Easily Distracted = Easily Amused

I had trouble writing my sentence today because of all the ping pong ping pong ping pong ping pong.

Not My Purview

Sunday morning, I got on my bike and rode across town to the 5K Volunteer Meeting; received my Volunteer t-shirt and little cardboard STOP sign and yellow police tape; was informed that I was in no way deputized as a sheriff or officer of the law and if there was any trouble at my intersection to call the police and that I should NOT attempt to actually stop and arrest any bull-headed drivers who made their way onto the course and then I made my way to 7th and Park to put up my police tape and man my post; I was stationed at a secluded intersection about three quarters of the way through the course and I only had to blockade one street with police tape as the other side of the street bordered on a stream; then I sipped my coffee and chatted with the family across the way, who were out with the kids waiting for the runners and in a few minutes they came through, sporadically at first, and then en masse and I cheered on the folks I knew (including my wife!) and had no trouble with traffic . . . until things started petering out and a woman with a thick accent (Russian?) wanted to know when she could pull her car out of her driveway because she had to get to an appointment and I told her to ask the police over at the next intersection and she said she had asked them and they said that she couldn't leave until all the people in the race came through-- she would know because there was a police vehicle bringing up the rear . . . and I told the woman that if she came my way, I could lift the police tape and she could shoot up 7th but she was going to get stopped at the other end, on Abbot, because the runners were looping around and I could see why she was getting annoyed because we were getting down to the end and people were walking and pushing strollers, one guy was wearing a dinosaur suit, and there seemed to be no end to it and so she said to me, "These people are not running . . . can you tell them to go faster? To start running?" and I informed her that I didn't think I had the authority to enforce any kind of pace on the runners and her answer to that was, "This running . . . I don't even understand it" and then she got in her car, pulled out of her driveway and came my way, against the grain of the race; the police at 8th and Park yelled at me to stop her, so I waved my little cardboard STOP sign at her but she drove right by me and made it two blocks, to the 5th and Park intersection and the police pulled her over there and gave her the business and she had to wait there until the bitter end . . . I'm glad no one was injured but I'm also glad that I saw some action and had a chance to use my signage, though it was to no avail.

The Grand Budapest Florida Hotel Project

The Florida Project is streaming for free on Amazon Prime right now and it's a sad and magical movie, a trashy, rundown, one-step-away-from-homeless version of The Grand Budapest Hotel . . . a six year old girl (Moonee) and her urchin-like friends have weird, slightly dangerous, and almost completely unmonitored adventures in the impoverished shadow of the Magic Kingdom, while Moonee's very young mom-- a tattooed recently unemployed exotic dancer-- tries to make ends meet; Willem Dafoe plays the hotel manager of the Magic Castle, a cheap hotel that mainly serves as way-station for folks that can't afford better housing, and his job is impossible-- especially when actual tourists show up and want to stay at the place; the movie's rhythm is the beat of a child's brain on summer vacation: every day is epic, every day is a chance to meet new people and do new things, then routines are established, and all of this is oblivious to the adult world, which is proceeding at a different, harsher pace . . . I loved it: ten ice cream cones out of ten.

Hey Man, Stop Blowin' Up My White Font Spot

I was covering a physics class last week and a nerdy kid offered me some valuable information on how to cheat the word count on an assignment (and word count is one of the stipulations of the college writing class I teach, their synthesis essays have to be at least 1500 words) and his method is brilliant:

1) you check the word count on the assignment and you're a bit short but you've got nothing else to say;

2) so you type a random sentence-- which contains no spelling mistakes-- then copy/paste this sentence enough times that you've met the word count requirement for the assignment;

3) then shrink these random copied sentences a bit so they don't take up much space and they are difficult to find;

4) then select these extra random sentences and change the font color to white . . . so the teacher can't see them but your word count now meets the requirements (and the other students were NOT happy that this kid told me about this method, so obviously kids have been doing this).

Dave Comes in First Place for First World Problems

My outdoor ping-pong table is arriving for pick-up at Sears tomorrow . . . one day after our Cuatro de Mayo Happy Hour (I guess we'll have to make do with corn-hole).

