a person of even a little intelligence, perhaps the product of a good EDucation, might be able to better discern what point at which to give up on a mission plagued by obstacles... and that Friar John, not adequately apprised of the Romeo/Juliet tension, figured if this message were that important, it would have been FedExed.
Believe me, I've made every argument in class about why that last excuse won't fly... it's not up to John to decide that... he made a deal... no one is ever aware of every detail of every situation so he should have just focused on what he promised to do and make damn sure it gets done, but that's not the point.
The point is, this little conflict between the old and the young is kind of our (the olds') fault. The products of a solid EDucation will eventually try to think for themselves, even if they don't quite have the worldly wisdom to do so the way we want them to in a given situation. And though we may not agree with their explanations or their application of the new-found knowledge, we have to accept it sometimes. If we don't, we may well close the door on any innovative, creative solutions to problems we old folks haven't been able to solve yet. And that doesn't take into account new problems that are bound to crop up that we're too antiquated to deal with.
So why bother discussing all of this, you ask? This very conflict, boiled down to such simple terms, represents the larger issues we seem to have with teens and early 20-somethings these days. First we expect them to pour themselves into their studies and become mature independent young adults through almost complete self-motivation, but then we hamstring them to practically useless roles in society until they're at least 21 or 22, when most of them will graduate from college and join "the real workforce." Then when they join the real workforce, we're surprised to find out some of them don't take their responsibilities as seriously as we do, or require a little extra reinforcement. We don't want them taking jobs away from "real" adults and yet we don't provide them with many readily available opportunities to do much else. Then we criticize them for skateboarding, hanging out, or playing video games. Only the most bored or industrious among them find meaningful uses for their time because they must go out of their way, above and beyond their normal, expected routines to do it.
This is one of many arguments I would make for a public service program that offers alternatives to the skateboarding, hanging out and game playing. There's nothing wrong with those activities, I just think the kids who do them would appreciate them more, and pick up some useful life lessons as well as employability and responsibility skills if they had something better to do with their time. Rather than condemning these kids, criticizing them, and then laughing at them and blaming them for the fruits of where we keep them, we need to offer them some better options than the ones that are currently in front of them. Whether it's military service, local, state or national civilian service, doesn't matter, but we should offer it. Will it be complicated? Sure, and while that has stopped us from instituting a national health plan, we shouldn't let it stop us from providing our kids with better opportunities to become better citizens.
OK, that's out of my system now. If anyone out there knows about existing programs with web pages, send them to me and I'll put the links up. I bet we'd be surprised by the number of average and even under-achieving teenagers who would jump at the chance to do something like this if only the opportunity were easier to find. We basically tell young people indirectly that they don't have a place in the adult world so we can't really criticize them for not going out of there way to find a chance to do so. Let's do it for them.
-----------------------------------
And just for the record, this post started out, based on that same conversation with a remarkably mature 20-something, about the importance of learning from and not repeating the lessons of history. That post is still incubating.
Luth
Out
The other day we were talking about the state of the world when he asked me how I felt, as a former teacher, about the people you see on things like "Jay Walking" who have absolutely no clue about the world around them. I told him I didn't put much stock in those isolated, perhaps, staged "interviews," but he said that's not really what he meant. I don't remember his exact wording, but it was something along the lines of, "I can't believe how much stuff we sweep under the rug in this country... how much people don't learn in school."
When I asked him to clarify, he rattled off a few events like Japanese interment or McCarthyism or Watergate and I interrupted with "the rationale for the war in Iraq." He agreed, but then stipulated that that particular event is the result of what he's talking about, but not necessarily a direct example of what he's talking about.
I told him that I thought one of the reasons for that was the growing emphasis of public education on VOcation over EDUcation. I went on to add that it's one of the reasons I use to rationalize leaving a profession that I, for the most part, loved. I then added that I figured I gravitated toward English in college for some very related reasons because, as I saw it, Literature was one of the few areas where real issues, including bad things good people have actually done, still get debated and discussed thoroughly. That just doesn't happen anymore in the world of Fox vs. CNN. Thanks to that kind of polarization, it doesn't happen in bars or at sporting events and it surely doesn't happen in schools anymore because standardized test prep doesn't leave any time for actual debate or learning how to learn, or formulating arguments and consider those of others
Shortly after that, I was talking with another co-worker about the lack of commitment of younger folks these days. We cited specific examples of people we'd known who promised to do something that affected many other people, events, schedules, etc. and the then just flaked out and didn't deliver but didn't show any sign whatsoever of any remorse or even acknowledgment of having even remotely inconvenienced anyone. Now I won't ever go so far as to say this never happens among older folks, but they, more times than not, at least pretend to feel guilty about it.
As we discussed it, I recalled that last few times I'd taught Romeo and Juliet. One of my favorite lessons involved the responsibility that Friar Laurence gave to Friar John to take the news of the plan to the banished Romeo. (Juliet would fake her own death in order to get out of marrying Paris). Friar Laurence knew that if the message didn't get through, and the "news"of Juliet's "death" made it to Romeo, our young lover would probably rather take his own life than live without his Juliet. Friar Laurence told Friar John how important this mission was and assumed John would take care of it.
The lesson I taught ended in debating, writing about, etc. the degree to which Friar John contributed to the deaths of the main characters. I was increasingly surprised each year as more and more students argued that John bore little responsibility in the situation. "He was quarantined in that house, he couldn't leave. It wasn't HIS fault he didn't get the message to Romeo." they would argue. And that's true. It wasn't his fault that he couldn't leave the quarantined house, but it was HIS responsibility to get the message delivered and in spite of the obstacles that prevented HIM from leaving that house, HE still accepted the responsibility freely, thus leading others to depend on him making good on those expectations.
So let's call the two perspectives on this situation the Responsibility perspective that older folks generally levitate toward, and the Obstacles perspective that younger folks cling to. The Responsibility argument follows the "Letter to Garcia" story by Elbert Hubbard, wherein a sailor accepts an order to deliver a letter without question and makes good on the order in spite of the incredible efforts it requires. He doesn't ask where to find Garcia. He doesn't balk when he learns that Garcia is deep in a dangerous jungle, he just delivers. Because he said he would. And that's great.
The Obstacle perspective relies on the idea that when obstacles beyond one's control get in the way, then one is absolved of previous responsibilities directly prevented by those obstacles.
The truth is, both are reasonable perspectives. Certainly we must apply degrees of reasonableness to each situation, but it doesn't take a lot of imagination to come up situations in which both can be understood. If the Letter to Garcia carried news along the lines of "I changed the kitty litter," then the messenger's efforts seem a little extreme. If the obstacles that get in the way of, say, picking up a quart of Ben and Jerry's involve events that may trigger one's life insurance policy, then one would likely be absolved of the responsibility of delivering said ice cream. No problem.
What's sad is that the best explanation I can come up with for the differing perspectives and the divergent views on reliability as a hiring trait completely shoot down my underlying theory on education. The quickest argument older folks in the Responsibility perspective group will likely make is that no one would want to hire anyone who gave up as easily as Friar John, or, conversely, that employers would pay good money to keep someone like the guy who delivered the Letter to Garcia. So the common argument is based on VOcation, not education.
On the other hand, younger folks, or anyone who favors the reasonable application of the Obstacles argument might point out that a person of even a little intelligence, perhaps the product of a good EDucation, might be able to better discern what point at which to give up on a mission plagued by obstacles... and that Friar John, not adequately apprised of the Romeo/Juliet tension, figured if this message were that important, it would have been FedExed.
Believe me, I've made every argument in class about why that last excuse won't fly... it's not up to John to decide that... he made a deal... no one is ever aware of every detail of every situation so he should have just focused on what he promised to do and make damn sure it gets done, but that's not the point.
The point is, this little conflict between the old and the young is kind of our (the olds') fault. The products of a solid EDucation will eventually try to think for themselves, even if they don't quite have the worldly wisdom to do so the way we want them to in a given situation. And though we may not agree with their explanations or their application of the new-found knowledge, we have to accept it sometimes. If we don't, we may well close the door on any innovative, creative solutions to problems we old folks haven't been able to solve yet. And that doesn't take into account new problems that are bound to crop up that we're too antiquated to deal with.
