My dog rarely chews up anything, but when he does, it's alway something special:
1) he chewed up this;
2) and these (but he hasn't done that for a long time)
3) and my Vibram Five Fingers (good riddance)
4) and a live mole, that he flushed out of the snow in Vermont
and most recently, he chewed several pieces off my cactus, but he didn't eat them-- instead he left them in the cushions of the couch . . . I can't wait to see what he chews up next!
Political Paradox of the Week!
American conservatives tend to be against abortion, but they also tend to be against paid-maternity-leave . . . if there's anything upon which bizarro-world candidates Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton should debate, it's this bizarro-world American paradox-- America has some of the strictest abortion laws in the world, yet we are on the short list (with Oman and Papua New Guinea) of countries which offer no paid-family leave . . . from a logical standpoint, these two policies shouldn't exist in the same country . . . America . . . love it or leave it.
Notes to Future Self
We watched the time-travel movie Primer in philosophy class last week, and while the plot of the movie is close to incomprehensible (although there are plenty of explanations out there on the internet . . . but those are incomprehensible too) the central premise is easy enough to understand; Abe and Aaron keep looping back in time, in a rather short span, and they screw with their future selves-- Chuck Klosterman calls them "ethical Helen Kellers" . . . and this makes a terrible mess of their lives, their relationships, their careers, and their physical well-being; this leads to some mundane questions which we all need to address-- because we are all slowly traveling into the future:
1) how should you ethically behave towards your future self?
2) what do you owe to your future self?
3) are you your future self?
4) is your future self someone else?
and while my philosophy class had a great time with these questions (and my examples . . . Past Dave decided to get a tattoo of a giant lizard ripping out of Past Dave's shoulder . . . he had very little consideration for Future Dave, but-- on the other hand-- Past Dave started diligently practicing the guitar in his twenties and travelled around the world, giving Future Dave some rudimentary musical skills and some vivid memories of the Middle and Far East . . . and so you should realize that when you go for a run, you are helping out your future self, but when you drink a bunch of beer and eat a cheesecake, then not so much) and this finally led us to a very weird place, because the newest findings about human memory conclude that every time we recall something, we alter that memory slightly, and our cells and tissue are dying and being replaced all the time . . . and so our Future Selves really are quite different than our Past Selves-- in a sense they are a person only tangentially related to our Present Selves . . . and so it is difficult to be super-concerned with them, yet we know if we start saving money now, or learning Japanese, then this Future Person might really benefit, and this logic finally leads to the Ship of Theseus thought experiment and the ultimate question: is this Porsche really a Porsche?
1) how should you ethically behave towards your future self?
2) what do you owe to your future self?
3) are you your future self?
4) is your future self someone else?
and while my philosophy class had a great time with these questions (and my examples . . . Past Dave decided to get a tattoo of a giant lizard ripping out of Past Dave's shoulder . . . he had very little consideration for Future Dave, but-- on the other hand-- Past Dave started diligently practicing the guitar in his twenties and travelled around the world, giving Future Dave some rudimentary musical skills and some vivid memories of the Middle and Far East . . . and so you should realize that when you go for a run, you are helping out your future self, but when you drink a bunch of beer and eat a cheesecake, then not so much) and this finally led us to a very weird place, because the newest findings about human memory conclude that every time we recall something, we alter that memory slightly, and our cells and tissue are dying and being replaced all the time . . . and so our Future Selves really are quite different than our Past Selves-- in a sense they are a person only tangentially related to our Present Selves . . . and so it is difficult to be super-concerned with them, yet we know if we start saving money now, or learning Japanese, then this Future Person might really benefit, and this logic finally leads to the Ship of Theseus thought experiment and the ultimate question: is this Porsche really a Porsche?
Double Dipping
I tried my darndest to get a decent (yet discreet) workout at our last faculty meeting-- calf raises, leg lifts, chair dips, wall sits, and lots of plyometrics-- and while it wasn't the most comfortable way to exercise, I was still paying closer attention than the people poking at their cell-phones.
Nocturnal Semantics
The opossum is certainly a synanthrope, but still generally reclusive and nocturnal, and so when the dog and I saw a mottled stiff tailed creature ambling across the road this morning, it took me a second to realize it wasn't a very ugly cat-- and then I wondered what it was doing up at this hour, and if a nocturnal creature is up early in the morning, walking groggily, does that mean it's up early or has it stayed out far too late late?
The Test 48: What Is It Based On?
This week on The Test, we learn that some stuff is based on other stuff, and that stuff might even be based on something else . . . and Cunningham nearly cries and Stacey-- right or wrong-- is nothing but confidence; as a bonus, there is a debate about who is better looking: Tina Fey or me . . . so play at home, keep score, and see if you can do better than "medium."
Interest in Pinterest . . .
I'm going to come clean and admit that last week I went on Pinterest-- several times-- to look at ways to hang planters by a bay window-- ostensibly this "research" was for a Mother's Day project-- but the fact of the matter is that I really enjoyed browsing the indoor plant ideas on the site, and now I want to build a "plant wall" in addition to hanging some plants, so I guess this means I'm transitioning (not that there's anything wrong with that) or maybe I've hit menopause . . . anyway, I'll keep you posted and as soon as the project is done, and I'll put up a picture (maybe I can even put a picture on Pinterest!)
Ian Writes an Ode to Our Dog
My son Ian had to write a "bio" poem for school-- and at first I thought this meant a "biology" poem-- but he told me that didn't make sense . . . although there is a great poem about biology called "Lines on the Antiquity of Microbes," and this is a very short poem so I will insert the entire thing inside this sentence:
Adam/ Had'em
but for this assignment, "Bio" is short for "biography" and Ian chose to write a "bio poem" about our dog Sirius-- and not only is it fabulous (it even contains a pun, of which he is very proud) but it's also exactly one sentence long-- and so I can append it to this rambling run-on:
Sirius the dog
Ingenious,
Talented,
Waggish,
Wishes to have a juicy, chewy, tasty steak waiting for him,
Dreaming to have an elongated beautiful tail that he’s missed since he was abandoned,
Who will never ever run away and if he does he’ll always come back,
Who wants to always help the world around him,
Who wonders if he will ever get some shuteye on the couch with permission,
Who fears flowing water and being abandoned again,
Who likes falling snow, people, and tons and tons of food,
Who believes he can do anything and everything he desires,
Who sees us as a family that cherishes him,
Who adores me, Mom, Dad, Alex, and everyone, except
the evil poodle that lives down the street,
Who plans to live with our family until the world comes to an end,
Sirius, Sirius Black: the bunny dog with a stub for a tail.
TV Stuff Part II
To continue yesterday's thread, the only TV I have been watching is The Office . . . my kids love it and I barely remember it, so we're going through them all-- we are on season three; in between laughing, during the awkward parts, I think most people invariably determine who they are in the office . . . which character on the show is the best parallel of their work behavior-- the first thing you need to do is eliminate Michael Scott (although if you're Michael Scott, then you don't know that you're Michael Scott) and while I can definitely be inappropriate and insensitive at times at work, I'm not as unaware as him and I'm not as dumb, and I'm pretty sure I have real friends and an actual wife and family-- I haven't photoshopped my face over someone's ex-husband so that I appear to be on a ski-trip with her and her kids-- and I hope people respect me a little bit more than they respect Michael Scott . . . and while I wish I were Jim Halpert, because everyone aspires to be Jim Halpert: funny, sensitive, witty, charming, understated, occasionally malevolent, but with a heart of gold, etcetera . . . unfortunately, I'm not him either, in fact-- after some candid self-reflection-- I'm pretty sure people at work see me as Creed (and this isn't even considering the ladies . . . I'm sure lots of women would like to be the Pam, not the Kelly, Phyllis or Angela . . . or -- God forbid-- the Meredith).
Medium Apostrophe
Sometimes I complain that there are too many good TV shows and it's impossible to keep up with everyone's recommendations, but that's not a complaint, it's actually the opposite of a complaint, it's a compliment . . . so great job TV, you've become so excellent you've completely overwhelmed me, to the point where I don't watch you at all.