Catherine Goes Rogue

I arrived home from work today at 3 PM and noticed that my wife's car was parked in front of the house; at first I imagined the worst (my father underwent heart surgery yesterday-- successfully-- but I figured something might have gone horribly wrong) but I didn't walk in to bad news . . . I walked in to no news at all, and no sign of my wife; then I figured she got sick and took a half day, so I went upstairs to see if she was sleeping-- but no Catherine-- so then I figured the car was broken, but I went outside and the CRV turned over . . . so I called her school to ask if she was there and the secretary said she was in her classroom teaching . . . and that she had walked to school (a little over two miles) in order to get some exercise, a possibility I hadn't considered because of the unseasonable heat (and she walked home as well: impressive, but I told her to leave a note the next time it's 92 degrees she decides to go walkabout).

Dave Turns Catherine Into Dave

My wife called me yesterday on her way home from work to point out that she was filling up the gas tank in the CRV-- the tank was getting low (though the light was not on yet) and we were switching cars today and she wanted to "get credit" for doing the right thing and leaving me a car with a full tank of gas . . . now Catherine has always been a stoic sort of person who does the right thing because it's the right thing to do, she's never needed her ego stroked to behave morally, but I think I've changed her for the better and made her more like me; I pointed this out to her and told her I had already filled up the van and did not call her for credit-- I just did it because it's the right thing to do-- and she told me that she really hates filling the car up with gas so it was a special favor and thus deserving of "credit" and I agreed, of course-- we should all get credit for our good deeds . . . otherwise, why do them?-- but I also reminded her how annoyed she gets when I demand credit and applause for doing mundane tasks, such as the dishes (I don't like to get my hands moist) or cooking dinner (monitoring more than two burners stresses me out) or weeding the yard (bending over is annoying) or any of the other mundane tasks I complete . . . so this psychological egoism is a good sign, as I often feel that Catherine is directing my moral compass towards a more righteous angle, but perhaps my amoral magnetism is disrupting her poles.

Will Dave Use SoD as a Reference?

We are starting to prepare for our Cuatro de Mayo happy hour on Friday and I'm going to infuse some tequila with hot peppers; I have referred to the notes from last year, but the question is: will I use the advice in the sentence and the comments?

Dave Avoids Being an Awkward Racist

Fourth period today, I was far afield, covering an honors physics class in J Hall; the class was full of 11th graders and I teach mainly seniors, but I recognized a couple of younger siblings-- and then one younger sibling recognized me: a tall African-American kid said that I taught his older brother Callan and we talked about him for a moment and then I got the students working on their assignment (something to do with the speed of sound and the speed of light and car antennas) and I noticed that the other African-American kid in the class not only looked like the tall kid that said I taught his brother, but he also looked like the older brother Callan . . . but I didn't say anything because I didn't want to fall into the stereotypical "they all look alike" trope . . . so I kept my mouth shut about the resemblance, but then towards the end of the period I realized that I hadn't taken attendance yet, so I read the roster aloud and checked off who was present and it turned out the that the two African-American kids in the class were identical twins . . . so not only did they look like the older black kid that I taught, but they looked exactly like each other.

Dave Does the Math

We celebrated my grandmother's 96th birthday today (we celebrated a bit early-- her actual birthday is Tuesday but she's looking good so I think she's going to make it) and she's now twice my age (I'm 48) and I won't be double my older son's age for twenty years (he's 14) and I won't double my younger son's age for 22 years (he'll be 13 in a month) and my friend Brady (who's 47) and just had a daughter won't double her age for 47 years!

Early Goals Ease a Hangover . . .

I was a little foggy this morning because Catherine and I attended a raucous dance party last night, so I was especially happy when my travel soccer team took an early 4 - 0 lead in our game . . . Ian scored two quick goals, perhaps because he has extra energy due to his grounding (caused by poor academics . . . he's got no phone, he's not allowed to hang out with friends this weekend, and he's supposed to mulch the garden-- Catherine sent him out to do so on Thursday after school, but  when she went to check on his progress, she found him taking a nap in the sun . . . as long as he keeps scoring early goals and making my life as a coach less stressful, I'm fine with him catching zzz's wherever he can).