So why bother discussing all of this, you ask? This very conflict, boiled down to such simple terms, represents the larger issues we seem to have with teens and early 20-somethings these days. First we expect them to pour themselves into their studies and become mature independent young adults through almost complete self-motivation, but then we hamstring them to practically useless roles in society until they're at least 21 or 22, when most of them will graduate from college and join "the real workforce." Then when they join the real workforce, we're surprised to find out some of them don't take their responsibilities as seriously as we do, or require a little extra reinforcement. We don't want them taking jobs away from "real" adults and yet we don't provide them with many readily available opportunities to do much else. Then we criticize them for skateboarding, hanging out, or playing video games. Only the most bored or industrious among them find meaningful uses for their time because they must go out of their way, above and beyond their normal, expected routines to do it.
This is one of many arguments I would make for a public service program that offers alternatives to the skateboarding, hanging out and game playing. There's nothing wrong with those activities, I just think the kids who do them would appreciate them more, and pick up some useful life lessons as well as employability and responsibility skills if they had something better to do with their time. Rather than condemning these kids, criticizing them, and then laughing at them and blaming them for the fruits of where we keep them, we need to offer them some better options than the ones that are currently in front of them. Whether it's military service, local, state or national civilian service, doesn't matter, but we should offer it. Will it be complicated? Sure, and while that has stopped us from instituting a national health plan, we shouldn't let it stop us from providing our kids with better opportunities to become better citizens.
OK, that's out of my system now. If anyone out there knows about existing programs with web pages, send them to me and I'll put the links up. I bet we'd be surprised by the number of average and even under-achieving teenagers who would jump at the chance to do something like this if only the opportunity were easier to find. We basically tell young people indirectly that they don't have a place in the adult world so we can't really criticize them for not going out of there way to find a chance to do so. Let's do it for them.
-----------------------------------
And just for the record, this post started out, based on that same conversation with a remarkably mature 20-something, about the importance of learning from and not repeating the lessons of history. That post is still incubating.
Luth
Out
Thursday, September 13, 2007
The Address
Now I've heard it all. First there was a connection between the events of 9-11 and Saddam Hussein. Then there were WMD. Then we had to topple an evil dictator who, in spite of relative powerlessness and being surrounded by us and our allies - many of whom can no longer be counted as allies - somehow represented a threat to us. And now... now we were asked by an ally for our help.
An ally? Our help!?
That's what we're now calling invading a nation and leaving a vacuum that quickly filled with violence. Hmmm.
Perhaps I misunderstood or, as usual, am fuzzy on the timing. I've always had trouble keeping major world events in perspective. Maybe the president meant we're NOW being asked for help by our allies. But that doesn't hold up well either in light of a recent, and fairly vigorously conducted ABC News poll of Iraqis that says they (the ally, I presume) disagree. The percentage of Iraqis who feel the U.S. should leave now, in spite of what it might mean for the their future has increased by more than 10% since last winter to 47%. Not a majority yet, but then again, neither was the number of Americans who voted for our current president. (I know, I know the electoral college doesn't work like that... don't bother commenting to that effect)
More tidbits from the ally:
65-70% of Iraqis polled believe the surge has made things worse, not better, but, to be fair, they were only responding in terms of peace, political stability, and security. ABC should have asked them about something more substantive... like shopping.
60% of Iraqis say their own lives are going badly and 78% say things are going badly for the nation. So much for winning hearts and minds and offering a better alternative to sectarian gang membership.
There's plenty more where that came from. Check it out for yourself at ABCNews.com. They've now interviewed over 4,000 Iraqi citizens since the start of the war under some pretty rigorous surveying standards. They even managed to dig up some statistics that might be considered positive. Those are rare, and clearly not the point of this post, so you'll have to find them on your own.
As for the cheap trick of reading a letter from a fallen soldier's parents, no one can say what Army Specialist Brandon Stout's parents think or feel. No on can say they're wrong.
I'm in the first part of a book about how humans perceive happiness, or anything for that matter. The overriding theme thus far is that no two humans can perceive any significant reality the same way. In fact, even individual humans can't usually perceive something subjective and emotional, and then accurately recall it with any great success. An interesting side note in the book mentions that what makes optical illusions so interesting is that not only does everyone see something other than what their eyes initially tell them, but that they all see the same illusions and then revert back to what they originally saw. Only in those cases do humans ever reach agreement on perceived reality.
Our president continues to perceive the reality of the war in Iraq differently than most of the people I've talked to who have been a part of it, and many of the people I've talked to who haven't. I suppose there's just no point in arguing it anymore. I will agree that we'll never make up for what we did to the innocent Iraqis whose relative stability we shattered when we invaded their sovereign nation. For that, we should be ashamed and we owe it to them to try to sort out some of the mess we've made. We created chaos for them, in spite of tonight's address's call to combat chaos. That's the way I perceive the reality I saw with my own eyes. This book tells me that's not very reliable, and I probably have to agree, but what I see on TV and read in the papers each night seems to refresh my foggy memory.
I doubt it's my place to call for the withdrawal that I wish would never have been a consideration and I doubt that it would make things better or worse. But backing down troop levels now seems like the only worse option. It feels childish to even type this next line given the weight of the matter, but we either need to go big or come home. Since I can't even begin to wrap my brain around what $2.5 billion per week even means, I suppose I shouldn't care that we still can't provide basic medical coverage for a huge portion of American citizens. Instead, we'll give the Iraqis a better life. Now there's a reality I'd like to perceive.
If we can't put enough troops on the ground to overwhelmingly control every major city, then maybe we should listen to our customers and leave them alone. The fact that we can't possibly do either one with a good conscience right now is nothing more than the result of a poorly thought out plan being drug through its paces by a stubborn mule as if continuing to drag it will make it right. Or perhaps it's an optical illusion that we'll all stare at long enough to make it real. Tonight's address sounded as much like an admission of that (you pick one) as we're ever likely to hear.
For everything that remains great about our nation, to have it tainted by this is just plain sad. Is this what it felt like during Vietnam? At least we have the sense to not blame the troops this time around. Perhaps not all of history's lessons have been ignored.
Luth,
disgustedly,
Out.
An ally? Our help!?
That's what we're now calling invading a nation and leaving a vacuum that quickly filled with violence. Hmmm.
Perhaps I misunderstood or, as usual, am fuzzy on the timing. I've always had trouble keeping major world events in perspective. Maybe the president meant we're NOW being asked for help by our allies. But that doesn't hold up well either in light of a recent, and fairly vigorously conducted ABC News poll of Iraqis that says they (the ally, I presume) disagree. The percentage of Iraqis who feel the U.S. should leave now, in spite of what it might mean for the their future has increased by more than 10% since last winter to 47%. Not a majority yet, but then again, neither was the number of Americans who voted for our current president. (I know, I know the electoral college doesn't work like that... don't bother commenting to that effect)
More tidbits from the ally:
65-70% of Iraqis polled believe the surge has made things worse, not better, but, to be fair, they were only responding in terms of peace, political stability, and security. ABC should have asked them about something more substantive... like shopping.
60% of Iraqis say their own lives are going badly and 78% say things are going badly for the nation. So much for winning hearts and minds and offering a better alternative to sectarian gang membership.
There's plenty more where that came from. Check it out for yourself at ABCNews.com. They've now interviewed over 4,000 Iraqi citizens since the start of the war under some pretty rigorous surveying standards. They even managed to dig up some statistics that might be considered positive. Those are rare, and clearly not the point of this post, so you'll have to find them on your own.
As for the cheap trick of reading a letter from a fallen soldier's parents, no one can say what Army Specialist Brandon Stout's parents think or feel. No on can say they're wrong.
I'm in the first part of a book about how humans perceive happiness, or anything for that matter. The overriding theme thus far is that no two humans can perceive any significant reality the same way. In fact, even individual humans can't usually perceive something subjective and emotional, and then accurately recall it with any great success. An interesting side note in the book mentions that what makes optical illusions so interesting is that not only does everyone see something other than what their eyes initially tell them, but that they all see the same illusions and then revert back to what they originally saw. Only in those cases do humans ever reach agreement on perceived reality.
Our president continues to perceive the reality of the war in Iraq differently than most of the people I've talked to who have been a part of it, and many of the people I've talked to who haven't. I suppose there's just no point in arguing it anymore. I will agree that we'll never make up for what we did to the innocent Iraqis whose relative stability we shattered when we invaded their sovereign nation. For that, we should be ashamed and we owe it to them to try to sort out some of the mess we've made. We created chaos for them, in spite of tonight's address's call to combat chaos. That's the way I perceive the reality I saw with my own eyes. This book tells me that's not very reliable, and I probably have to agree, but what I see on TV and read in the papers each night seems to refresh my foggy memory.