Dave Gets Smart
I have finally entered the world of the smartphone, and it's awesome-- I did it on the cheap: I purchased an older model Samsung Galaxy and put a 64GB memory chip inside it, and I'm using Ting as my service provider and not using any data-- I only download stuff when I'm using wifi-- so the bill is 12 dollars a month (six dollars for the device, three for calling, and three for texting . . . if you want to sign up, refer me and I get some credit) and I'm paying for Google Play music, so I can download anything I want to the phone . . . here's what I have on there so far:
1) Underworld 1992 - 2012;
2) The Black Album Jay-Z;
3) Natasha Leggero Coke Money;
4) Pavement Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain;
5) Gorillaz Demon Days;
6) The Minutemen Double Nickels on the Dime;
7) Underworld Dubnobasswithmyheadman;
8) Lewis Black The End of the Universe;
9) Wu- Tang Clan Enter the Wu-Tang 36 Chambers;
10) The Crusaders Free as the Wind;
11) John Scofield A Go Go;
12) Kendrick Lamar good kid, m.A.A.d city;
13) Grant Green Green is Beautiful;
14) Deerhunter Halcyon Digest;
15) Squarepusher Hello Everything;
16) Maria Bamford How to Win;
17) Nas Illmatic;
18) Wilco Kicking Television Live;
19) Radiohead Kid A;
20) Spoon Kill the Moonlight;
21) The Pharcyde Labcabincalifornia;
22) Kanye West Late Registration;
23) Kanye West The Life of Pablo;
24) Future Sounds of London Lifeforms;
25) Natasha Leggero Live at Bimbos;
26) Toddy Barry Medium Energy;
27) Massive Attack Mezzanine;
28) Depeche Mode Music for the Masses;
29) John McLaughlin My Goal's Beyond;
30) John Mulaney New in Town;
31) Iggy Pop Raw Power;
32) Jesus and Mary Chain Psychocandy;
33) The Flaming Lips The Soft Bulletin;
34) Run the Jewels;
35) Dave Attell Skanks for the Memories;
36) LCD Soundsystem Sounds of Silence;
and a bunch more stuff-- I'm getting sick of listing all this, but the list is heavy on female comics because I'm looking for bits when I teach Ibsen's A Doll's House and it's heavy on hip-hop because I can't listen to that stuff in the house . . . anyway, I'm in audio-overload mode, and I haven't even listed all the podcasts I've subscribed to on Podkicker!
1) Underworld 1992 - 2012;
2) The Black Album Jay-Z;
3) Natasha Leggero Coke Money;
4) Pavement Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain;
5) Gorillaz Demon Days;
6) The Minutemen Double Nickels on the Dime;
7) Underworld Dubnobasswithmyheadman;
8) Lewis Black The End of the Universe;
9) Wu- Tang Clan Enter the Wu-Tang 36 Chambers;
10) The Crusaders Free as the Wind;
11) John Scofield A Go Go;
12) Kendrick Lamar good kid, m.A.A.d city;
13) Grant Green Green is Beautiful;
14) Deerhunter Halcyon Digest;
15) Squarepusher Hello Everything;
16) Maria Bamford How to Win;
17) Nas Illmatic;
18) Wilco Kicking Television Live;
19) Radiohead Kid A;
20) Spoon Kill the Moonlight;
21) The Pharcyde Labcabincalifornia;
22) Kanye West Late Registration;
23) Kanye West The Life of Pablo;
24) Future Sounds of London Lifeforms;
25) Natasha Leggero Live at Bimbos;
26) Toddy Barry Medium Energy;
27) Massive Attack Mezzanine;
28) Depeche Mode Music for the Masses;
29) John McLaughlin My Goal's Beyond;
30) John Mulaney New in Town;
31) Iggy Pop Raw Power;
32) Jesus and Mary Chain Psychocandy;
33) The Flaming Lips The Soft Bulletin;
34) Run the Jewels;
35) Dave Attell Skanks for the Memories;
36) LCD Soundsystem Sounds of Silence;
and a bunch more stuff-- I'm getting sick of listing all this, but the list is heavy on female comics because I'm looking for bits when I teach Ibsen's A Doll's House and it's heavy on hip-hop because I can't listen to that stuff in the house . . . anyway, I'm in audio-overload mode, and I haven't even listed all the podcasts I've subscribed to on Podkicker!
Sears Catalog = internet
I have a friend who sells things on eBay, and not just old stuff-- she'll actually bargain-shop and buy new stuff and then flip it on eBay for profit . . . and while this is a savvy use of markets and technology, it's actually nothing new, just an incremental increase in the accuracy of the "fair market value" of goods for sale in the United States . . . and, according to Robert J. Gordon, in his fantastic and comprehensive new book The Rise and Fall of American Growth: The U.S. Standard of Living Since the Civil War, the great leap forward in fair pricing and markets happened in the early 1900's-- as did many of the other impossible to reproduce leaps forward in technology-- when the Sears catalog become readily available (and free shipping on the items therein) because then these consumers were armed with pricing information from the catalog, and no longer beholden to the often unfair prices given at general stores-- so the Sears catalog was essentially the internet of its time, an incredibly informative piece of technology, and the concurrent adoption of the car (especially the affordable Model T) allowed people to roam far and wide, in search of fair prices for what they were buying and selling . . . so while my friend is in a sense a "fair market price hero," making the price of goods of services across our country more accurate, allowing someone in backwoods Arkansas to enjoy the low prices of a surplus of goods at a TJ Maxx in densely populated central New Jersey, we're only talking about a slight adjustment (and the convenience of shopping at home) and-- which is the thesis of Gordon's book-- there will never be a leap forward in market information as great as the one created by the innovative, earth-shattering inventions of the early twentieth century-- catalogs, cars, and even city department stores . . . but not having to get in the car to buy stuff is still pretty amazing, whether by internet or Sears catalog.
The Test 47: Opening Lines
This week on The Test, Cunningham quizzes us on the opening lines of seven famous literary works . . . and there's also sitcom nostalgia, ukulele aspirations, and plenty of zombies . . . so give it a shot and see how you do.
Perezoso
I wish I spoke fluent Spanish, but I don't want to take the time to learn . . . is there a Spanish word for that?
Proportionality Bias
I learned the term Proportionality Bias while listening to Benjamen Walker's The Theory of Everything podcast . . . this logical fallacy explains the reason why there are so many conspiracy theories about the JFK assassination: our brain naturally believes that humongous world-shaking events need large, complex causes, and so it couldn't have simply been a lone gunman . . . while John Hinckley's unsuccessful assassination attempt of Ronald Reagan didn't cause as much turmoil-- because Reagan survived and made a prompt recovery-- and so it makes perfect sense that this was the work of a Jody-Foster-obsessed-wack-job . . . logically, we know that a tiny, random event can set a cascading sequence of actions and reactions that could conceivably set an entire city on fire . . . Mrs. Oleary's cow may have kicked over a lantern and started the Great Chicago Fire (or maybe not . . . it may have been started by a meteor shower . . . but either way, I think it proves the point) and the fact of the matter is that a cunning poltergeist did not inhabit your house in the night and wedge your car keys under the sofa, just to watch you scream and howl in the morning because you're going to be late to work . . . but it's much more fun to believe this than the boring, mundane truth.
Every Anxious Wave
If you dig alternative 90's music-- especially The Melvins-- and also enjoy the paradoxes of time travel, then check out Mo Daviau's novel Every Anxious Wave . . . Karl Bender, who was in a popular indie band back in the day, discovers a time-traveling wormhole in his closet, but-- in typical understated ironic hipster fashion-- he will only use the the wormhole to take certain select people back to certain select rock shows . . . we're talking bands like Beat Happening and The Smiths and Frank Zappa and The Magnetic Fields and REM . . . you get the idea . . . but things change when he strands his friend in 980 AD (instead of 1980) and enlists the aid of a cute, obnoxious, chubby astrophysicist to get him back; my favorite trope is that Karl somehow receives text messages from his friend in 980 and emails full of advice from his future self, who is living in a post-apocalyptic version of Seattle . . . and then there's his Indian landlord, a wealthy slumlord married to a beautiful woman, who is actually a closeted homosexual who just wants to get it on with Freddie Mercury in 1982 . . . while this book isn't quite as good as Jennifer Egan's A Visit from the Goon Squad, it's certainly in the same ballpark (and it's a lot more fun than Primer).
Serial Season 2: You Should Listen to It (and write an essay about it)
This review is a bit late-- but I loved Serial Season 2, and while I recognize that Serial Season 1 was incredibly compelling because of the solve-it-yourself-mystery and the constant interaction between Sarah Koenig and Adnan, Season 2 is more in my wheelhouse-- Middle Eastern politics, military strategy, assessment of government bureaucracy and hierarchy, the conflict of vision between liberals and conservative, and-- most significantly-- a guy who was indignant because he couldn't wear shorts when it was really hot (same deal where I work, no AC and no relaxation of the dress code when it's 93 degrees in the classroom . . . don't get me started) and, ultimately, a main character who appears one way on the surface: a selfish deserter who-- according to Donald Trump-- deserves to be shot, but when you dig deeper into the story, systemic problems and existential questions reveal themselves . . . anyway, my students wrote synthesis essays about Serial Season 2, Hamlet and Inside Out and they were excellent-- all three works revolve around the question "Who's there?" and they all feature introverted main characters navigating the world without a solid social framework of friends and family . . . and all three characters decide to run away in order to solve their problems; just in case you want to write the essay for your own personal erudition, I've included the prompt AND a sample paragraph I wrote . . . at the very least this will give you an idea of how much high school has changed in the past decade . . . I wish when I went to school that I had the chance to connect a Shakespeare play to a popular podcast and a Pixar film: these damned kids don't know how good they have it.
Who's there?
Use Hamlet, Inside Out, and Serial Season 2 to frame an argument about one or more of the following topics: character, motivation, consciousness, art, aesthetic purpose, ethics, grief, perspective, layers in art, running away, introversion, morals, human nature, action, inaction, family, friendship, political intentions or anything else that applies to these works. These are dense pieces of art that connect to many themes-- so you should be choosing something YOU want to write about.
