The Storm

We got snowed in the day after Christmas.  Our cars couldn't move for three days.  We spent time with the neighbors, the people we hadn't seen since the block party three months before.  We had no time deadlines.  Thankfully, we still had 4G service while shoveling!

School Daze

After a few years, public education almost numbed me into retirement.  I stopped playing guitar, journaling, skiing, surfing and studying.  With every hoop that the Board of Education threw at me, I went in cold, striving for the minimum.  They never had a bearing on being in front of a classroom, only designed by someone who never taught or was looking for a promotion.  I always felt an outsider in the system but grew comfortable with the increasing paycheck and summer vacations.  In coasting, bureaucracy (I always have to look up the spelling) finally caught up and spit me out of the system.  The manner was underhanded and disheartening.  It should and will be challenged, but it awakened me and I can now venture outside again: explore, learn, and find new experiences.



Then it took me back!  I arrived at the hearing to a preemptive deal that would restore my position with a reevaluation after one year with some questionable stipulations.  With fresh perspective and a clear set of goals, I can be an effective teacher for the time I will be working.  The job is a means to an end with the perks of a solid department to work within, and continued access to the pool and basketball courts. 

Local Economies

I am reading a fascinating investigative story, "The Snakehead" by Patrick Radden Keefe, on the Fujienese human smuggling and gang enterprises in Chinatown from the 1980's and 90's and just realized something.  We are known as a nation of immigrants and each person I have ever met in the states (except one Navajo student I had out in Utah years ago) can trace just a few generations back to ancestors from some distant land.  We expanded west.  We built the railroads.  We produced a myriad of products in factories throughout the country.  We cultivated our Great Plains.  All using the near limitless supply of cheap, immigrant labor.  We all know this.

We have such a vast country in terms of geography and ethnicity with some very lenient immigration laws, that people can come in, licitly or illicitly, and be absorbed and protected by their communities and the law. This may not be the case anymore.  There is a major shift in the last twenty to thirty years.  Many of the low paying factory jobs that abundantly hired the new arrivals have been closed down and outsourced. "Free Trade" economics is catching up to us.  Countries that have adopted the mantra are often de-stablized and atrocious working conditions force more people to leave.  Look at the Mexican border!  We do not know what to do with the extras.  Our incarceration rate and number has sky-rocketed.  Our health care system, via emergency room care (the defacto insurance plan of the poor), is an economic drain.

There are times in our history when we do not welcome immigrants all that much.  They are usually times of economic recession.  The echo chamber resonates, "if we do not have jobs, than why should someone else come to America and take them?"  One argument that I always used was to try to find a 17-year old, middle class suburbanite to work 12 hours a day doing dishes in the back of a restaurant.  Years ago, I lost a gas station job because the new owner got rid of all the high school kids and hired a group of Indian guys for half the wage and three times the hours.  Home run for the owner.  Right now, with a deep recession, we are not too fond of newcomers and kids still can not (and are not willing to) get those simple wage jobs.  They seem to say, it's alright, my mom will use her credit card with the terrible interest rate to buy me the new iphone.

The beacon light is still on.  People are still coming and I do not blame them.  Our world image is still showing that we are the place of opportunity.  This is still true, though statistically less and less a reality.  People see where their resources and goods are shipped to. If they are in a war torn region, it is better to be on the side of the bomber then be bombed.  They have communities here that can ease the transition.

We are in a bind.  The way I see it, we have some options.  We can continue with the Israeli approach, which is to build big fences along the Mexican border and continue  what we are doing and we all can buy cheap goods at the big box stores.  Or..we can create jobs here in the states and use our massive PR machine to convince people to buy local.  Communities can build out local economies.  It will not happen quickly and it may not be pleasant.  Big business will not be happy.  We depend too much on things from too far away.  The most interesting part of the tale of the Chinese community is how successful they have been at building a parallel economy right smack in the middle of New York City - legal and illegal.  How many have taken the Fung Wa bus to Washington DC?


In reference to the Israel comment, I read an interesting take on the Israel/Palestine conflict.  During the seventies and eighties, they had a lull in their conflict because the cheap labor that Palestine provided Israel, it gave a sense of normalcy.  Supply and demand.  When the Soviet Union collapsed,  there was huge influx of Russian Jews that entered Israel and took the low wage jobs.  Israel did not need the Palestine work force anymore, but did not know what to do with them.  The people from Gaza and the West Bank became restless because they lost their jobs and did not have the ability to look elsewhere.  Since then, Israel built huge walls around them and they continue to lob bombs in each direction.  The situation just worsens.  I say, "two states", so Palestine can create their own economy.

The Powerlines

My childhood neighborhood is surrounded by woods thanks to large powerlines that pass along the north and a golf course through some wooded property to the west. As has always been true, if I had free time, I would be outside rather than in. After school I would race out the front door with no intentions of returning until the streetlights turned on. At that moment, I would sprint, bike, or, for a brief time, skate back to the house for dinner dropping what ever I was doing until the next day.