I doubt it's my place to call for the withdrawal that I wish would never have been a consideration and I doubt that it would make things better or worse. But backing down troop levels now seems like the only worse option. It feels childish to even type this next line given the weight of the matter, but we either need to go big or come home. Since I can't even begin to wrap my brain around what $2.5 billion per week even means, I suppose I shouldn't care that we still can't provide basic medical coverage for a huge portion of American citizens. Instead, we'll give the Iraqis a better life. Now there's a reality I'd like to perceive.
If we can't put enough troops on the ground to overwhelmingly control every major city, then maybe we should listen to our customers and leave them alone. The fact that we can't possibly do either one with a good conscience right now is nothing more than the result of a poorly thought out plan being drug through its paces by a stubborn mule as if continuing to drag it will make it right. Or perhaps it's an optical illusion that we'll all stare at long enough to make it real. Tonight's address sounded as much like an admission of that (you pick one) as we're ever likely to hear.
For everything that remains great about our nation, to have it tainted by this is just plain sad. Is this what it felt like during Vietnam? At least we have the sense to not blame the troops this time around. Perhaps not all of history's lessons have been ignored.
Luth,
disgustedly,
Out.
Tuesday, August 14, 2007
No gnus is good gnus
Hi kids,
Not much to report here, unless you count moving into a new house as news. We're back up and on the net again, catching up on a lot of old email and trying to figure out where to put all the furniture that was purchased for the last two houses. I'm happy to report the new place won't need a lot of work (although it came with a lot of "want to" work) but I had forgotten how much setting up is involved when moving into a new place. What's really sad is that we've probably only moved about 2/3 of our junk from the old place and I'm ready to watch the old place burn, remaining contents and all. We'd thought about keeping it as a rental, but I can't get it on the market fast enough. Only problem with the plan is, it will probably take a good year to make it ready for anyone but a demolition crew.
Anyhoo, I've had some fun post ideas lately, but haven't had the time to write them up. One involves exploring the phenomena of having a car so cool that the driver doesn't need to be... and all the ways to make a car cool, you know, like having one of the "piss on ______" stickers in the back window, or a spoiler to keep the ass end on the ground at high speeds even though the vehicle in question doesn't even have half the power to achieve those speeds... or playing music so loud with the windows down that everyone gets to hear just how crappy the speakers really are... vanity plates with spellings so clever no one knows what they're supposed to say but you and your idiot friends... you know, COOL stuff like that.
I'm also ready to just vent violently about the dropping of the concept of the left lane being the passing lane from driver's ed programs. I am quickly understanding how road rage develops. I followed a fella doing 60 in the left lane for about 15 miles the other day. He was pulling a large boat with a small truck. The combination probably shouldn't even have been on a highway, let alone in the left lane. When I, and the other 40 cars behind him finally passed him on the right, I pulled back into the left lane and just coasted uphill until I slowed down to about 30. I had hoped he might get the idea of what it's like to be stuck in the PASSING lane behind someone going way too slow. Instead, he began flashing his lights and honking at me. It apparently never occurred to him to cruise on over into the CRUISING lane. Since my message was clearly not received, I drove off at the posted speed limit and pulled well away from him as I moved back into the right lane. You'd think with all the idiots from the right who continue to pretend Bush is worthy of leading this once great nation, more people would want to drive on the right as is the custom in this country, but alas, it's just one more contradiction I'll never understand.
OK, enough for now. I REALLY don't have time for this.
Luth,
Out.
Not much to report here, unless you count moving into a new house as news. We're back up and on the net again, catching up on a lot of old email and trying to figure out where to put all the furniture that was purchased for the last two houses. I'm happy to report the new place won't need a lot of work (although it came with a lot of "want to" work) but I had forgotten how much setting up is involved when moving into a new place. What's really sad is that we've probably only moved about 2/3 of our junk from the old place and I'm ready to watch the old place burn, remaining contents and all. We'd thought about keeping it as a rental, but I can't get it on the market fast enough. Only problem with the plan is, it will probably take a good year to make it ready for anyone but a demolition crew.
Anyhoo, I've had some fun post ideas lately, but haven't had the time to write them up. One involves exploring the phenomena of having a car so cool that the driver doesn't need to be... and all the ways to make a car cool, you know, like having one of the "piss on ______" stickers in the back window, or a spoiler to keep the ass end on the ground at high speeds even though the vehicle in question doesn't even have half the power to achieve those speeds... or playing music so loud with the windows down that everyone gets to hear just how crappy the speakers really are... vanity plates with spellings so clever no one knows what they're supposed to say but you and your idiot friends... you know, COOL stuff like that.
I'm also ready to just vent violently about the dropping of the concept of the left lane being the passing lane from driver's ed programs. I am quickly understanding how road rage develops. I followed a fella doing 60 in the left lane for about 15 miles the other day. He was pulling a large boat with a small truck. The combination probably shouldn't even have been on a highway, let alone in the left lane. When I, and the other 40 cars behind him finally passed him on the right, I pulled back into the left lane and just coasted uphill until I slowed down to about 30. I had hoped he might get the idea of what it's like to be stuck in the PASSING lane behind someone going way too slow. Instead, he began flashing his lights and honking at me. It apparently never occurred to him to cruise on over into the CRUISING lane. Since my message was clearly not received, I drove off at the posted speed limit and pulled well away from him as I moved back into the right lane. You'd think with all the idiots from the right who continue to pretend Bush is worthy of leading this once great nation, more people would want to drive on the right as is the custom in this country, but alas, it's just one more contradiction I'll never understand.
OK, enough for now. I REALLY don't have time for this.
Luth,
Out.
Tuesday, July 17, 2007
Satire in a Post-911 World, or How the GWOT Ruined My Favorite Source of Entertainment
Satire, my beloved subgenre, seems to have gone the way of the rest of the grown up world. It has succumbed to realism at the expense of idealism. Perhaps I’m just fearful of my own fall from a similar grace. After all, long before Gary Shteyngart’s ABSURDISTAN, Lucilius, Pope, Rabelais, Swift, Twain, Parker and (insert favorite satirist here) had all used the form to belie horrible truths about mankind that plagued them in their respective days. Maybe it’s not the subgenre that has fallen, maybe it’s mankind. Or maybe it’s just me.
In my more hopeful and naive youth, (and by that I mean sometime last week, when my kids were still babies and I was only 150 pounds) I saw satire as the happy, nurturing, altruistic way of changing the world. Guiding mankind, criticizing each other with humor and gentle linguistic skills rather than barroom brawling or nation invasion. It was humorous. It made us laugh while it reminded us of just how flawed we all truly were. Satire didn’t bother with some silly “born of sin” flaw, but actual, of this Earth, human flaws that we all, all religions, nationalities, races, creeds, colors, all of us, hold in common. Those beautiful distinguishing flaws or rather features that connect us all, that make us all brothers, that create the stories that we tell in bars and back rooms in bad translations and broken accents. The flaws that indisputably, irrevocably tie us to our common origins. The flaws that raise common features to stunning beauty. Like the crooked mouth of that girl in WITHOUT A TRACE, or the droopy eyelid of that guy you shared a cab with. The flaws that make me just like you and you just like that guy you can’t stand from college. Satire pointed out those flaws only by forcing us to confront the fact that it is these very flaws that make us all of the family homonid, and thus we all have stuff in common that goes waaayyyy back.
Satire did this in fun ways, like teaching lessons through fairy tales or by telling jokes. Or, sometimes, it did it in scary ways that shed light on things we really didn’t like to talk about. Satire, in any language, made us think at best and smile, at the very least. From any culture, we recognize the joke. We understand that commonality. We get that we all have so much more in common than we do in contrast. It might take a little more work, a little more humility to rely on a translator in order to become part of the “in crowd” to get the joke, but that’s what satire gave us all a membership card to. It gave us entry into that exclusive fraternity. Once in, we were all friends, remarkably capable of overlooking minor, or even major differences in order to bond and revel in camaraderie that no minor flaws could ever sunder. Satire was the glue. It was it. It was the shizzle.