Use evidence from these works of art to bolster your argument. Do NOT simply summarize and compare/contrast the works, use them to help make your own point. This will require minimal amounts of summary, some logical analysis, transitions and connections, and-- most importantly-- a clear thesis as to what YOU are saying and clear topic sentences that connect to YOUR argument. Your introduction should get across this idea that you are going to explore, explain, and support.
Use at least two quotations from Hamlet, two quotations from Serial, and one quotation from Inside Out. You may mention one of more of the works in the introduction if they connect to your main idea-- but you do not have to mention all the sources in the introduction, you could just blend them into the body paragraphs. Be sure to properly cite all your quotations.
Topic sentence 1: The world does not always conform to idealized rules, and if a person does not learn how to adapt to this concept, he may suffer tragic consequences.
Hamlet believes that his mother and father's marriage was ideal; he cannot endure his mother's betrayal, so much so that he wishes his flesh would "melt" so he that he won't have to deal with the "unweeded garden" (I. ii. 133-139) that his world has become. It takes him too long to accept that his world is messy and ugly, and that he will have to adjust his morals, actions, and attitude to this new normal. Because of this, his life ends tragically. While he finally comes to the conclusion that "the readiness is all" (V. ii. 238) and accepts his fate as an angry and vengeful son, he realizes this too late. Bowe Bergdahl suffers a similar fate. Like Hamlet, he keeps his romanticized ideals intact into his young adulthood. This philosophy does not mesh well with life in the military. In Episode 1 of Serial (DUSTWUN) Bowe likens himself to "Jason Bourne." His interviewer, Mark Boal, describes Bergdahl's aspirations to be a super-soldier. The reality of Bergdahl's military experience is far different than what he imagined. OP MEST was a godforsaken shithole (literally) and the army mission there was ambiguous at best. Bergdahl could not reconcile what he thought the military should be with his actual experience, and this led him to make a rash decision.
Topic Sentence 2: People who learn how to cope with with the instability of the world when they are young are much more likely to be mentally resilient.
Angels Flight is a Funicular Railway and a Harry Bosch Novel
My apologies in advance, as I love the word "funicular" and will use it as many times as possible in this book review; Angels Flight is a two-car-narrow-gauge-funicular-railway in Los Angeles and it connects Hill Street and California Plaza; the funicular-railway is both a tourist attraction and a means for workers to get back and forth between the Downtown Historic Core and Bunker Hill . . . and it is also the title of a particularly dark Michael Connelly novel; the story begins at the funicular-railway, which is the scene of a grisly double murder: a woman and a high profile African American lawyer that specializes in racism and police brutality cases . . . this is a very sensitive investigation and Internal Affairs and the FBI work in conjunction with Bosch's team to solve the case, as many people believe that a police officer committed the crime-- as Howard Elias, the lawyer, was hated and vilified by the force-- this is in the wake of the Rodney King trial, and the city is beginning to boil over again . . . throw in a pedophile ring, a murdered twelve year old girl, complicit parents, violent interrogation tactics and indignant anger in the media, the police force, and the black community, and it sets up an ugly portrait of 1999 that is as topical today as it was then . . . and it all starts on the funicular railway.
The Test 46: What's That Thing Called?
This week on The Test, you've seen it . . . you've used it . . . you even know what it's for . . . but what is it called?
Technology: The Cause of (and Solution to) All of Life's Problems Part Two
While the technological inconvenience of the PARCC test is annoying, and corporate globalization of education is scary, neither of these things is tragic . . . a local event put things into very grim perspective; the beloved school superintendent of a nearby town was struck and killed by a 17 year old high school student . . . he was out for an early morning jog with his dog (also killed) and she was trying to catch a bus for a school trip; the superintendent lives in the town (Robinsville) and his children attend the same school system; the town closed the schools and brought in grief counselors, and the event had a sobering effect on high school students in my district as well . . . there are rumors that the girl may have been texting while she was driving, but these rumors aren't confirmed, and I haven't found a complete account of the accident, but it still opened a great deal of discussion about distracted driving . . . we give our teenagers cars and cell-phones and expect them to be able to responsibly use them, when the technology might be too much for anyone-- teen or adult-- to handle; Leon Neyfakh explains some of the research on this dilemma in an excellent article, and I think the only solution to this nightmare is a technological one: cars that drive themselves, cellphones that sense when you're driving and shut down, and the realization that for most of us, the romance of the open road is a thing of the past and that our cars and phones-- two of the technologies that people use the most-- need to be designed so they operate together, safely and intelligently.
Technology: The Cause of (and Solution to) All of Life's Problems: Part One
New Jersey schools are conducting the PARCC test, and so far it has been a logistical nightmare-- there was a statewide technical breakdown earlier in the week, forcing all schools to postpone an entire day of testing; and the test has made my high school schedule a complete trainwreck, I see the same kids (first and second period) for hours and hours every day, but barely see my other classes . . . I am hoping the frustration and anger over this year's session is the death knell for this test, and that New Jersey severs its relationship with Pearson, the giant multinational company that provides the test . . . this seems to be the trend, as the consortium of states using the PARCC is down to seven; if you want to learn a bit more about Pearson, there's a great article in Wired magazine by Anya Kamentz on this topic; the piece is mainly about Pearson's ambitions to open low-cost private schools around the world, with curriculum based on their Common Core Standards, and while there may be some benefits for developing nations in allowing this-- as it relieves them of the burden of needing to set up an efficient government subsidized free education program-- there are also some Orwellian overtones when a giant profit hungry company hoping to access the 5.5 trillion dollars in global education budgetary money asserts itself . . . here are a few things from the article to think about:
1) last year in New Jersey, Pearson "monitored the social media accounts of students taking its Common Core tests and had state officials call district superintendents to have students disciplined for talking about the exam";
2) outsourcing education to a company like Pearson, who wants to open low-cost schools in small buildings, often without play areas, libraries, or any other typical school amenities (other than computers) may result in making teaching a "low-paid, transient occupation requiring little training" as just about any trained monkey could read the Pearson approved script about the Pearson approved curriculum to the students and then get them workign on their screens, while the computers collect data on their progress;
3) and then-- even scarier-- the only check on student progress "will be the tests that Pearson itself creates" . . . yikes . . . Diane Ravitch has been a proponent of the school as being one of the bastions of local democracy, but if Pearson monopolizes the curriculum, the core standards, and the tests and essentially inserts "itself into the provision of a basic human service, Pearson is subject to neither open democratic decisionmaking nor open market competition" . . .
but I assume people smarter than me are reading the writing on the wall, and I'm sure the Wired article was timed to come out during the testing period and make people aware of some of these big-picture problems (because teachers and students and parents tend to focus on the details, all the little picture stuff: the test makes students lose instructional time, it doesn't need to be on a computer, it's harder to read on a screen, it's difficult to schedule a test where everyone needs to use a computer, kids do enough testing during the course of a year, I was with the same kids for three hours Friday, then my break was cut to ten minutes, then I had a bunch of short classes and no lunch . . . I was so bewildered that I actually forgot to eat my lunch, which has never happened in my twenty years of teaching . . . etcetera) and the fact of the matter is that even if we solve all this little logistical details, and I remember to eat my lunch, it's still very scary to entrust the standards, the curriculum, and the measurement of progress to a large corporation that's not under direction from the local school board and town . . . I think most parents will agree that we can't accurately measure what is important in education-- teachers and curriculum and schools that inspire curiosity, sensitivity, social skills, passion, diligence, and perseverance-- so we make what we can measure important . . . or we let Pearson dictate what is important and then we let Pearson design instruments to measure this: yuck.
1) last year in New Jersey, Pearson "monitored the social media accounts of students taking its Common Core tests and had state officials call district superintendents to have students disciplined for talking about the exam";
2) outsourcing education to a company like Pearson, who wants to open low-cost schools in small buildings, often without play areas, libraries, or any other typical school amenities (other than computers) may result in making teaching a "low-paid, transient occupation requiring little training" as just about any trained monkey could read the Pearson approved script about the Pearson approved curriculum to the students and then get them workign on their screens, while the computers collect data on their progress;
3) and then-- even scarier-- the only check on student progress "will be the tests that Pearson itself creates" . . . yikes . . . Diane Ravitch has been a proponent of the school as being one of the bastions of local democracy, but if Pearson monopolizes the curriculum, the core standards, and the tests and essentially inserts "itself into the provision of a basic human service, Pearson is subject to neither open democratic decisionmaking nor open market competition" . . .
but I assume people smarter than me are reading the writing on the wall, and I'm sure the Wired article was timed to come out during the testing period and make people aware of some of these big-picture problems (because teachers and students and parents tend to focus on the details, all the little picture stuff: the test makes students lose instructional time, it doesn't need to be on a computer, it's harder to read on a screen, it's difficult to schedule a test where everyone needs to use a computer, kids do enough testing during the course of a year, I was with the same kids for three hours Friday, then my break was cut to ten minutes, then I had a bunch of short classes and no lunch . . . I was so bewildered that I actually forgot to eat my lunch, which has never happened in my twenty years of teaching . . . etcetera) and the fact of the matter is that even if we solve all this little logistical details, and I remember to eat my lunch, it's still very scary to entrust the standards, the curriculum, and the measurement of progress to a large corporation that's not under direction from the local school board and town . . . I think most parents will agree that we can't accurately measure what is important in education-- teachers and curriculum and schools that inspire curiosity, sensitivity, social skills, passion, diligence, and perseverance-- so we make what we can measure important . . . or we let Pearson dictate what is important and then we let Pearson design instruments to measure this: yuck.