Scott Pruitt, You Are My Nemesis

If there's one thing that you can be certain of around here, it's that I despise Scott Pruitt and the new episode of Embedded has not helped matters . . . it's a deep dive into Pruitt's personality, politics and policy tactics and now his fervent passion for rolling back environmental rules and regulations, his desire to bring back coal, and his apparent disdain for science and the mission of the EPA make perfect sense: he's a brainwashed Bible-thumping religious fundamentalist who doubts the science behind climate change and doesn't think evolution is a true thing . . . now it's perfectly legal in America to believe the Bible is literally the word of God (and it's also perfectly legal to believe the Koran is the word of God) but I do not think anyone who think these things should head up a scientific agency designed to protect the air, water, and forests of nations from externalities created by business and the government; this is an agency for the people and he's taking it back, in the name of God, he's carving out space for religion in the public square, and he's going to set things straight again and let the earth be under the dominion of man, to be reaped and raped and domineered-- just like the Bible suggests; he worries about how the radical left worships the earth and the environment, instead of an angry anthropomorphic God, and is another Republican loon racing us towards the brink of environmental disaster; so this guy is anathema, my absolute nemesis . . . weird and joyless and and fighting for the same thing that radical Islam wants-- a government reflective of an ancient book-- it’s ironic (though Pruitt seems too literal to understand irony) and he’s far more dangerous and awful than Trump himself-- because Pruitt has beliefs and principles, while (hopefully) Trump is just a showman and doesn't actually believe anything . . . so maybe he'll fire Pruitt soon enough, when all the corruption shakes out (although I could care less about that stuff-- he should be fired for dismantling an agency that is based on science) and beyond the religious stuff, which will put things into context, the podcast also details a few of the cases that Pruitt pursued: as attorney general in Oklahoma, he managed to stop a classic environmental externality case right in its tracks . . . the Illinois River and water basin in Oklahoma was getting polluted by chickenshit running downstream from Arkansas, and Pruitt did his best to delay and then essentially negate the case that Oklahoma had against Arkansas . . . the case is still pending, eight years later and (ironically . . . but again, Pruitt would be too stupid to appreciate this) Pruitt is now on the other side of the case and could force Arkansas to comply and push the case along, but that ain't gonna happen . . . anyway, the guy famous for suing the EPA and not protecting his state from polluted waterways is now the guy in charge of the EPA . . . there's plenty more to this and I suggest you do some research and then send a letter to your Congressman about this Sunday-school-teacher gone rogue (there's a nice bit in the podcast where Cory Booker takes him on) and I'm going to try to forget about all this shit, because I just ordered an outdoor ping-pong table for our backyard and I'm very excited (and while I know consumption is a problem and making this durable ping-pong table used up many valuable resources, I also think it will keep me and the kids at home in the yard for many days and nights, so we'll drive less and consume less fossil fuels).

Trump and Ryan: Two Peas in a Pod?

Lots of farm stuff going on now in Congress-- The Indicator covers the labor drought . . . this is probably my favorite thing that Trump has (inadvertently) done; his tough stance on immigration and work visas has made it so American farms can't find workers (though they've raised wages) and so some American farmers are moving their farms to Mexico because it's easier to find labor there-- this affects local American economies negatively, of course, because we're not selling fertilizer and chemicals and tractors locally, but perhaps this farmland will remain as open space, perhaps we won't use as much water, perhaps Mexico will benefit from the jobs, and perhaps we'll be more inexplicably tied in a global economy, which will help destroy borders, nations, loyalty to flags, xenophobia, and lots of other awful things that our on the rise . . . so The Donald doesn't know what he's doing, but maybe he's undermining the very thing he stands for, which makes me happy; the folks on The Weeds are not very happy about the new work requirements attached to SNAP (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program . . . food stamps) because it's going to arbitrarily kick a bunch of people off the program-- but this seems to be Paul Ryan's dream, to deny poor people benefits (even if it costs more in bureaucracy execute his policy than the actual dispersal of said benefits) and the bill does nothing to change the ridiculous nature of farm subsidies . . . and that's the real nutritional problem in our country, poor people have access to plenty of calories (and are actually more likely to be obese than starving, but healthy food is expensive and mainly unsubsidized) -- if you want an overview of that situation, read this article, but for those of you who want the Cliffnotes, here is Marion Nestle:

"If you were to create a MyPlate meal that matched where the government historically aimed its subsidies, you’d get a lecture from your doctor. More than three-quarters of your plate would be taken up by a massive corn fritter (80 percent of benefits go to corn, grains and soy oil). You’d have a Dixie cup of milk (dairy gets 3 percent), a hamburger the size of a half dollar (livestock: 2 percent), two peas (fruits and vegetables: 0.45 percent) and an after-dinner cigarette (tobacco: 2 percent). Oh, and a really big linen napkin (cotton: 13 percent) to dab your lips."

Lost and Foundering

Take a look at the picture above and see if you can find the bag of Kirkland brand ground coffee . . . and now imagine that you are me: I took a look at that tableau on Saturday morning, could not find the coffee, proceeded to search the house high and low for a bag of caffeinated coffee-- the pantry, the downstairs shelves, the lazy susan in the lower cupboard, etc.-- and then surmised that we had no more coffee (and I wasn't going to wake my wife up to ask if we did) and so I angrily went to the grocery store to buy some . . . when my wife woke up and she heard my tale of woe, she immediately pointed to the blue bag of Kirkland brand ground coffee, and this threw my brain into a cognitive fit, until I rationalized and realized that I was standing to the right of the coffeemaker when I looked at the counter and rashly decided we were out of coffee, so the big bag of ground coffee was behind the coffeemaker . . . and it's impossible to see something if it's behind something else, or so I convinced myself; after I drank my coffee, I went to Home Depot and bought a tree, three bags of topsoil and a canister of deer repellent granules, and it was really windy, which made it difficult to push my orange flatbed cart through the parking lot, because the tree kept falling over, but I finally made it to the car, loaded the tree in the back on top of the bags of soil and then drove away, only to have my path blocked by a large white canister, rolling along across the pavement, blown by the strong wind-- so I got out of the car to move this random obstruction and it turned out to be the deer repellent I had purchased-- I had not noticed it had fallen off my cart-- the wind was obviously the culprit-- and I had apparently forgotten all about my purchase in the three minutes between the check-out line and the loading of the car . . . so I considered myself lucky, because the canister was for my wife, and if I came home with it unaccounted for-- when I had obviously purchased it (it was on the receipt) after the whole coffee fiasco, she might have wondered about my ability to live a fruitful and independent life without her support.

I Feel Fine . . .

I had a salad for lunch today, but it was more exciting than usual because while I was ingesting aforementioned greens, my colleagues informed me that the romaine lettuce was most likely infected with E. coli.

Laura Roslin and Walter White: Separated at Birth?

We just finished watching Breaking Bad as a family and then we hyper-jumped right into Battlestar Galactica . . . these are two of my favorite shows and it's really fun to rewatch them with the kids, especially because they notice things that I missed (and the first time Catherine and I watched these shows, we were sleep deprived and logy because of these very same kids) and while I will claim responsibility for the juxtapostion of these two platinum era masterpieces, Ian is the one who first noticed that Walter White and Laura Roslin are two sides of the same coin, and I'd like to add my two cents as to why:

1) at the outset of each story, both characters are diagnosed with cancer;

2) they are both involved in education and both seem to have greater aspirations;

3) they are both thrown into positions of power far beyond their purview and they both adapt and become calculating and effective leaders;

4) the looming threat of imminent death from cancer makes them assume a different kind of logic when assessing problems-- because they know how to take themselves out of the picture;

5) both shows hinge on a yin-and-yang duality-- the Walter White/Jesse Pinkman rollercoaster relationship and the Laura Roslin/ Commander Adama philosophical and tactical discussions.