At least it was for me. I’ll admit that my attraction to it was partially intellectual. Or maybe it was hesitant intellectualism. Satire was the gift my studies offered up that I could accept and share, at least in movies and cartoons, with all of my friends without my having to apologize for my education... or more specifically, my commitment to the study of our language. Satire was that rare place where my obsessive interests crossed the more common thoroughfare of my diaspora of friends. The lawyers, the bricklayers, the doctors, the mechanics, the engineers and the musicians all found something we could laugh about together in one form or another of this maligned subgenre.
But now it’s different. In the post-911 world or maybe the post-modern world, or maybe in whatever derogatory label someone decides to hang on us, it’s just not funny anymore. It’s not that satire isn’t good anymore. It’s not that it doesn’t bring us common ground anymore. It’s not that it doesn’t uncover truths in non-judgmental, but diamond-sharp accuracy anymore. It’s just not as much fun.
OK, that’s not entirely true either. There’s still fun to be had, but only by the most hardened among us. Satire is still fun, it’s just not as funny to me. The reason for this is a loss of innocence. I don’t mind turning 40, but to enjoy today’s satire, I have to accept that I’ve truly lost my innocence and I don’t want to. I still want to see the world through hopeful, faithful, sure, even idealistic eyes. But in the age of the GWOT, laughing at modern satire doesn’t allow for that. I’ve got two choices - pretend that I don’t know the real meaning behind Alexander Pope’s “The Rape of the Lock” in order to continue being entertained by it upon learning the surprising real truth, or grow calloused and hard in order to pave the way for new satirical creations that chronicle more modern events.
SPOILER ALERT SPOILER ALERT SPOILER ALERT SPOILER ALERT SPOILER ALERT
OK, I’m new to the whole spoiler alert thing and I don’t really know where it belongs, so I’m throwing it in now for those of you interested in, but not yet around to reading the aforementioned ABSURDISTAN by Gary Shteyngart.
It’s a great book. It’s great because it feels very real. The characters, their flaws, their super-humanness, their pathetic situations are so much like a big warm hug from mom, who then kicks your ass for screwing up, that you can’t help but love it just like you love mom. Reading it is like stepping into your happy place, no matter where that is, only to be reminded that your memory of that place is selective and, therefore, there are dark secrets there too that you don’t necessarily want dredged up along with those happy warm memories. That’s frickin reality, bud. Inescapable, irrefutable reality. Not necessarily cold or hard reality, as it is so often described, just real reality. Shteyngart may take some egotistical liberties creating this reality, but his brilliance as a writer lies in his ability to do it regardless. And he does, as well as any writer I’ve read from Tolstoy to King to Ovid. But damn him for doing it so well.
Satire used to make me believe that this reality was a cool place to live. Not overly happy. Not without some problems, just real, real multifarious, and therefore real cool. Satire used to make me think this reality was worth working to save. I used to think satire was the way we could make the world a better place. I used to think people like Shteyngart were the writers who propelled us forth in our idealistic naivete.
ABSURDISTAN, I guess, does that, but without further ado, here’s the scene that led me to this precipice of prescience. But first, 150 pages of background in two paragraphs:
While temporarily detained in his semi-native, “Norway of the Caspian” aka Absurdistan, our hero, Mikhail “Misha” Vainberg, an old-school Russian Jew visiting in order to pick up a black market Belgian Passport so he can get back to the U.S. and steal his girl back from a literature professor/former classmate now professor (Professor Shteyngart by the way) at “Accidental College” (Misha’s been blacklisted by the INS in Russia because his late, mob boss/philanthropist dad is accused of killing an Oklahoman) a coup erupts between the Absurdsvani Svani and Sevo tribes which creates only a minor inconvenience for Misha. The coup is as artificial as it can be since both majority Svanis and minority Sevos have somewhat willingly intermingled for years and agree that only those in power keep track of their differences in order to oppress both and maintain said power. Their primary difference, by the way, is that the “footrests” at the bottom of their orthodox crosses tilt in opposite directions.
Anyhoo, in the course of the coup, Misha is faced with, and rises to the opportunity to save the life of his Sevo driver when they are confronted by a drunken Svani soldier on their way back from the McDonald’s parking lot where Misha received his faux passport. Moments later, back in the relative safety of the Hyatt parking lot, Misha makes a run for the (slightly less relative) safety of the hotel lobby, his 325 pounds dashing among armored personnel carriers that remind him of his youth in communist Russia. Upon reaching the safety (and air conditioned comfort) of the Hyatt lobby, he realizes his driver, Sakha, has been detained along with a dozen other Sevos by the Svani soldiers “guarding” the Hyatt. (The Svanis take great care to ensure the safety of Halliburton employees working on the Figa 6 oil rigs for BP/Chevron) In spite of his foolish attempt to intervene, which requires him to leave both the safety and the air conditioning, Misha returns to the street to narrate the following scene:
The men, some of them heavy, the others bestowed with an academic’s lack of physical grace, found it difficult to arrange themselves in this tenuous position. (an execution-style kneel) Several were tipping over and had to be dragged up by their collars. The soldiers had fallen in line behind them, one soldier to a man, a ratio that did not bode well.
Sakha’s eyes fixed on me. There were tears on his face; I couldn’t see them, but I knew they were there.
“Misha”, he shouted to me. “Mishenk’a, tell them to stop. They will listen to a man like you. Please. Say something.”
The soldiers looked to Colonel Svyolka, who nodded. They shot the men through the back of the head, the bodies of their victims jerking up in unison with the discharge, then hitting the driveway with tremendous speed, a cloud of loose gravel swirling around them.
The spent bullet casings rolled down the driveway to my feet. A dozen bodies lay on the ground.
What follows is the start of the next chapter wherein, 40 stories above the coup in progress, Misha contacts his NY therapist who, “with great patience and analytic equipoise, beseeched me to calm the fuck down.” The conversations with his therapist, sad as they are, remind us that Misha represents modern man through is need for external affirmation, his gluttony, etc. The conversations remind us that ABSURDISTAN really is a comedy.
It’s satire to be certain, but it’s only funny if you have a world-weary, war generation sensibility. It’s the kind of humor that to me represents real vulgarity. Not an artificial vulgarity linked to proper behavior or manners or not embarrassing your friends, or some twisted version of biblical advice not actually found in the bible, but truly vulgar, basal human instincts - laughing at truths we all recognize, but like to believe we’re beyond. You can only believe that if you still have hope.
Perhaps if you haven’t seen poverty or the devastation of war first hand, this is still funny in an entertaining way - the way I used to enjoy satire. Perhaps if you can ignore the reality that we pulled our best resources out of Afghanistan only to wreak havoc on innocent Iraqis and in the process let a pinned down Al Qaeda go free only to use our troops as live training aids in Iraq, it’s still funny. Perhaps it’s only offensive to me now in the way seeing the word “fuck” in print was always hilarious to me but offensive to my friends who didn’t study language like I did and were thus never as tickled by deft use of it. Perhaps those of us who manage to ignore CNN, Fox, and USA Today can still laugh guilt-free at Sheyngart’s masterfully crafted prose, but I feel all grown up reading it now and I don’t like that one bit.
Let me clarify that the event included in the above quote is only a spoiler in the sense of that particular chapter. Let me also add that I, through sheer addiction to the story thus far, have no intention of stopping reading at what is only about the halfway point of the novel. It really is that good and I really do still live on the sustenance of satire. It’s just that this scene has moved satire from an intellectual to a guilty pleasure. Perhaps this is yet another step in my developing snobbery. Perhaps I now join literary critics who claim that satire is merely derivative at best, flat out plagiarism at worst.
I doubt it. I think I’ll still like it, but I read on a changed man. Less of a man in my former self’s opinion. I will continue to read the way a group of boys “reads” a stolen Playboy or the way a tough guy reads THE BRIDGES OF MADISON COUNTY, which is to say, I’ll hide it from anyone curious enough to try to sneak a glimpse of that which so enthralls me.
So I’m growing up. That sucks.
Luth,
Out.
By the way, for a great example of satire that I’d almost forgotten about, but which the Global War On Terror reminds me of more and more as it goes on, check out T.C. Boyle’s “The Top of the Food Chain,” it always cracks me up and it looks uncannily like modern congressional testimony.