Juggling isn't Just for Clowns
Our varsity soccer coach made us juggle the ball at nearly every practice, despite our complaints-- you never juggle the ball in the game! no one ever juggles down the field and then scores!-- but he was ahead of his time and a fantastic coach (and recognized as such by North Brunswick star Tim Howard) and I've managed to convince my own children how important juggling the ball is and this has finally paid off-- because when kids first start juggling the ball, it's pretty ugly, they don't have much success and the ball goes flying all over the place . . . so we do it off the bounce a lot at practice; my older son Alex is twelve and he's finally mastered the two footed juggle . . . two weeks ago his high score was 25 touches in a row without letting the ball hit the ground, but now he's up to 97 and he's making it look easy because he can use both his feet with equal facility; now that he's achieved some success, he's getting slightly obsessed with it and practicing every day (and this may be in the genes, I used to juggle the ball a lot for relaxation and exercise . . . I once did 13 soccer fields without dropping the ball and another time I made it a mile around the track without letting the ball hit the rubber . . . after that I stopped juggling so incessantly because it was getting a bit weird, but I wish someone stressed earlier than high school how important juggling the ball is to develop balance and first touch).
Cooperation vs. Competition
While I love competition, I love it in particular forums (darts, cornhole, basketball, soccer, pedantry, stealing rocks from the park, miracles) and I readily acknowledge that the bulk of human interaction is cooperative-- in fact, nearly everything I do in the course of a day is a cooperative venture: driving on the highway, walking in a crowded space, holding a discussion in class, coming up with a new lesson plan, having a laugh in the office, running soccer practice, cooking dinner, dealing with the kids, and even watching TV (I only watch TV with other people, and I make a lot of comments and ask a lot of questions) and this makes me wonder about the actual benefits of competition-- while it's certainly fun, I'm not sure if it's all that significant for our species, as we are at the core, social animals; conservatives claim to love the unfettered competition in capitalism because they insist that it produces excellent results, but I wonder how many of these folks that espouse this philosophy have ever played competitive sports . . . because anyone who is competitive and has participated in competitive sports knows that the referees and umpires and officials and rules and regulations are VERY important because people tend to act fairly berserk when they are competing, which leads me to believe that competition is NOT our natural state (which is why we need yellow cards and personal fouls and the penalty box and the Geneva Conventions) and also leads me to believe that we either need to adopt a different metaphor for our economic system (and a different culture to go along with that new metaphor) or we need regulations in capitalism that allow for stronger penalties and even ejection from tha game.
Far Post > Near Post
I decided that it was time to teach my players that good things happen when you shoot and cross the ball to the far post, and while this is definitely true (it's how we scored one of our goals on Sunday) I must admit that when you try to teach a bunch of ten year olds how to do this, it's not all good . . . because teaching ten year olds anything new is very, very bad for my patience.
Habits are Powerful
I highly recommend The Power of Habit:Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business by Charles Duhigg-- it's Malcolm-Gladwell-meets-self-help-- and not only does he make good on his promise in the subtitle, but he does it in an entertaining, breezy style (with graphics!) that belies the rather disturbing hypothesis: our consciousness is mainly a bundle of cues, routines, and rewards; this is the same ground that Aristotle tread a couple thousand of years ago-- the only way towards virtue is habitual action and revision of this action towards a golden mean-- and Marvin Minsky's Society of the Mind is applicable as well; anyway, the thrust of the book is that you can't quit habits cold-turkey, you need to replace the routine or the reward with something comparable, and you need to BELIEVE you can change-- because reestablishing these routines and rewards is HARD . . . people do stop drinking and smoking every day, but not without many relapses and difficulty . . . you have to figure out an adequate replacement for the routine and reward when the cue arises; it also seems there are certain keystone habits that are crucial to changing everything, habits that cascade into other habits; Paul O'Neill realized this when he took over Alcoa and so he focused on one thing: employee safety, and vigilance in that one area caused a domino effect that changed the culture of the entire company; anyway, I've been nicotine free since the summer, and this book made me realize how I did it; I only crave chewing tobacco when I'm out past my bedtime and need sleep, and so now when I want to dip, I go home and go to sleep.
Dave's Take on East Coast Comicon
If you've never been to Comicon, I can save you the trouble: imagine the Route 1 Flea Market (the one in Kevin Smith's movie Mallrats) inside a warehouse--but remove the delicious barrel pickles and the arcade-- and now add a bunch of ersatz superheroes and a few stormtroopers; while I found this to be a bit over-stimulating, my children and their two friends loved it, and they all swear they are going to next year's event in costumes . . . and I guess if you're a kid, what's not to love: there's comic books, plastic junk, toys, weapons, posters, merch, and lots of adults dressed as Deadpool; for those of you hoping to make a pilgrimage, the Route 1 Flea Market is long gone, it was razed twenty years ago and replaced by a movie multiplex, and this multiplex often features movies about superheroes . . . but in the movies, the superheroes never seem to hang around en masse in flea markets.
The Test 45: Borderline Insanity
I don't say this often, but you must listen to this week's episode of The Test; in fact, I am giving it Dave's Coveted Platinum-Clad Guarantee of High Quality Fun and Educational Value . . . the premise is a simple one, and I won't give it away (since I introduce the concept with a musical riddle) and the ladies perform heroically, admirably, and humorously (but not knowledgeably) so give it a shot, and don't worry if you fail, because if you're listening to The Test, that means you are still alive and breathing, and that's a good thing.
Applying Things to Other Things
On Thursday in composition class, we listened to an excerpt of Freakonomics about skepticism and critical analysis (The Truth is Out There . . . Isn't It?) and in it-- 17 minutes in, if you want to listen-- a professional skeptic summarized the concept of a Type 1 Cognitive Error-- this is a false positive, and in an evolutionary sense, it's not a bad mistake to make . . . you're a hominid on the plains and you hear a rustle in the grass and even though it might be a squirrel or the wind, you err on the side of caution and head back to your cave-- because that rustle might be a saber-toothed tiger and even though it probably wasn't, by making this error, you survived to see another dawn . . . we humans are designed to make lots of these errors, because they aren't very costly (as opposed to a Type 2 Cognitive Error, where you think the reverse and decide that that rustle in the grass is probably nothing-- because it's usually nothing-- and then you get eaten . . . think about this in modern terms with an electrical socket: better to assume it's live, than actually stick a fork in it to check) and later in the day on Thursday, when I was at the high school turf for soccer practice, and I ran into a mom that I thought was someone I knew (but wasn't quite sure because she was out of context) and realized that I had possibly just sent this person an email about when I was going to pick up her son-- if it was the mom I knew-- and while I wasn't sure it was her, I instinctively knew that it was much less costly to make a Type 1 Error and say hello and tell her that I had sent her an email-- and if she turned out to be someone else, all I would suffer would be a moment of awkwardness-- but if I ignored her and she was the kid's mom, then I would come off as very rude and weird, so I addressed her and she was the person I thought she was and the interaction went as well as it could have (though I couldn't remember her name) and so I'd just like to thank the evolutionary processes that shaped my pattern seeking brain and its ability to suffer through so many Type 1 Cognitive Errors (and I'd like to apologize to all you people that I started waving at, but then-- mid-wave-- realized I didn't actually know you and so started weirdly scratching my head . . . because it's better to wave at a stranger then ignore one of your friends or acquaintances).
Caveat Chapin
The radio station should warn you before playing Harry Chapin's song "Cat's in the Cradle" -- there's are times when you don't need to be that unexpectedly reflective and maudlin (plus, I'm taking both my sons and a couple of their friends to Comicon tomorrow, so that should get me a lifetime pass from ever having to hear those lyrics again).
45.4% and 99%
If you're excited and astounded by the margin Stephen Curry broke his own three point record (402 three pointers this year, vs. 286 last year . . . so nearly a thirty percent increase . . . I think this may be one of those unbreakable records, like Dimaggio's 56 game hitting streak) then you'll enjoy listening to "The Yin and Yang of Basketball," a 99% Invisible episode that describes the evolution of the game, from James Naismith's arbitrary decision to nail the peach baskets up at the ten foot mark to the attempts in the '70's to change the game, which had become ponderous and boring and mainly consisted of big men inching closer and closer to the basket to score; while many ideas were batted around to solve the problem: "no backboard, a convex backboard, a smaller basket, a bigger ball, a smaller ball, a no scoring zone around the basket, and even a height cap, which would work like a team salary cap but using a player's height instead of wages," it was the ABA's adoption of the three-pointer that changed the aesthetics of the game and made last night's impossibe and unsurpassable record possible.