There were two groups that I hung out with throughout gradeschool. The regular neighborhood crew played sports depending on the professional sports season. Basketball was on my driveway; football was generally played across the street at Billy's; hockey was played on the cul-de-sac in front of Lou's; and wiffleball eventually ended up in the Liotti's back yard with the outfield measurements posted on the far fence. When picking teams, I was always in the middle of the order never having the grit or swagger needed to be the star on the field, but never left out either, with the unfortunate exception of baseball. Byron and Chris composed of the other group. They never joined the regular games and periodically would get into fights with the neighborhood guys who were trying to display that swagger.

Byron, Chris and I would head further and further into the woods creating challenges depending on what was offered. We would collect tadpoles and attempt to raise them in an aquarium in one of the back yards. We would choose trees in close proximity with enough sway to climb one and transfer to the other at the top. Sometimes we would find one that bent enough so we could climb to the top and parachute down to the ground. We would build campfires. Once, we found a large piece of styrofoam floating in one of the ponds and sculpted it into a canoe to traverse the cold waters of late autumn. We would shimmy along the banks of the chilly water using what we could grab to keep from falling in. Sometimes one of us would fall and that would start the trek back to the bright manicured lawns of our homes. In those expanding woods, each trip would reveal something new.

Drinks and the fumbling pursuit of girls supplanted those adventures in high school and in through college. With the exception of my winter season passes at Sunday River, I remained in that fog.  Now, periodic ventures into the woods are a psychological necessity.

Avatar

I am late to this one.  We just watched the movie.  We both separately realized why it did not win the Academy Award for Best Picture.  It was a wonderful movie and deserved all of the acclaim.  It made a clear stand against the misguided foreign policy of war for resources regardless of the indigenous culture and ecosystem, its empty diplomacy, and the impatience and disbelief of genuine scientific research.  Where as, The Hurt Locker only addressed and sympathized with the plight of the soldier without commenting on the question or motives of war.  The latter is extremely important and crosses through political boundaries.

Iraq, Afghanistan, Somalia, Nigeria, Iran, Ecuador and many more are all subject to a super-power's need for more resources than it has.  Until we address the power of the corporation over the people it doesn't matter which country is the superpower.

Dolly Sods

There really isn't much to a camping trip. I wake up to the first sunlight, eat a hearty breakfast cooked on the little camp stove, go for a fabulous walk along plateaus or down into plush river valleys, and relax with some friends around a campfire. We tell stories in between long quiet trances within our own thoughts as we pass along this preserved countryside. City time ceases to exist. For a moment, I can retune to nature.

West Virginia!!

Oprah Style School Reform

Last week I watched my first episode of Oprah from start to finish. The topic was education and the founder of Facebook was donating $100 million to the Newark public schools. The New Jersey Governor and Mayor of Newark were there speaking about education reform. The public system needs it. As always, in political rhetoric, the core of the problem is ignored and popular talking points are repeated. Yes, there are some horrible teachers protected by the unions. The vast majority of teachers are dedicated professionals and they deserve to have job security. Schools are often underfunded and lack important supplies. There is a lot of mismanagement of money in how schools are heated and cooled, unnecessary job positions created to manage the yearly trends in data, teaching techniques, and protocols that get discarded well before they can realistically be implemented. There is a huge amount of money spent on standardized tests and the companies that produce them and money spent on remedial programs for the same set of students each year. The Oprah show felt good, but missed the point.

I've taught in the NYC public schools for 6 years. While I think it is wonderful that this money is being put towards education. There is one HUGE aspect of education that is always avoided, ignored, or otherwise forgotten. The need for student accountability is omitted. The only criteria for a student to pass the 6th or 7th grade is if they score a 2 out of 4 on either the math or literacy standardized tests. They can fail every class, curse out teachers, skip classes, and get in regular fights without impunity. If they score above a 1, they move on. Students in high school can fail a class and can attend summer school. If they fail that, they can stay after school for a couple weeks and get the credit. If they skip that, there is a weekend school. Each step is less rigorous for passing so schools can move students along, because schools are graded largely on passing percentage. Education should be a right AND a privilege. Teacher should be protected but bad teachers need to be let go. Parents should be much more involved. Students should continue to earn their education NOT just receive it.

Waiting!

I know what is supposed to happen. I read some books. I asked my mom, my sisters, and some friends about pregnancy, birthing, and where I fit into that mix. I am a biology teacher for crying out loud. I got the science of the whole thing down. I know what hormones are supposed to get released at what time during labor. I can diagram how the baby usually moves down the birth canal. I can describe how the contractions prepare the uterus for delivery. I understand pretty well how the different interventions disrupt the miraculous natural flow and begin a cascade effect to a more medicalized birth. I also know that if used appropriately and conscientiously, interventions are life-saving discoveries of modern medicine. I even witnessed a home-birth while living in Utah. I know a lot. I feel confident, though I can't grasp this so common unknown: becoming a parent.