In my more hopeful and naive youth, (and by that I mean sometime last week, when my kids were still babies and I was only 150 pounds) I saw satire as the happy, nurturing, altruistic way of changing the world. Guiding mankind, criticizing each other with humor and gentle linguistic skills rather than barroom brawling or nation invasion. It was humorous. It made us laugh while it reminded us of just how flawed we all truly were. Satire didn’t bother with some silly “born of sin” flaw, but actual, of this Earth, human flaws that we all, all religions, nationalities, races, creeds, colors, all of us, hold in common. Those beautiful distinguishing flaws or rather features that connect us all, that make us all brothers, that create the stories that we tell in bars and back rooms in bad translations and broken accents. The flaws that indisputably, irrevocably tie us to our common origins. The flaws that raise common features to stunning beauty. Like the crooked mouth of that girl in WITHOUT A TRACE, or the droopy eyelid of that guy you shared a cab with. The flaws that make me just like you and you just like that guy you can’t stand from college. Satire pointed out those flaws only by forcing us to confront the fact that it is these very flaws that make us all of the family homonid, and thus we all have stuff in common that goes waaayyyy back.
Satire did this in fun ways, like teaching lessons through fairy tales or by telling jokes. Or, sometimes, it did it in scary ways that shed light on things we really didn’t like to talk about. Satire, in any language, made us think at best and smile, at the very least. From any culture, we recognize the joke. We understand that commonality. We get that we all have so much more in common than we do in contrast. It might take a little more work, a little more humility to rely on a translator in order to become part of the “in crowd” to get the joke, but that’s what satire gave us all a membership card to. It gave us entry into that exclusive fraternity. Once in, we were all friends, remarkably capable of overlooking minor, or even major differences in order to bond and revel in camaraderie that no minor flaws could ever sunder. Satire was the glue. It was it. It was the shizzle.
At least it was for me. I’ll admit that my attraction to it was partially intellectual. Or maybe it was hesitant intellectualism. Satire was the gift my studies offered up that I could accept and share, at least in movies and cartoons, with all of my friends without my having to apologize for my education... or more specifically, my commitment to the study of our language. Satire was that rare place where my obsessive interests crossed the more common thoroughfare of my diaspora of friends. The lawyers, the bricklayers, the doctors, the mechanics, the engineers and the musicians all found something we could laugh about together in one form or another of this maligned subgenre.
But now it’s different. In the post-911 world or maybe the post-modern world, or maybe in whatever derogatory label someone decides to hang on us, it’s just not funny anymore. It’s not that satire isn’t good anymore. It’s not that it doesn’t bring us common ground anymore. It’s not that it doesn’t uncover truths in non-judgmental, but diamond-sharp accuracy anymore. It’s just not as much fun.
OK, that’s not entirely true either. There’s still fun to be had, but only by the most hardened among us. Satire is still fun, it’s just not as funny to me. The reason for this is a loss of innocence. I don’t mind turning 40, but to enjoy today’s satire, I have to accept that I’ve truly lost my innocence and I don’t want to. I still want to see the world through hopeful, faithful, sure, even idealistic eyes. But in the age of the GWOT, laughing at modern satire doesn’t allow for that. I’ve got two choices - pretend that I don’t know the real meaning behind Alexander Pope’s “The Rape of the Lock” in order to continue being entertained by it upon learning the surprising real truth, or grow calloused and hard in order to pave the way for new satirical creations that chronicle more modern events.
SPOILER ALERT SPOILER ALERT SPOILER ALERT SPOILER ALERT SPOILER ALERT
OK, I’m new to the whole spoiler alert thing and I don’t really know where it belongs, so I’m throwing it in now for those of you interested in, but not yet around to reading the aforementioned ABSURDISTAN by Gary Shteyngart.
It’s a great book. It’s great because it feels very real. The characters, their flaws, their super-humanness, their pathetic situations are so much like a big warm hug from mom, who then kicks your ass for screwing up, that you can’t help but love it just like you love mom. Reading it is like stepping into your happy place, no matter where that is, only to be reminded that your memory of that place is selective and, therefore, there are dark secrets there too that you don’t necessarily want dredged up along with those happy warm memories. That’s frickin reality, bud. Inescapable, irrefutable reality. Not necessarily cold or hard reality, as it is so often described, just real reality. Shteyngart may take some egotistical liberties creating this reality, but his brilliance as a writer lies in his ability to do it regardless. And he does, as well as any writer I’ve read from Tolstoy to King to Ovid. But damn him for doing it so well.
Satire used to make me believe that this reality was a cool place to live. Not overly happy. Not without some problems, just real, real multifarious, and therefore real cool. Satire used to make me think this reality was worth working to save. I used to think satire was the way we could make the world a better place. I used to think people like Shteyngart were the writers who propelled us forth in our idealistic naivete.
ABSURDISTAN, I guess, does that, but without further ado, here’s the scene that led me to this precipice of prescience. But first, 150 pages of background in two paragraphs:
While temporarily detained in his semi-native, “Norway of the Caspian” aka Absurdistan, our hero, Mikhail “Misha” Vainberg, an old-school Russian Jew visiting in order to pick up a black market Belgian Passport so he can get back to the U.S. and steal his girl back from a literature professor/former classmate now professor (Professor Shteyngart by the way) at “Accidental College” (Misha’s been blacklisted by the INS in Russia because his late, mob boss/philanthropist dad is accused of killing an Oklahoman) a coup erupts between the Absurdsvani Svani and Sevo tribes which creates only a minor inconvenience for Misha. The coup is as artificial as it can be since both majority Svanis and minority Sevos have somewhat willingly intermingled for years and agree that only those in power keep track of their differences in order to oppress both and maintain said power. Their primary difference, by the way, is that the “footrests” at the bottom of their orthodox crosses tilt in opposite directions.
Anyhoo, in the course of the coup, Misha is faced with, and rises to the opportunity to save the life of his Sevo driver when they are confronted by a drunken Svani soldier on their way back from the McDonald’s parking lot where Misha received his faux passport. Moments later, back in the relative safety of the Hyatt parking lot, Misha makes a run for the (slightly less relative) safety of the hotel lobby, his 325 pounds dashing among armored personnel carriers that remind him of his youth in communist Russia. Upon reaching the safety (and air conditioned comfort) of the Hyatt lobby, he realizes his driver, Sakha, has been detained along with a dozen other Sevos by the Svani soldiers “guarding” the Hyatt. (The Svanis take great care to ensure the safety of Halliburton employees working on the Figa 6 oil rigs for BP/Chevron) In spite of his foolish attempt to intervene, which requires him to leave both the safety and the air conditioning, Misha returns to the street to narrate the following scene:
The men, some of them heavy, the others bestowed with an academic’s lack of physical grace, found it difficult to arrange themselves in this tenuous position. (an execution-style kneel) Several were tipping over and had to be dragged up by their collars. The soldiers had fallen in line behind them, one soldier to a man, a ratio that did not bode well.
Sakha’s eyes fixed on me. There were tears on his face; I couldn’t see them, but I knew they were there.
“Misha”, he shouted to me. “Mishenk’a, tell them to stop. They will listen to a man like you. Please. Say something.”
The soldiers looked to Colonel Svyolka, who nodded. They shot the men through the back of the head, the bodies of their victims jerking up in unison with the discharge, then hitting the driveway with tremendous speed, a cloud of loose gravel swirling around them.
The spent bullet casings rolled down the driveway to my feet. A dozen bodies lay on the ground.
What follows is the start of the next chapter wherein, 40 stories above the coup in progress, Misha contacts his NY therapist who, “with great patience and analytic equipoise, beseeched me to calm the fuck down.” The conversations with his therapist, sad as they are, remind us that Misha represents modern man through is need for external affirmation, his gluttony, etc. The conversations remind us that ABSURDISTAN really is a comedy.
It’s satire to be certain, but it’s only funny if you have a world-weary, war generation sensibility. It’s the kind of humor that to me represents real vulgarity. Not an artificial vulgarity linked to proper behavior or manners or not embarrassing your friends, or some twisted version of biblical advice not actually found in the bible, but truly vulgar, basal human instincts - laughing at truths we all recognize, but like to believe we’re beyond. You can only believe that if you still have hope.
Perhaps if you haven’t seen poverty or the devastation of war first hand, this is still funny in an entertaining way - the way I used to enjoy satire. Perhaps if you can ignore the reality that we pulled our best resources out of Afghanistan only to wreak havoc on innocent Iraqis and in the process let a pinned down Al Qaeda go free only to use our troops as live training aids in Iraq, it’s still funny. Perhaps it’s only offensive to me now in the way seeing the word “fuck” in print was always hilarious to me but offensive to my friends who didn’t study language like I did and were thus never as tickled by deft use of it. Perhaps those of us who manage to ignore CNN, Fox, and USA Today can still laugh guilt-free at Sheyngart’s masterfully crafted prose, but I feel all grown up reading it now and I don’t like that one bit.