A Review of Some Key Moments in the Film Better Off Dead
One of the joys of having children is forcing them to watch movies from your youth; Saturday night we ate tacos and the entire family enjoyed a screening of Better Off Dead, and while everyone remembers the deranged paperboy who wants his two dollars and the hamburger singing Van Halen's "Everybody Wants Some," this movie has a lot more to it than those scenes and it is much weirder than I remembered . . . here are some moments you might have forgotten:
1. Ricky's mom drinks primer and blows up;
2. the Asian brothers with a PA system mounted in their car;
3. one of the Asian brothers is mute, the other speake like Howard Cosell;
4. Lane tries to commit suicide multiple times;
5. Lane's eight year old brother learns to pick up "trashy women" from a book;
6. Lane's eight year old brother builds a space shuttle from household parts, and it works;
7. Lane transforms from a klutz to a ski-pro in the span of a musical montage;
8. Lane's car transforms from a two hundred dollar heap of junk to a perfectly restored 1967 Camaro SS with a shiny paint job, also in the span of a musical montage;
9. Monique the French exchange student next door is both an an ace mechanic and a professional ski-instructor;
10. Ricky and Lane duel with ski-poles over Monique the French-exchange student;
11. Ricky's mom creates a living slime mold when she botches a recipe, she also cooks a stew that contains a very large living crustacean and has waving cephalopod tentacles;
12. though Monique can actually speak English-- a fact she has hidden from Ricky and his mom-- she substitutes "testicles" for the word "tentacles";
13. Charles de Mar (Curtis Armstrong) wears a top hat the entire movie and-- in an attempt to get high-- snorts both jello and snow;
14. at the end of the movie, Lane and Monique somehow drive the perfectly restored Camaro into Dodger stadium, park it on home plate, and make-out (the stadium is empty and Lane has his saxophone).
1. Ricky's mom drinks primer and blows up;
2. the Asian brothers with a PA system mounted in their car;
3. one of the Asian brothers is mute, the other speake like Howard Cosell;
4. Lane tries to commit suicide multiple times;
5. Lane's eight year old brother learns to pick up "trashy women" from a book;
6. Lane's eight year old brother builds a space shuttle from household parts, and it works;
7. Lane transforms from a klutz to a ski-pro in the span of a musical montage;
8. Lane's car transforms from a two hundred dollar heap of junk to a perfectly restored 1967 Camaro SS with a shiny paint job, also in the span of a musical montage;
9. Monique the French exchange student next door is both an an ace mechanic and a professional ski-instructor;
10. Ricky and Lane duel with ski-poles over Monique the French-exchange student;
11. Ricky's mom creates a living slime mold when she botches a recipe, she also cooks a stew that contains a very large living crustacean and has waving cephalopod tentacles;
12. though Monique can actually speak English-- a fact she has hidden from Ricky and his mom-- she substitutes "testicles" for the word "tentacles";
13. Charles de Mar (Curtis Armstrong) wears a top hat the entire movie and-- in an attempt to get high-- snorts both jello and snow;
14. at the end of the movie, Lane and Monique somehow drive the perfectly restored Camaro into Dodger stadium, park it on home plate, and make-out (the stadium is empty and Lane has his saxophone).
Plastic Fantastic Anaphora
I have a dream . . . I have a dream that one day in my kitchen cabinet there will only be one brand of plastic container . . . I have a dream that there will be only one brand of plastic container and whichever lid that I choose will fit any container that I choose-- of the proper shape-- I'm not an idiot . . . I have a dream that I will no longer waste my time searching for the correct brand of lid-- Tupperware, Rubbermaid, Ziploc, Sterilite, Gladware-- to fit the proper brand of container . . . I have a dream to streamline and expedite our plastic container cabinet. . . but when I told my family about this dream, my oldest son said, "Dad, that's the saddest dream I've ever heard."
Fight the Power
I urge you to listen to the 99 Percent Invisible episode "Flying Food"; it describes the relatively recent history of food advertising, and how innovators learned to make food look incredibly appealing-- to make food a delicious and dynamic subject that actually produces a visceral cravings in viewers-- but the important thing to remember, if you don't want to start salivating for burgers and fries every time you watch TV (because we eat WAY too much meat . . . for more on that topic, watch this TED talk by Times food writer Mark Bittman) then you need to remember that the actor who takes a bite out of the perfectly prepared burger and makes that orgasmically satisfied face, probably did that sixty-four times-- until he got the face just right-- and all the times previous, he spit the half chewed bite of burger and bun into a bucket-- the infamous spit bucket-- and if you can think of this image every time you see a delicious food image on TV, the image of the actor spitting a half-chewed bit of that burger or rib or donut into the spit bucket next to the set, a metal bucket slowing filling with half-digested chunks of meat and bread, covered in saliva-- then you are short-circuiting a habit routine . . . and to learn about this, read Charles Duhigg's book The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business; you'll learn how to change the middle portion of the cue/routine/reward subroutines that are happening all the time in our lives; in this particular instance, you'll get the same cue-- a commercial with delicious looking food-- but you will go into a different routine, where you talk graphically about the spit bucket with whoever is in the room, and the reward will be that you don't salivate and desire the unhealthy food, but instead share a trade secret that might help others fight the power of this advertising as well (but you'll actually probably come off as a righteous pedant, which is what Dave is all about).
The Test 44: More Shows!
If there's one thing that Stacey and I have learned while making forty-plus episodes of The Test, it's that Cunningham loves shows and knows her shows . . . so give this one a shot, try to identify the TV Theme Songs, listen to Stacey sing, absorb Cunningham's wisdom on what to watch, and see how discerning your ears are . . . because while these shows are popular, their theme songs are tough to identify out-of-context.
An Open Letter to US Youth Soccer:
Dear US Youth Soccer,
While I recognize this as a "first world problem," your top-down bureaucratic decision to align US Youth soccer with the rest of the world, and switch from school year age ranges to calendar year age ranges is an arbitrary pain-in-my-ass (are you also going to dictate that we use the metric system?) and while this change could have been implemented with the youngest teams, and you could have "grandfathered" the older teams, instead you are tearing apart every team, everywhere; in larger towns, this isn't as much of a problem, as they have more participants and so it is easier to do a complete reset and conduct new try-outs, but this dictate truly punishes the small town coaches who have cobbled together competitive teams and now have to either play them "up" a year, which isn't good for anybody-- especially my team, which is generally undersized to begin with-- or send some kids packing (who probably won't have another place to go) and so while I recognize that you want to align yourself with international soccer as far as small sided training, which is beneficial to players, I don't understand why shifting age ranges is going to benefit any player in particular, and it is certainly going to hurt a number of teams, and give a number of volunteer travel coaches a huge headache . . . in fact, I'd far prefer adopting the metric system to dealing with the logistics of this; perhaps you will reconsider . . .
Irately,
Dave.
While I recognize this as a "first world problem," your top-down bureaucratic decision to align US Youth soccer with the rest of the world, and switch from school year age ranges to calendar year age ranges is an arbitrary pain-in-my-ass (are you also going to dictate that we use the metric system?) and while this change could have been implemented with the youngest teams, and you could have "grandfathered" the older teams, instead you are tearing apart every team, everywhere; in larger towns, this isn't as much of a problem, as they have more participants and so it is easier to do a complete reset and conduct new try-outs, but this dictate truly punishes the small town coaches who have cobbled together competitive teams and now have to either play them "up" a year, which isn't good for anybody-- especially my team, which is generally undersized to begin with-- or send some kids packing (who probably won't have another place to go) and so while I recognize that you want to align yourself with international soccer as far as small sided training, which is beneficial to players, I don't understand why shifting age ranges is going to benefit any player in particular, and it is certainly going to hurt a number of teams, and give a number of volunteer travel coaches a huge headache . . . in fact, I'd far prefer adopting the metric system to dealing with the logistics of this; perhaps you will reconsider . . .
Irately,
Dave.
History Repeats Itself (to Dave's Chagrin)
I was walking the dog this morning in the predawn darkness--staring at the sidewalk, thinking my early morning thoughts about the day-- and then my arm was suddenly horizontal, my dog lunging violently at something . . . but I was able to hold the leash and keep him from chasing whatever it was he wanted to chase . . . it took my eyes a moment to adjust to the lack of light, and then I saw that we nearly walked into a deer-- it was a few feet away and staring at us, not moving at all-- so I pulled Sirius to the other side of the street and kept my eyes peeled for more deer; after a few minutes, I lapsed back into my own head, and that's when Sirius lunged and barked again-- scaring the crap out of me again -- and this time the deer was above my head, on the lawn of my friend's front yard, which is seven feet or so above the sidewalk; the moral to the story is this: at least it wasn't a skunk.
Learning Stuff the Old Fashioned Way
Each morning during the homeroom video announcements at my high school, there is an introductory snippet of a song-- and it's different every day and it's usually a rock song and it's usually from the '90's and I can usually identify it, but the musical fragment from Tuesday eluded me . . . the only lyrics I could make out were "naa naa na na na na naaa" and while I knew the song and knew it was an alternative rock song from my era, I couldn't identify the artist or the title, and-- despite enlisting the aid of the internet and my honors Philosophy class-- there was no figuring it out . . . I will warn you that it's an internet black hole if you Google songs with "na na na" in the lyrics, and so I had to give up and do it the old-fashioned way (remember the old-fashioned way? if you didn't know the name of the guy that had a cameo in the movie, then you had to wait until you ran into your friend who knew all about movies and ask him) and so when I saw the teacher that runs the produces the morning announcements in the hallway, I went up to him and asked him if he knew the song, and he did . . . so take your guess and then follow the link to find out if you're right.