The Test 109: Girls, They Want to Have Guns

This week on The Test, I barrage the ladies with a battery of questions and assault them with a slew of incendiary statistics and they stand their ground . . . Cunningham and Stacey may not be much with numbers, but they sure as shit know their guns.

SoD Celebrates SOD!

Sentence of Dave (affectionately known as SoD) would like to take a moment on this lovely spring Saturday to applaud that lowly chunk of dirt and grass known as "sod" . . . we had a tree removed from the front lawn last year and the tree removal guys left a big hole filled with stump grindings, and this morning I fixed up our wheelbarrow, illegally dumped some stump grindings over the cliff at the park (thus clearing the hole a bit) and went to Home Depot to buy some topsoil and grass seed, but when I was at Home Depot, I noticed they had a big pile of sod slices ($4.48 a slice) and so I bought two of them and after I put some top soil down, I tossed two slices of sod atop the soil, and voila . . . instant grass!-- so though archetypal Western villain Liberty Valance uses the term "sodbuster" in vitriolic and derogatory manner, that's because he's the kind of guy that lives "wherever he hangs his hat," and obviously has never maintained a lawn . . . sod, Liberty, is the horticultural miracle that could keep you from pushing daisies at such a young age, sod.

Dave Kills It At Book Club

This afternoon I attended my first English department book club and it was all that I imagined and more; I got to share my literary opinions with the many beautiful ladies of our department and at first it was like a dream: they were absolutely smitten with my analysis of Fredrik Backman's Swedish hockey novel Beartown . . . I was the only man in the room and I'm very manly: I know a lot about coaching sports and the secret ways of men-- the ladies were properly fascinated with my perspicacity:


















then-- in honor of my first book club ever-- I performed some prop comedy-- when we were about to start our discussion in earnest, I said I had to go out to my car because I had forgotten my notes and when I returned, I was holding a manila folder thick with notes and Post-its, a palimpsest of papers that looked like they were written by a crazy person (think Carrie in Homeland) and Stacey said, "You have a folder of notes?" and I said, "Of course" and I started arranging all the notes and charts and post-its on the floor, while mumbling things like "Holy cow, I have so much to say about this book . . . what should I start with?" and after a minute of paper shuffling and manspreading of my notes, someone surmised that this was my version of a book-club-joke and we all laughed (I laughed the most) and I told them that I had my students create all the crazy notes and charts and post-its . . .  I put the names of the people in the book on the board, told them a few themes, suggested that they emulate my handwriting, and let them go to town . . . it was a lot of preparation for a two minute bit, but it was well worth it;

then we actually got into the meat of the discussion and it was a lot of fun but also a bit heated-- I determined that the novel was a well-crafted story about factions, groups, and their effect on the community but I thought the hockey stuff was heavy-handed and not particularly enlightening (Art of Fielding is a much better literary sports novel . . . the tone of Beartown reminds me of Any Given Sunday, which is a good movie, but not a good football movie) but then we got into a loud and vociferous debate about the resolution, which Backman left ambiguous on purpose-- which makes me think he is sort of douchey and annoying . . . and I wondered if this was a meta-book, designed to get people riled up at book club, which sent me to the place I did not want to go-- loud and didactic and refractory . . . and the ladies reacted accordingly:




but 

we worked it out in the end, and while I can't recommend this book wholeheartedly (I think it's a little contrived and manipulative, and it feels like it's written by someone who has researched a bit about hockey but has never played the sport-- which the end notes confirm) I will wholeheartedly recommend book club, it was fun and intellectually exhausting, and dialogue like this is the only way that we can avoid what Beartown is really about . . . the fact that it's easier to choose a side in a conflict and stick to that side no matter what . . . but book club makes you deal with the difficulty-- which is hard-- the difficulty of listening to other people's opinions and really considering them-- it would be easier to read the book in solitude "because that's easier than trying to hold two thoughts in our heads at the same time" and it would be easier to "seek out facts that conform to what we want to believe" but when you're at book club with a bunch of beautiful ladies, it's hard to "dehumanize our enemy" because they are so charming and lovely (and you work with them) and you have to really reconsider what your thoughts . . . so I can't wait for the next one (and I'm going to come up with another prop comedy bit to get a quick laugh . . . if anyone has an idea, send it to me in secret).