Let me clarify that the event included in the above quote is only a spoiler in the sense of that particular chapter. Let me also add that I, through sheer addiction to the story thus far, have no intention of stopping reading at what is only about the halfway point of the novel. It really is that good and I really do still live on the sustenance of satire. It’s just that this scene has moved satire from an intellectual to a guilty pleasure. Perhaps this is yet another step in my developing snobbery. Perhaps I now join literary critics who claim that satire is merely derivative at best, flat out plagiarism at worst.
I doubt it. I think I’ll still like it, but I read on a changed man. Less of a man in my former self’s opinion. I will continue to read the way a group of boys “reads” a stolen Playboy or the way a tough guy reads THE BRIDGES OF MADISON COUNTY, which is to say, I’ll hide it from anyone curious enough to try to sneak a glimpse of that which so enthralls me.
So I’m growing up. That sucks.
Luth,
Out.
By the way, for a great example of satire that I’d almost forgotten about, but which the Global War On Terror reminds me of more and more as it goes on, check out T.C. Boyle’s “The Top of the Food Chain,” it always cracks me up and it looks uncannily like modern congressional testimony.
Monday, July 02, 2007
A month?! Holy crap.
I can't believe it's been that long since I've last posted. Sorry fans. I've really let you down. Part of the deal is I'm a federal employee again... and not just the part-time, paid vacation in Iraq kind, but the kind whose paycheck comes from the gov, so I have to be much more careful about how I criticize the current administration's utter ineptitude. No longer will you read here about how Dick Cheney speaks from at least three sides of his many faces or how, no wait, I wasn't going to say those things.
So yeah, what else is there to talk about? Oh, the other excuse for not posting. I'm moving again. I'm staying in my hometown, but buying a place for the entire Clan Luther to live in. A place that doesn't require constant, heavy upkeep. The move does come at a time when I'm in the midst of a massive project at the old place (when am I not?), the busiest time of year at the new job, and a sprinkling of inspections and field exercise at guard... so it's not like I have an excuse not to blog. I'm just lazy, that's all.
Speaking of that, I have to get some sleep. I'll type at y'all later. By the way, the new job is the coolest job I've ever had. (I'll probably get RIF'd next month!)
Later dudes,
Luth,
Out.
So yeah, what else is there to talk about? Oh, the other excuse for not posting. I'm moving again. I'm staying in my hometown, but buying a place for the entire Clan Luther to live in. A place that doesn't require constant, heavy upkeep. The move does come at a time when I'm in the midst of a massive project at the old place (when am I not?), the busiest time of year at the new job, and a sprinkling of inspections and field exercise at guard... so it's not like I have an excuse not to blog. I'm just lazy, that's all.
Speaking of that, I have to get some sleep. I'll type at y'all later. By the way, the new job is the coolest job I've ever had. (I'll probably get RIF'd next month!)
Later dudes,
Luth,
Out.
Sunday, June 03, 2007
Obese, undisciplined, video-game-playing slackers!!
Last Thursday was a crazy one indeed, but the things that stand out from it warrant a post, I do believe.
My day began in Orlando, FL. It was my third day on the new job and I sat in a meeting in the hotel meeting room for four hours. (the hotel, the cab, a restaurant and the airport are all I saw of Orlando) Then I raced to the airport and managed to catch an earlier flight than we’d originally scheduled. Then I sat in my truck for an hour. Then I ran into the intermediate school’s auditorium to catch my oldest daughter’s last band and choir concert of the year. This was an added bonus because my original flight from Orlando wasn’t due home until 8 and the concert started at 6:30. However, soon after I settled into my auditorium seat I realized I’d been stuffed into seats like that for most of the day and I wondered if rushing into this one was really a good idea. A decade of school bell schedules punctuating my life has taken its toll on my ability to sit captive for more than about 54 minutes at a time without a break. I was never a “sitter” to begin with, but programmed conditioning over that long could alter a Zen master’s ability to sit.
Anyhoo, the principal at my daughter’s school always manages to say something crazy (and something very heartfelt that shows how much she loves her job and her students) as she introduces these things and she didn’t disappoint. So the concert started without a hitch. I was prepared for another fumbling assortment of easy pieces that only parents could love based on our previous experiences. In that I was disappointed. I was absolutely blown away by these 177 fifth graders who had given up their lunch recesses all year to put on this fourth and final show. Their performance was perhaps the most astonishing display of progress that I’ve ever witnessed in anything my offspring have ever undertaken.
Instead of the fumbling, bumbling preteen awkwardness that makes non-parents run away from such events, these kids laid out four songs so well you might have guessed they were the honors band members culled from the entire county’s schools. It was truly incredible.
The fifth grade choir was just as good, but they always are. They finished their portion of the show with a song written specifically for them by the choir director’s boyfriend. She and the boyfriend wrote it together for the school’s 100th birthday celebration last month. It made the principal cry the first time they performed. It did it again Thursday night.
The school’s auditorium, which was the high school’s auditorium when my parents attended (and the junior high auditorium when I attended) is too small for this year’s fifth and sixth graders and their parents and grandparents, so the concerts are now scheduled so the fifth graders go first, then leave, then the sixth graders do their bit. In between, the crazy principal wiped away tears as she reminded the audience of this arrangement.
We met D1 (oldest daughter) in the band room once the fifth grade half was finished. I’m starting to dig this part of the routine because it reminds of watching college performances – both school sanctioned drama and non-school sanctioned bands in bars – in which friends were performing and then hanging out with them in the “green room” after the show. This is definitely a matter of perspective, because my initial feelings about these post-fifth-grade-show meetings were more along the lines of: oh great, fight the crowd, find the kid, then get the hell out of here. But now it feels more like those privileged invites of the past.
So anyway, we meet D1 in the green room (band room storage area) and she begs us to stay for the sixth grade show cuz she wants to see the jazz band’s performance. Now, I love jazz, but sixth grade jazz??? AFTER the day I’d already had?? Ahh what the heck. So we stayed.
And everything that I said about the fifth grade band goes double for the sixth grade band. It was their last performance in this school before they head up to the new junior high school. They nailed it. And it wasn’t even the band we’d stayed to see. By that point I had given up on the jazz band being able to live up to the expectations that their warm up acts had created, but they were only playing four songs, so even though I was kind of tired of the seating arrangement by now, I still figured it would be tolerable, and I was still, I thought, optimistic that it might even be fun to watch.
They were freaking incredible. These kids weren’t just plodding through four numbers they’d rehearsed over and over in order to get this requirement over with; they PLAYED! It didn’t hurt that the songs were all familiar movie tunes or that they included a version of Louie Louie that featured something like 12 different solos – yeah, solos, improvised jazz solos played by shy little sixth graders just learning their way into adolescence! I was absolutely blown away. When the principal came on stage after the show, asked for an encore (they played Louie Louie again with the solos!) and then started crying while saying how much she’d miss these kids when they left for good at the end of the year, I joined her. I know... I’m a complete sap caught up in the situation, but I couldn’t help it.
Anyone who collectively writes off today’s kids as obese, undisciplined, video-game-playing slackers has been hanging around with the wrong crowds. Those folks need to skip a golf game or bar trivia contest and attend a school function or two. Likewise, anyone who condemns public schools (not that they don’t deserve some criticism) should add a little variety to their routines as well – especially before they offer up an automatic “no” vote on the next school funding initiative. I know an event like last Thursday’s doesn’t always come off as well as this particular one did. Sometimes, they truly do take on a face that only a parent or grandparent could love, but if you don’t check them out, you’re missing out on something very special. The scratchy home videos of it will never recapture what we witnessed that night. But the real point is, if you missed out on this, then you missed out on something that these kids, the band directors, the choir coaches, the teachers, the parents, the principals and everyone else who helped make it happen have done and done extremely well.
But hey, this ‘blog is all about me! The fact that I caught this concert by chance is further proof to me that my new job was meant to be. Granted, I’ve only been there for 4 days, but so far the future’s so bright...