Robots vs. Selfish Drunk People
I recently watched the movie Ex Machina, and I loved it-- especially the "villain," a super-intelligent, super-rich, super-selfish tech wizard who spends his time drunk and alone on his giant estate, building strong AI robots-- which look like beautiful women, of course; I also just finished Evelyn Waugh's Brideshead Revisited: The Sacred & Profane Memories of Captain Charles Ryder-- the novel doesn't really contain a villain, per se, unless it's nostalgia for the affected British upper class and all their traditions and foibles . . . but it does contain lots of drunken selfish people and serves as a reminder that there's nothing all that recent (the book was published in 1945) about misdirected intelligence, ethical egoism, louche sensibility, and a general malaise with existing society and morals-- a desire to throw away everything previous and move into a new era, even if it is a rank and gross one-- and the haunting grip that the previous has on the present; I recommend both the book and the movie, they are smart, fun, thought-provoking, and weird.
If You Can Measure It, Then You Will Care About It
I'm not sure where I first heard the sentiment "we can't measure what we care about, so we care about what we can measure" and when I Googled the quotation I found several places where it might have originated-- but it sounds like one of those things that is impossible to pinpoint; anyway, I think it applies to both education and sports, and I'm going to keep it in mind as a teacher and a coach, and I think you should keep it in mind as well (in fact, there will be a quiz on this quotation in seven years time).
The Test 43: Dave Speaks for the Trees
This week on The Test, I speak for the trees . . . because if I don't speak for the trees, who will?
How Do YOU Spell the "C" Word?
Thursday in the English Department, lines were drawn, alliances were formed, vitriol was spewed, judgments (judgements?) were made, umbrage was taken, and words were exchanged that may never be forgotten . . . the vociferous and combative debate centered around how to spell the "c" word, not the profane one, the one synonymous with lousy, and so your choices were:
A. crummy
B. crumby
and nearly the entire department agreed that the proper spelling is "crumby," but there were two dissenters-- Kevin and myself-- and I pointed out to the Crumby Camp that the dissenters happened to be the only two red-blooded American male coaches in department-- besides Terry, and no one asked his opinion on this-- and that the Crumby Crew were a bunch of effete, British literature loving Anglophiles (the type of people who like to go to the theatre and pronounce judgement on the colours of the costumes) and it turns out that Kevin and I were correct, of course-- crummy is the proper spelling, although "crumby" was fine in 19th century England . . . which only fortifies our position, since we reside in New Jersey and Bruce Springsteen would never say "I'm pulling out of this crumby town."
A. crummy
B. crumby
and nearly the entire department agreed that the proper spelling is "crumby," but there were two dissenters-- Kevin and myself-- and I pointed out to the Crumby Camp that the dissenters happened to be the only two red-blooded American male coaches in department-- besides Terry, and no one asked his opinion on this-- and that the Crumby Crew were a bunch of effete, British literature loving Anglophiles (the type of people who like to go to the theatre and pronounce judgement on the colours of the costumes) and it turns out that Kevin and I were correct, of course-- crummy is the proper spelling, although "crumby" was fine in 19th century England . . . which only fortifies our position, since we reside in New Jersey and Bruce Springsteen would never say "I'm pulling out of this crumby town."
Three Thousand Words
I am usually articulate enough to portray The Life of Dave with words alone, but sometimes only photographs will do the trick:
1) one of the few surviving photos from our hike up Glen Onoko Falls;
2) the spot that I mistook for the men's locker room;
3) a photo of our very tired dog after our very long hike to the Hickory Run Boulder Field . . . normally he would never deign to such humiliation.
1) one of the few surviving photos from our hike up Glen Onoko Falls;
3) a photo of our very tired dog after our very long hike to the Hickory Run Boulder Field . . . normally he would never deign to such humiliation.
T Junctions
Charlie Jane Ander's novel genre-mash-up novel All the Birds in the Sky uses the love affair between a witch and a techno-geek as a metaphor to pit science against magic . . . and while the book has its moments, it's ponderous at times-- the writing is vivid, but I didn't particularly care for the characters; the book does portray earth at an interesting T Junction: the scientists are abandoning ship while the more mystical folks are trying to find a way to save what's left of everything on earth-- not just the humans-- and this portion of the metaphor rings very true, with the presidential election looming and two roads diverging in the yellow wood for our country and the world to travel . . . a slightly less vivid and rather technical (but sort of readable) economic explanation of this is presented by Mohamed A. El-Erian in his book The Only Game in Town: Central Banks, Instability, and Avoiding the Next Collapse . . . he believes that central banks functioned as critical policy actors, and while they fell asleep at the wheel before 2008, they actually steered us away from total financial collapse . . . but they can't keep it up, and if we don't change political and institutional policies we could be headed down a path of "lost generations, worsening inequality, spreading poverty and political extremism" but if political and financial policy follows some simple guidelines, and there is stronger "multilateral policy coordination" then the "second road of the T junction" leads to much better economic and social outcomes . . . I'm not going to pretend I understood everything in the book, but I did like his ending analogy that incorporated the Ali/Foreman "Rumble in the Jungle" fight and the two possible outcomes predicted by the Ali camp and subsequent training strategies . . . this I understood; rather than read the book, if I were you, I would listen to El-Erian discuss the premise on Slate Money . . . he gives a clear synopsis and you might get hooked on the show, which is generally a lot of fun.
Snakes on a Homonym (Parts 1 and 2)
My boys and their buddy Ben went to the salamander path on Tuesday, to turn over some rocks and find salamanders, but--to their surprise-- they found more reptiles than amphibians: six garter snakes to four red-backed salamanders; they brought the snakes back to the house, marched into the kitchen and -- to my wife's surprise-- tossed them on the counter (which is a geometric plane, of course . . . I know puns are gauche but I couldn't resist . . . and I like to imagine the scene like this: my wife yelling at the kids, Samuel Jackson style, while gesturing at the counter with one of those math-teacher rubber-tipped chalkboard pointers, "There are too many motherf*#$ing snakes on this motherf%$ing plane!") and then they removed the snakes from the kitchen, put them in a cooler, and wheeled them around town to show their friends (and released them in Ben's yard later that afternoon) but they neglected to inform my wife that though they had brought six snakes into the kitchen, they only managed to remove five of them, and so when we got back from soccer practice, there was a snake on the counter under a clear tupperware container-- when my wife started cooking it crept out from behind the spices to enjoy the heat of the burner and she trapped it . . . it was a cute little guy, just enough of a snake on that motherf*&^ing plane (and I was going to title this sentence Snakes on a Plane, but I mentioned this anecdote to an English teaching colleague and he said, "Ah . . . a homonym" and I realized that the only title more annoying than my initial idea is the current one).
Problem . . . Solution . . . Problem . . . Solution . . . Problem
I am sure you have had the problem of what to do with your keys when you drive somewhere to go for a run-- normally I take the car key off my giant keychain full of keys and then leave all those other keys in the glove compartment, and tie my car key to my waistband cinch string . . . I've even stuck the key in my sock (I'm afraid to put it in my pocket because it could fall out while I'm running) but I figured out a much more elegant solution-- I laced the my headphone cord through the key ring and put the key in my pocket, attached to my iPod-- so there was no way for the key to fall out of my pocket because it was attached to my iPod . . . but then when I got back to the car, though the key opened the door, it wouldn't turn in the ignition because the steering wheel was stuck at a weird angle and locked in place . . . and apparently the solution to this is to take both hands and turn the wheel in whatever direction feels springy, and then turn the key-- but I was able to get it to work by pushing up on the steering wheel with my knees while simultaneously turning the key . . . next time I will run in the park by my house and avoid all this crap . . . because I recognize the irony of driving somewhere to go for a run (instead of driving to the gym, I should put my van in neutral and push it up and down my street).
What Are the Odds?
On the way home from our trip to the Poconos, my wife asked me what the mileage was on the oil-change sticker and I said "97,629" and then I pressed the little dashboard peg so I could check the mileage on the odometer, and --miraculously-- it was exactly the same number: 97,629; this seemed impossibly fortuitous, and-- after some celebrating-- we decided we should play those numbers in the lottery . . . but on further reflection, this may be one of those things that seems extraordinary, but is actually fairly likely . . . because while we get the oil changed every four thousand miles or so, we don't think about changing the oil until a good three or four months after the last oil change-- which is approximately three or four thousand miles of driving, so if it was completely random, then it would be a one in four thousand chance, but it's not-- in fact-- it might be closer to a one in five hundred chance, if you think about the window of when the subject of an oil-change comes up versus where the odometer might be . . . so I think we'll skip playing the lottery and put the money towards the oil change.