Noam Says It's Okay to be Anti-American

I've been chewing and chomping on Chomsky lately, and while his writings are spicy and might give you mental indigestion, they are also very very tasty; I just finished Requiem for the American Dream: The 10 Principles of Concentration of Wealth and Power, and in typical Chomsky fashion, he makes you reevaluate the established hierarchies and hegemonies and truly makes you wonder if we need to dismantle every structure of power before we can actually have a working democracy . . . here are a few of his thoughts on how the powers that be are keeping the electorate in line and preventing too much democracy, which would be a threat to richest and most politically connected constituency:

1) if someone in Italy criticizes the government or policy or Berlusconi, they're not considered anti-Italian, but if you criticize corporate power and/or state/corporate capture/capitalist politics, then you're against the society and you are "anti-American," which is a highly unusual term for a democratic country . . . usually terms like this are used in totalitarian regimes . . . anti-Soviet, for example;

2) Alan Greenspan has praised "worker insecurity" in keeping the economy humming, because insecure workers don't unionize or negotiate or ask for raises and benefits, and American salaries have been stagnant for a LONG time, despite the fact that corporations have tons of liquid assets; this insecurity can result in more and more borrowing . . . which is certainly a feature, not a bug, for the financial industries;

3) Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher were the original instigators of this global plutonomy, they were really good at enriching the very wealthy and letting everyone else suffer . . . those two leaders were much less concerned with looking out for American and British middle-class consumers and much more concerned with financialization rules (and lack thereof) that would allow the richest sector of the global economy to profit;

4) rich people make a lot of money through dividends and capital gains, the rest of the society does not...  and tax law has been written to favor making money through dividends and capital gains (and the estate tax has been revised to favor the wealthy as well . . .. more fodder for Chomsky)

5) joblessness is a far more devastating problem than any economic indicator or stock index, and workers have lost the ability to negotiate, form unions, and collectively bargain-- many many people in our country work in a job without benefits or security or a union . . . thank God I'm a teacher;

6) Reagan started this whole business of too big to fail and too big to jail-- he increased the size of the federal deficit by subsidizing and bailing out the banking and savings and loan industries after several financial crashes caused by deregulation-- if big business knows it will be bailed out by a business- friendly government, than it will take extra risks, of course, and taxpayers will foot the bill;

7) for every dollar spent by labor union lobbyists, corporations spend $34 . . . business lobbying is ubiquitous and has caused cronyism and undemocratic policy that even a conservative thinker can recognize;

8) Citizens United and corporate personhood give more rights to corporations in Mexico than it does to undocumented aliens that do work in the United States . . . the Supreme Court justices "are put in by reactionary presidents, who get in there because they're funded by business";

9) people should spend ten minutes thinking about presidential elections and decide which candidate's policy benefits them more and then vote accordingly- there should be no two-year media bonanza-- and then people should get back to what works: community programs, local programs and active dedicated popular movements;

10) running for office in the U.S. is "fabulously expensive" so only political positioned that can draw finance can be presented to voters . . . so much of the most important political discussion is ignored;

11) organized labor is the one force that can fight corporate and government tyranny, and the anti-labor and anti-union sentiment in America is strong, so the rich and powerful should have no trouble keeping the rabble in line;

12) one of the best ways to control people is by "fabricating consumers" and making sure everyone feels like they need something new . . . whether it's getting women to smoke in the 1930s or making you think you need a new phone, fabricating these wants is a great way to keep people from worrying about democracy and policy;

13) his last principle of how to concentrate wealth and power and destroy democracy is the scariest: marginalize the population-- he cites a Martin Gilens study that shows that policy is uncorrelated with public attitudes and that 70 percent of the population has no influence on policy and government . . . they might as well live in another country . . .

so it's hard to read this logic and be pro-American . . . but the one thing that we are tops at is freedom of speech, so maybe people need to start thinking that being anti-American is more American than being pro-American.