Luth,
Out
My day began in Orlando, FL. It was my third day on the new job and I sat in a meeting in the hotel meeting room for four hours. (the hotel, the cab, a restaurant and the airport are all I saw of Orlando) Then I raced to the airport and managed to catch an earlier flight than we’d originally scheduled. Then I sat in my truck for an hour. Then I ran into the intermediate school’s auditorium to catch my oldest daughter’s last band and choir concert of the year. This was an added bonus because my original flight from Orlando wasn’t due home until 8 and the concert started at 6:30. However, soon after I settled into my auditorium seat I realized I’d been stuffed into seats like that for most of the day and I wondered if rushing into this one was really a good idea. A decade of school bell schedules punctuating my life has taken its toll on my ability to sit captive for more than about 54 minutes at a time without a break. I was never a “sitter” to begin with, but programmed conditioning over that long could alter a Zen master’s ability to sit.
Anyhoo, the principal at my daughter’s school always manages to say something crazy (and something very heartfelt that shows how much she loves her job and her students) as she introduces these things and she didn’t disappoint. So the concert started without a hitch. I was prepared for another fumbling assortment of easy pieces that only parents could love based on our previous experiences. In that I was disappointed. I was absolutely blown away by these 177 fifth graders who had given up their lunch recesses all year to put on this fourth and final show. Their performance was perhaps the most astonishing display of progress that I’ve ever witnessed in anything my offspring have ever undertaken.
Instead of the fumbling, bumbling preteen awkwardness that makes non-parents run away from such events, these kids laid out four songs so well you might have guessed they were the honors band members culled from the entire county’s schools. It was truly incredible.
The fifth grade choir was just as good, but they always are. They finished their portion of the show with a song written specifically for them by the choir director’s boyfriend. She and the boyfriend wrote it together for the school’s 100th birthday celebration last month. It made the principal cry the first time they performed. It did it again Thursday night.
The school’s auditorium, which was the high school’s auditorium when my parents attended (and the junior high auditorium when I attended) is too small for this year’s fifth and sixth graders and their parents and grandparents, so the concerts are now scheduled so the fifth graders go first, then leave, then the sixth graders do their bit. In between, the crazy principal wiped away tears as she reminded the audience of this arrangement.
We met D1 (oldest daughter) in the band room once the fifth grade half was finished. I’m starting to dig this part of the routine because it reminds of watching college performances – both school sanctioned drama and non-school sanctioned bands in bars – in which friends were performing and then hanging out with them in the “green room” after the show. This is definitely a matter of perspective, because my initial feelings about these post-fifth-grade-show meetings were more along the lines of: oh great, fight the crowd, find the kid, then get the hell out of here. But now it feels more like those privileged invites of the past.
So anyway, we meet D1 in the green room (band room storage area) and she begs us to stay for the sixth grade show cuz she wants to see the jazz band’s performance. Now, I love jazz, but sixth grade jazz??? AFTER the day I’d already had?? Ahh what the heck. So we stayed.
And everything that I said about the fifth grade band goes double for the sixth grade band. It was their last performance in this school before they head up to the new junior high school. They nailed it. And it wasn’t even the band we’d stayed to see. By that point I had given up on the jazz band being able to live up to the expectations that their warm up acts had created, but they were only playing four songs, so even though I was kind of tired of the seating arrangement by now, I still figured it would be tolerable, and I was still, I thought, optimistic that it might even be fun to watch.
They were freaking incredible. These kids weren’t just plodding through four numbers they’d rehearsed over and over in order to get this requirement over with; they PLAYED! It didn’t hurt that the songs were all familiar movie tunes or that they included a version of Louie Louie that featured something like 12 different solos – yeah, solos, improvised jazz solos played by shy little sixth graders just learning their way into adolescence! I was absolutely blown away. When the principal came on stage after the show, asked for an encore (they played Louie Louie again with the solos!) and then started crying while saying how much she’d miss these kids when they left for good at the end of the year, I joined her. I know... I’m a complete sap caught up in the situation, but I couldn’t help it.
Anyone who collectively writes off today’s kids as obese, undisciplined, video-game-playing slackers has been hanging around with the wrong crowds. Those folks need to skip a golf game or bar trivia contest and attend a school function or two. Likewise, anyone who condemns public schools (not that they don’t deserve some criticism) should add a little variety to their routines as well – especially before they offer up an automatic “no” vote on the next school funding initiative. I know an event like last Thursday’s doesn’t always come off as well as this particular one did. Sometimes, they truly do take on a face that only a parent or grandparent could love, but if you don’t check them out, you’re missing out on something very special. The scratchy home videos of it will never recapture what we witnessed that night. But the real point is, if you missed out on this, then you missed out on something that these kids, the band directors, the choir coaches, the teachers, the parents, the principals and everyone else who helped make it happen have done and done extremely well.
But hey, this ‘blog is all about me! The fact that I caught this concert by chance is further proof to me that my new job was meant to be. Granted, I’ve only been there for 4 days, but so far the future’s so bright...
Luth,
Out
Monday, May 21, 2007
A different kind of stress, gone!
Having been a mechanic in an ideal setting with the Air National Guard for 20 years, I know the value of sharing your thoughts, working with partners, and having that constant feedback. My current boss there is fond of saying, “it never hurts to get a second pair of eyes on something.” The availability of a second opinion does wonders for your confidence, growth and learning curve. When it comes to a safety issue like brakes or steering, a second opinion should be required.
Having spent the last month and a half as a mechanic at a commercial dealership with a very similarly effective atmosphere, I wonder how typical that is. I know that in many dealerships where flat rate is the norm, a mechanic is almost encouraged to look out for himself, perhaps even at the expense of the dealership, the other mechanics, and the customer. I was thinking about this on the way home from work the other night. I was thinking how lucky I was to have learned what I have as a mechanic in a far more nurturing, tolerable, even fun environment.
For some reason this got me thinking about my most recent job interview where I got this same feeling from my future co-workers. It’s one of the things that impressed me about the position. What I thought most about was how being a teacher had prepared me for every situation they asked about in their “performance based interview.” Every situation they asked me to relate to them led to a time in a classroom or an extracurricular activity. Management decisions were made. Budgets were balanced. Funds were raised. Tough choices, difficult customers or colleagues... you name it, I dealt with it as a teacher. But what really stood out among this new position, my positions as a mechanic and what separated them from teaching was the availability of that second opinion – some informed feedback.
This, for me, is what explained the constant stress I felt, even in the summer, as a teacher. I mentioned previously that on the weekend before my first day as an official mechanic, I felt like a weight had been lifted off of me. Instead of the routine Sunday night dread that used to set in, I was actually excited about going to work. It has remained that way for six weeks now. At first I thought this was because I just didn’t care about my job, but I do care about it. It may not be what I intend to do for the rest of my life, but I enjoy it, want to do well at it, respect my bosses and co-workers and just plain do care. Our customers could get hurt if I didn’t. And I enjoy seeing them get excited about what we do for them. Our products help people retain their independence and mobility. It’s a good feeling and I do care about it.
Then I thought the stress was gone because I’d only been doing the job for 6 weeks, but the guys I work with have all been there at least six years, some for 26 years. They don’t seem to show the signs of the kind of stress I felt as a teacher. So I felt like I’d really zeroed in on why teaching took so much out of me. When I first started teaching, I thought this stress came with the job simply because it was the first job I really cared about enough to be stressed. I figured it was the same way for everybody who had a job they cared about. I thought it was just part of the deal of “getting a haircut and getting a real job” if you will. But now I’m starting to question that. I mean, after a week at my current job I began questioning whether I’d ever go back to the stress of teaching for the money it paid when I could make that same money without the stress. I wondered if any other teachers knew that was possible. It’s not like teaching was going to send my kids to Harvard any more than being a mechanic would. I began to seriously question whether it was worth it to live under that pressure and I used to constantly wonder what was wrong with me that I couldn’t manage it better. After all, I used to think, everyone feels stress at work, right? I should just suck it up and deal with it.
But between the interview, my current job, and these strange thoughts that pop into my head during the evening commute, I’ve realized it’s that stress of not knowing how you’re doing that is so inherent to teaching. That’s what eats teachers up. Not having another adult around to run something by. Not having some informed feedback. Always having to guess whether or not this will work and then only hearing about it when it doesn’t. That’s the weight I felt being lifted. I now work with adults who tell me if I’m screwing up before it becomes an issue. In fact, I’ve been luckier than just that. I’ve worked with adults who actually take the time to help me out, who don’t mind if I ask lots of questions, and who kind of expect that it will work like that because that’s the kind of team we try to make it.