We Really Did Hike Glen Onoko Falls
Although we had a lovely hike up the Glen Onoko Falls Trail in Lehigh Gorge State Park (next to Jim Thorpe, PA) there isn't much evidence-- my wife took a number of pictures of myself, the dog and the boys as we climbed the treacherously steep, rocky trail-- and there are numerous photo ops as there is literally another waterfall at every turn in the path, each more scintillating than the next . . . and we even had a nice lady take a family picture by the sign (which contains dire warnings about the trail: hike at your own risk, sections of the trail are steep and treacherous, hikers have been seriously injured and killed, wear proper hiking shoes, use extreme caution, etcetera) but then my wife trusted our oldest son to select the best photos from the many on the phone, as he insisted he had a shortcut method of pruning all the pictures . . . but he didn't know his ass from his elbow and instead of keeping the photos he wanted, he permanently deleted them . . . but I got my revenge on Sunday when we went to Hickory Run State Park to see the Boulder Field; my wife had never seen the field, a terminal moraine created by a glacier during the last ice age-- 18 acres of various sized boulders, a lake of boulders in the midst of a pine and hickory evergreen forest-- but the kids and I had been there years ago; my older son insisted that we drove there the last time we went-- but I couldn't find any driving directions, so instead we hiked three and a half miles over rocky terrain on the eponymously named Boulder Field Trail to get to the field, and when we (finally!) arrived, my son noticed a parking lot on the opposite side, and his loud complaints jogged my brain and I vaguely remembered driving down a gravel road to get to the site-- but I insisted it was far more fun to hike it (and the dog certainly thought so) but on the return to the car, by mile seven my left knee hurt and my feet were sore and everyone was very hungry . . . luckily, Woody's Country House was open, if you go there, get the chili.
The Test 42: Literary Stuff
This week on The Test, Stacey teaches Cunningham and me a few things about her literary heroes; if you listen to this episode, I promise you will learn some anecdotes you can brandish while you drink martinis at a posh cocktail party with your hyper-educated, effete, literary friends . . . along the way, I try to make some half-baked jokes, and Cunningham decides that in order to inspire her literary muse, she may have to live inside a computer or journey to Mars . . . play along at home, have fun, and remember: in order to seem educated, you don't have to actually read the book, you just need to know some literary stuff.
Oops, I Did It Again?
I've got a plethora of excuses for my actions yesterday (though my wife is accepting none of them) but apparently I got naked in a public area again, though I didn't realize it; this time, at least I was out-of-state-- at the H2Oooohh! Waterpark in the Poconos-- and my first excuse is that I hate indoor water parks: I hate the noise and the echoes of the noise, I hate being damp, I hate how hot and crowded it is, and I hate the claustrophobia . . . so I was mentally bracing myself for a rough time, and I wasn't paying attention to details-- and so after we got our bracelets and proceeded through the glass doors, my wife handed me my bathing suit and spandex, and I went into "changing mode" and found a bench surrounded by lockers, and while I did find it weird that there was a big glass window, and that the people in line could see into the area, conveniently, there were no people near this section of the window, and there weren't any people around me-- so I whipped off my shorts and boxers and quickly put on my spandex and bathing suit . . . and while it should have seemed strange to me that I was in the same area as my wife, I didn't really count her as someone who shouldn't see me naked, and there were no other females around, and the floor was nice and dry and there was no one anywhere near this bench, and-- like I said-- there were lockers, so I went into "locker room mode," but apparently I was still in a very public and visible area (so much so that my wife couldn't stop laughing for the next twenty minutes and actually took a photo of the spot where I changed) and while I don't think anyone saw me, my wife insists that a couple of teenage boys witnessed the incident, and were like "WTF!" but this can neither be confirmed nor denied, and the worst part is that I've been to this waterpark several times before and know where the men's locker room is, but my brain somehow blanked this information out . . . I don't know why I went into auto-pilot like this, but perhaps I was excited because the floor was so nice and dry in this area, and inside the actual men's changing room the floor is wet and damp everywhere . . . anyway, my story is that I changed so quickly that no one saw anything out of the ordinary, but my wife isn't buying this one bit.
Quest for Pizza . . . Old Bridge Edition
My Quest for Pizza continues . . . my friend Stacey, who is an Old Bridge local, recommended General Saloon and the pizza is pretty good: thin crust, yummy bacon, but a little too much cheese . . . I think if we requested light on the cheese this pizza would have been excellent, and it was quite good despite the cheesiness . . . the place itself has a pleasant and comfortable pub-like vibe-- you can bring the kids for lunch and it looks like a fun place to see a band at night; after a hike with the dog at John A. Philips Preserve, I tried another highly recommended Old Bridge pizza spot: Krispy Pizza . . . and I love the name-- there's nothing more American than spelling shit wrong-- and the pizza is good as well, thin crust . . . my plain slice was a tad greasy, but still very tasty; the chicken on the buffalo chicken slice was awesome, crumbly and tender, and the sauce was fairly spicy . . . but Shanahan's Bakery is still my favorite place to grab a slice in the vicinity . . . who will oust them?
Incentives and The Prize
I'd like to know what economic lessons Tim Harford would find behind Mark Zuckerberg, Cory Booker, and Chris Christie's attempt to transform the Newark school system; Zuckerberg donated 100 million dollars, Cory Booker-- a passionate proponent of charter schools-- raised sums to match this money, and Chris Christie saw this as an opportunity to attack the unions; Dale Russakoff explains all this and more in her book The Prize: Who's In Charge of America's Schools? and the morals of the story are complex, ugly, ambiguous, messy, and occasionally inspirational:
1) there is no magic bullet to fix education in an impoverished city;
2) top down directives, even if they use excellent jargon, don't change broken infrastructure;
3) you can't move kids around willy-nilly in a city like Newark to fill charter schools-- because the kids left behind have no where to learn, and the kids who get moved may have issues with with where they are moved-- gang turf, lack of busing, etcetera;
4) if you don't consult the community before implementing giant initiatives that involve their kids, they will feel angry and oppressed, especially if these directives are ordered by a white superintendent in a primarily black city;
5) you can be a rock-star or a mayor, but you can't be a rock-star mayor;
6) it's difficult to measure what parents and administrators find important in education, so the bureaucracy tends to find important what is easy to measure-- which is usually test scores-- and this can bite you in the ass;
7) consultants know how to bill hours and make a shitload of money from a situation like this (and it seems Zuckerberg has learned this lesson and is trying a different approach in the San Francisco bay area);
8) kids in a city like Newark need all kinds of additional support besides teaching, many of them have experienced horrible tragedy and violence, and they need counseling and psychological support as much as they need reading and math review;
9) Newark's billion dollar education budget is the "prize" sought after by politicians, unions, government and citizens . . . and there is going to be greed and corruption surrounding this much money;
10) there are superb teachers and students in the current system, and smart parents shepherd their kids through, but it's difficult to get rid of poor teachers because of union rules;
11) politicians and philanthropists will eventually lose interest and move on with their lives, but the parents and the kids and the community remains-- so change has to come from the bottom-up, and it needs to come from people that are going to stay in the community-- Booker went on to a senate position, Christie had to deal with Bridgegate and his presidential campaign, and Zuckerberg moved on to a new project-- meanwhile, the two hundred million dollar donation was a drop in the bucket, and got eaten up by consultants, contract negotiations with the union, and some charter schools-- but the main infrastructure in Newark is still ancient and crumbling, teachers still go to work in that environment, and students attempt to learn there . . . and the work needs to be done one student and one teacher and one classroom and one school building at a time, which is far more boring than radical, transformational top-down change;
12) if you want to understand some of the complexities of educational reform, read this book.
1) there is no magic bullet to fix education in an impoverished city;
2) top down directives, even if they use excellent jargon, don't change broken infrastructure;
3) you can't move kids around willy-nilly in a city like Newark to fill charter schools-- because the kids left behind have no where to learn, and the kids who get moved may have issues with with where they are moved-- gang turf, lack of busing, etcetera;
4) if you don't consult the community before implementing giant initiatives that involve their kids, they will feel angry and oppressed, especially if these directives are ordered by a white superintendent in a primarily black city;
5) you can be a rock-star or a mayor, but you can't be a rock-star mayor;
6) it's difficult to measure what parents and administrators find important in education, so the bureaucracy tends to find important what is easy to measure-- which is usually test scores-- and this can bite you in the ass;
7) consultants know how to bill hours and make a shitload of money from a situation like this (and it seems Zuckerberg has learned this lesson and is trying a different approach in the San Francisco bay area);
8) kids in a city like Newark need all kinds of additional support besides teaching, many of them have experienced horrible tragedy and violence, and they need counseling and psychological support as much as they need reading and math review;
9) Newark's billion dollar education budget is the "prize" sought after by politicians, unions, government and citizens . . . and there is going to be greed and corruption surrounding this much money;
10) there are superb teachers and students in the current system, and smart parents shepherd their kids through, but it's difficult to get rid of poor teachers because of union rules;
11) politicians and philanthropists will eventually lose interest and move on with their lives, but the parents and the kids and the community remains-- so change has to come from the bottom-up, and it needs to come from people that are going to stay in the community-- Booker went on to a senate position, Christie had to deal with Bridgegate and his presidential campaign, and Zuckerberg moved on to a new project-- meanwhile, the two hundred million dollar donation was a drop in the bucket, and got eaten up by consultants, contract negotiations with the union, and some charter schools-- but the main infrastructure in Newark is still ancient and crumbling, teachers still go to work in that environment, and students attempt to learn there . . . and the work needs to be done one student and one teacher and one classroom and one school building at a time, which is far more boring than radical, transformational top-down change;
12) if you want to understand some of the complexities of educational reform, read this book.
Life isn't Fair (but Sometimes It Is Logical)
Tim Harford's The Logic of Life: The Rational Economics of an Irrational World is another gem, especially if you're a fan of Freakonomics style logic; he examines how incentives often do the reverse of what is intended-- the existence of nicotine patches encourage teens to smoke, too many women in big cities discourage marriage, mild preferences create neighborhoods that would suggest virulent racism, it's more beneficial to research the kind of coffee maker or car you're going to buy than the next presidential candidate, your boss is probably an overpaid dope who doesn't know how hard you work (and that makes perfect sense) and the best way to solve overpopulation might be to move to the city and have six kids . . . I don't have the time or energy to explain the logic behind all these conclusions, but the book is smart and worth a read, though I must warn you, it starts in a rather salaciously concupiscent manner (reminiscent of Superfreakonomics).
This Is Difficult to Articulate
I feel like on some level, in some space in my brain, I am very, very smart . . . but I just can't remember things, or think of examples when I need them, or put things into words very well . . . does everyone else feel like this too?
The Test 41: Zombies (and Zombeavers)
This week on The Test, Stacey collaborates with special guest Liz collaborates on a phenomenal and comprehensive zombie quiz-- Dave and Cunningham struggle (despite Cunningham's rather ambitious prediction that she will receive an A+) but learn that they know more about zombies than they thought; this is a great test for both newbs and aficionados, and, not only that, Stacey gets her comeuppance from the Voice of God (probably because of her frequent use of profanity) so give this one a shot and see how you fare.
I Can't Get the Slime into the Tube
I was very excited to use the bottle of Slime Tube Sealant that I purchased, as Slime Tube Sealant prevents and repairs flat tires, seals instantly and uses non-toxic fibro-seal technology, which is exactly what I needed to fix the slow leak in the back tire of my mountain bike, but, despite repeated efforts with various tools (including a pair of needle-nosed pliers and the top of the Slime Tube Sealant bottle, which claims to be a device for exactly this purpose) I couldn't get past instruction #2, even with help from a Youtube video-- and if you can't remove the valve core from the Schrader air valve, then you can't get the Slime Tube Sealant into the tire tube . . . so it's back to the bike shop for me-- I'm sure they've got a tool for this sort of thing, and I'm sure I'll feel like an idiot when I explain that I couldn't remove the Schrader valve core from my bike's back tire (even with the included tool) and that I couldn't motivate myself to remove the back tire of my bike and prize the tire off the rim and switch the tube myself, because I'm lazy and get no satisfaction from working with my hands because I'm an effete useless bastard who just wants to ride his bike but doesn't wanted to do any of the maintenance associated with riding said bike.
They Skipped This One in Driver's Ed
Obviously drunk-driving and texting-while-driving are bad news, but neither of these is as dangerous as driving with a large hairy black spider on your leg (and the worst thing about this incident is that in my attempt to kill this spider, I endangered my own life and the well-being of everyone in the vicinity of my car, but I didn't actually squash it-- I was travelling forty-five miles an hour--,and it scurried under the floor mat, whereabouts unknown, lurking, waiting for another chance to clamber up my leg and cause more mayhem on the highway).
Reverse Allusion
The weather has warmed up, and this has inspired me to continue my project of grabbing large rocks from the river during low tide, putting them in my backpack, and then carrying them up the hill to my backyard, where I use the stones for decorative mulch and ivy barriers . . . my friend Stacey calls this maneuver The Reverse Shawshank.
'tis the Season to Be Cranky
It is once again time for my semi-annual Daylight Saving Time Rant, but this year I'm happy to report that I've found one kindred soul who empathizes with my pain and suffering-- my friend Ann; her husband takes the same stance as my wife about Daylight Saving Time: it's only and hour, stop complaining . . . but Ann is of my mind, she feels the same anger at this pointless top-down bureaucratic time shift, and suffers the same anxiety and discomfort from the lost hour, which won't be found for six months-- and by then, I'll have adjusted, and it will screw me up all over again, and I don't know why we can't move the time 30 minutes ahead and leave it forever, or do a Daylight Saving Month and move the clocks two minutes a day, so no one is inconvenienced (we have computers) and while everyone agreed it would be bad news if Ann and I were married, as the dynamic combination of our indignance, suffering, criticizing, complaining, and general disgust would create a whirling black hole of negativity that would suck up everyone within twenty miles of the nexus, I think that it is good that we provide some yin in the yang of our respective marriages . . . nothing is more boring than two positive, practical, efficient, and focused yangs . . . so this Daylight Saving Time, let's celebrate the darkness, the yin, and those people who are willing to speak and complain and criticize and whine about this antiquated, absurd, and ultimately pointless practice.
Musical Theater as Punishment
My son Ian got in some serious trouble Friday night and his consequence for his various infractions is a two week grounding; for the first night of his punishment, I forced him to attend the school play: a musical version of Little Women . . . I didn't really want to go (because I hate musical theater) but I had several students in the show and the added incentive that I could torture my son was enough motivation for me to spend my Saturday night with a bunch of teenagers and their parents in a high school auditorium-- and though we both didn't care much for the plot-- girl stuff-- Ian and I did both concede that the actors were really talented . . . and the next time Ian screws up I'm taking him to the opera.
The Test 40: More Theme Songs
This week on The Test, Cunningham administers another TV (and a movie!) Theme Song Quiz; Stacey and I do better than the first time around (but that's not saying much) and I am chastised by the Voice of God for making stuff up; as a bonus, in order to educate young Cunningham, Stacey sings the theme song from an ancient TV sitcom (and I join in).
Pleasant Rhyming Surprise
I was walking the dog Friday afternoon and a middle school girl nearly ran into me-- she was looking down intently at an object in her hands-- and I assumed she was staring at her cell-phone, and my brain started on its normal path-- cursing technology and its death grip on the youth-- but then I noticed she wasn't looking into a tiny screen, she was thoughtfully perusing a perfectly formed pine cone, and this made me very happy.
Something to Teach Your Kids: Money Talks and Bullshit Walks
While my parental proclamation declaring that my children may only watch approved and highly rated documentaries on school nights has predictably fallen by the wayside, I was able to resurrect a bastardized version of the decree on Wednesday night; instead of allowing my kids to continue their obsessive viewing of Family Guy on Netflix, I forced them to watch Spinal Tap . . . and while they didn't laugh as hard as I did, they admitted that they enjoyed the film, especially when Derek Smalls gets stuck inside the pod and when Nigel Tufnel reunites the band for a reunion tour in Japan . . . the next movie I'm forcing my kids to watch: The Breakfast Club.
Pizza Ambitions
The Freakonomics episode "The Cheeseburger Diet" has inspired me to eat pizza from a wider variety of establishments, and while I'm not as ambitious as Emily O'Mara, i.e. I haven't created a rubric to judge the pizza I eat, I do have a couple of recommendations: oddly, Shanahan's Bakery (in Milltown) makes fantastic pizza-- thin and delicious crust, sweet sauce, and just the right amount of cheese . . . and they also have lots of specialty slices; Brothers Pizza (in East Brunswick) was highly recommended by the locals, and I really liked their square cut "Grandma Style"-- which reminded me of Rhode Island pizza (no cheese) but I didn't really care for the mushroom slice-- canned mushrooms, doughy crust, and too much cheese . . . and while both of these places can certainly compete with my two mainstays, Mancini's-- which is in East Brunswick-- and Attilio's in Edison, I've yet to find pizza as good as the thin crust pie at Pete and Elda's in Neptune.
Expatriates
I remember when we first went to live and teach overseas, an older international teacher told me, "Don't expect anyone back at home to care or understand what it's like to leave the United States and live in a foreign place . . . when you go home for the summer, they're just going to tell you how many rolls of toilet paper they bought at Costco," and while I found this to be a bit of an exaggeration (while my family wasn't particularly curious about our life in Syria, my friends and colleagues were generally interested in my stories, anecdotes, and analysis . .. or maybe they just pretended) and while I thought I had forgotten much of day-to-day life overseas was like, Janice Y. K. Lee's novel The Expatriates brought it all back for me; it's the story of three expatriate women in Hong Kong, and while it's definitely chick-lit and examines the inner lives of these women in detail-- and makes some statements about the inner lives of women in general-- it is also a story of the fishbowl world of the expatriate community and how that world operates . . . there is the sentiment while you are there, far from home, that the people you are with are (and will be) the most significant people in your life-- and Lee takes a sardonic look at that struggle to fit into this new community, how difficult that is for adults, but there is also the realization that "no one back home cares . . . there's an initial shallow interest in what life is like abroad, but most Americans aren't actually interested at all," and not only did the novel detail and articulate that theme, which is near and dear to me, but there's also Mercy Cho-- the Korean-American Columbia graduate who is so ironically American that she sees the "meta" in everything, despite the tragedy that surrounds her, she remains detached; you don't have to have been an expatriate to enjoy this rather intense (but also humorous) novel, but it certainly helps.
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