I’d experienced this in the guard for so long I suppose I took it for granted. It never occurred to me that work should be like this outside of the guard. Until that interview and a subsequent drive home from work one night, it never occurred to me just how opposed to this concept teaching can be. One adult is alone during the planning stage, during the execution stage and during the evaluation and revisions stage. The only real time feedback comes from teenagers who don’t want to be there in the first place and so it is almost exclusively negative no matter how well planned, creative or innovative the project. Sure, you hear from a principal once or twice a year during formal evaluation times in order to see if your contract will be renewed, but even that provides little in the way of useful input. Evaluations are kind of like extreme sports – there’s no in between, no margin of error. You’re either successful and you live, or you’re unsuccessful and you die.
Where I work now, I can always get someone to take a look at what I’m doing, ask about a better way to solve a problem, or ask if they’ve ever done this before. As a teacher, you can never leave a classroom full of kids to do that. You can never go across the hall and say, “hey Jim, can you abandon your class to come over and watch me teach this unit on revising for clarification and tell me what you think... it should only take three days for me to present all of the material.” One of the reasons I’m so excited about my new job is that this is the very impression they gave me about it. Collaboration is how they do their work. It’s expected. As a teacher not only was that not expected, it was nearly impossible.
Now don’t take this the wrong way – I loved teaching. I just can’t get over the weight of that stress and how little of it I feel now. I guess I just assumed that it worked that way for everyone. I thought it must just be part of growing up. Whenever I’d think about that expression, “find a job you love and you’ll never work a day in your life,” I figured it was just more idealistic crap that could never really happen, but I’m starting to change my mind now.
Between realizing that one’s job is not necessarily one’s identity and this startling realization about different kinds of stress, I’m starting to think maybe that adage is true... or at least that there is some truth to it. There are certainly different kinds of stress in the world. Getting used to weekly rocket attacks is one kind. (turned out to be easier than I ever thought) Doing hard, physical labor is another. Having no adult interaction in a job that you feel really should have some is one that snuck up on me and became heavier than I ever realized until now.
I guess what I’m really trying to say is, be nice to your kids’ teachers. You may be the first adult they’ve been able to talk to in a while. Start with acknowledging that 90% of what they do is probably pretty good, then go into the one thing that bothered you enough to take the time to approach them. (cuz you know that's the only reason you've bothered approaching them)
OK, enough preaching for now. I’ve got a week off before the new job starts and I’ve got at least 6 weeks worth of projects planned for that week. Can you tell I'm stalling?
Later dudes.
Luth
Having spent the last month and a half as a mechanic at a commercial dealership with a very similarly effective atmosphere, I wonder how typical that is. I know that in many dealerships where flat rate is the norm, a mechanic is almost encouraged to look out for himself, perhaps even at the expense of the dealership, the other mechanics, and the customer. I was thinking about this on the way home from work the other night. I was thinking how lucky I was to have learned what I have as a mechanic in a far more nurturing, tolerable, even fun environment.
For some reason this got me thinking about my most recent job interview where I got this same feeling from my future co-workers. It’s one of the things that impressed me about the position. What I thought most about was how being a teacher had prepared me for every situation they asked about in their “performance based interview.” Every situation they asked me to relate to them led to a time in a classroom or an extracurricular activity. Management decisions were made. Budgets were balanced. Funds were raised. Tough choices, difficult customers or colleagues... you name it, I dealt with it as a teacher. But what really stood out among this new position, my positions as a mechanic and what separated them from teaching was the availability of that second opinion – some informed feedback.
This, for me, is what explained the constant stress I felt, even in the summer, as a teacher. I mentioned previously that on the weekend before my first day as an official mechanic, I felt like a weight had been lifted off of me. Instead of the routine Sunday night dread that used to set in, I was actually excited about going to work. It has remained that way for six weeks now. At first I thought this was because I just didn’t care about my job, but I do care about it. It may not be what I intend to do for the rest of my life, but I enjoy it, want to do well at it, respect my bosses and co-workers and just plain do care. Our customers could get hurt if I didn’t. And I enjoy seeing them get excited about what we do for them. Our products help people retain their independence and mobility. It’s a good feeling and I do care about it.
Then I thought the stress was gone because I’d only been doing the job for 6 weeks, but the guys I work with have all been there at least six years, some for 26 years. They don’t seem to show the signs of the kind of stress I felt as a teacher. So I felt like I’d really zeroed in on why teaching took so much out of me. When I first started teaching, I thought this stress came with the job simply because it was the first job I really cared about enough to be stressed. I figured it was the same way for everybody who had a job they cared about. I thought it was just part of the deal of “getting a haircut and getting a real job” if you will. But now I’m starting to question that. I mean, after a week at my current job I began questioning whether I’d ever go back to the stress of teaching for the money it paid when I could make that same money without the stress. I wondered if any other teachers knew that was possible. It’s not like teaching was going to send my kids to Harvard any more than being a mechanic would. I began to seriously question whether it was worth it to live under that pressure and I used to constantly wonder what was wrong with me that I couldn’t manage it better. After all, I used to think, everyone feels stress at work, right? I should just suck it up and deal with it.
But between the interview, my current job, and these strange thoughts that pop into my head during the evening commute, I’ve realized it’s that stress of not knowing how you’re doing that is so inherent to teaching. That’s what eats teachers up. Not having another adult around to run something by. Not having some informed feedback. Always having to guess whether or not this will work and then only hearing about it when it doesn’t. That’s the weight I felt being lifted. I now work with adults who tell me if I’m screwing up before it becomes an issue. In fact, I’ve been luckier than just that. I’ve worked with adults who actually take the time to help me out, who don’t mind if I ask lots of questions, and who kind of expect that it will work like that because that’s the kind of team we try to make it.
I’d experienced this in the guard for so long I suppose I took it for granted. It never occurred to me that work should be like this outside of the guard. Until that interview and a subsequent drive home from work one night, it never occurred to me just how opposed to this concept teaching can be. One adult is alone during the planning stage, during the execution stage and during the evaluation and revisions stage. The only real time feedback comes from teenagers who don’t want to be there in the first place and so it is almost exclusively negative no matter how well planned, creative or innovative the project. Sure, you hear from a principal once or twice a year during formal evaluation times in order to see if your contract will be renewed, but even that provides little in the way of useful input. Evaluations are kind of like extreme sports – there’s no in between, no margin of error. You’re either successful and you live, or you’re unsuccessful and you die.
Where I work now, I can always get someone to take a look at what I’m doing, ask about a better way to solve a problem, or ask if they’ve ever done this before. As a teacher, you can never leave a classroom full of kids to do that. You can never go across the hall and say, “hey Jim, can you abandon your class to come over and watch me teach this unit on revising for clarification and tell me what you think... it should only take three days for me to present all of the material.” One of the reasons I’m so excited about my new job is that this is the very impression they gave me about it. Collaboration is how they do their work. It’s expected. As a teacher not only was that not expected, it was nearly impossible.
Now don’t take this the wrong way – I loved teaching. I just can’t get over the weight of that stress and how little of it I feel now. I guess I just assumed that it worked that way for everyone. I thought it must just be part of growing up. Whenever I’d think about that expression, “find a job you love and you’ll never work a day in your life,” I figured it was just more idealistic crap that could never really happen, but I’m starting to change my mind now.
Between realizing that one’s job is not necessarily one’s identity and this startling realization about different kinds of stress, I’m starting to think maybe that adage is true... or at least that there is some truth to it. There are certainly different kinds of stress in the world. Getting used to weekly rocket attacks is one kind. (turned out to be easier than I ever thought) Doing hard, physical labor is another. Having no adult interaction in a job that you feel really should have some is one that snuck up on me and became heavier than I ever realized until now.
I guess what I’m really trying to say is, be nice to your kids’ teachers. You may be the first adult they’ve been able to talk to in a while. Start with acknowledging that 90% of what they do is probably pretty good, then go into the one thing that bothered you enough to take the time to approach them. (cuz you know that's the only reason you've bothered approaching them)
OK, enough preaching for now. I’ve got a week off before the new job starts and I’ve got at least 6 weeks worth of projects planned for that week. Can you tell I'm stalling?
Later dudes.
Luth
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