Intellectually, I got it. Everything else is a complete mystery, and I loved it. I look in delight at my beautiful wife as she takes her long walks, struggles to turn from side to side during the night, pauses to smile at me, or transforms from her big belly nightgown garb into a stunning outfit upon leaving the house. I am in awe of how seamless this 9 month transition is toward her becoming a mother. She is anxious and ready. Her body somehow knows what to do.

I am the intimate, expecting bystander; a third-party advocate clearing a path and hoping to make her as secure and comfortable in their process. This dance that has been happening for millenniums. I can not feel the movement of baby inside her womb or her aches as he moves to find comfort. She regularly talks with baby because they already know each other; they have grown together. I am anxiously waiting to meet him, to see him, for him to become tangible. I want to feel whatever that feeling is when parents say, "We have a baby."

School Reform?

I heard an interesting, and frustratingly colossal blunder in the work to improve our schools. The NYC Board of Education was getting close to instituting a policy to block the use of cell phones (and other electronic devices) in schools. The cell phone companies blocked the policy because of potential lost revenue. Not, mind you, revenue for the schools, but revenue for the cell phone companies. The short term money interests of a few corporate entities trump the integrity of the already challenged learning environment of 1.2 million students. Thanks Bloomy. I'm late on this because it was a secret.

As if concentrating in class was hard enough before the onset of cellular technology. I am sure of the fact that my grades diminished when there was a hot girl in class. If I had constant text contact with all of my friends, I would not have heard a word of what was happening in class, because I would have been waiting for the next piece of important, useless, information about some girl or news of where we were going to get alcohol next. Think about it. How easy would it be to be coerced to skip out on the next class?

Parents should be outraged. The basic hope or premise of education is to provide a sanctuary for children to concentrate and develop a foundation of critical math, language, logistic skills so that when they do grow up they can better understand and analyze how to utilize the technology in constructive ways. To borrow Thomas Friedman's phase, students who are "continuously partially present" will not build those core skills. Don't worry. They'll have plenty of time to text, Facebook, chat, tweet, talk, or whatever else comes down the pipe next with there friends beyond school hours. Especially given that jobs for teenagers are a rarity. There is nothing worse than telling a kid to get off the phone and hearing the excuse, "I am talking with my mom." That's even worse. I can understand a child not getting it, but the parents. Then when I speak with the parents they are surprised that their child is on the phone!

If they only realized the many consequences of acquiescing to this short-sighted whim of corporate America. Teachers lose an element of control in the classroom due to many more distractions. Teachers and administers compromise the ability to triage during the event of an emergency, because while they are attending to issues in order of imminent importance and then making contacts with a clear message of what happened and what was being done, the kids called mom, who, with her partial story, called some other person, and now what was probably minor incident has potentially turned into a pr nightmare. In addition, students don't develop the ability to sustain in-depth conversations, to write in-depth analysis of learned material, because they missed a large portion of what was presented and then they can't shut out everything and focus on completing the task. More and more assignments that I received are half-assed at best. In order for politicians to appear to be improving the system, they lower the standards and further dumb down the tests. My SATs were already dumbed down from my parents!

Should the school system build in more technology into the curriculum? Absolutely. Instead, the ever reactive, rather than proactive, system says that teachers should use multiple learning styles and cooperative learning to entice students to learn. Sure. Those methodologies have there place in the classroom, but shouldn't the system try to eliminate as many obstacles as possible. This way, we are not reduced to trying to trick students as they sit through a mandated subject regents class with their sidekick, cell phone and mp3 players vibrating in their pockets.

Against the Tide

Things are getting even more haywire.

Our sitting president just received the Nobel Peace Prize while escalating the Afghan war and refusing to sign the international land mine treaty, despite the fact that 156 countries have.

This same president is being vilified as a muddled blend of three extremely disparate ideologies -- socialism, communism, and fascism, while in a large part continuing the Bush Doctrine and the corporate status quo.



With all the legitimate work and research over the last dozen (and more) years to help prepare for the Climate Summit in Copenhagen, gullible Americans are believing a well-timed leak repeated by Fox News and the other cable news outlets to discredit global warming and thus weaken the accords.

Catholic bishops are banning the practice of yoga and reiki massage by nuns and lay people because its effectiveness is deemed a threat to the establishment.


A person with obvious sex appeal and little grasp of international or domestic affairs, who quit her job as governor because of a lucrative book contract, is considered a qualified presidential candidate.

Women are made famous and offered lucrative television spots for laying on their backs for a philandering rich man. He will be forgiven because he can swing a club well, while many well-intensioned, community building small business people struggle to make ends meet.

People are scared to support an improvement of our ailing health care system because it could possibly increase taxes and be too socialistic, meanwhile they welcome near unlimited military spending and continue to guzzle gas and cheap food along those same transport-choked highways paid for by those tax dollars.

The nation's leaders are adopting a corporate model to fix the faltering education system, the same model that leaches money from the government to band aide its self-induced cyclical bursting bubbles. To appear successful, mandated tests are made easier and credit recovery programs are offered where the sole criterion for gaining credit is a student's physical presence. The teachers, the one resource that has an intimate day-to-day knowledge of what is needed to improve schools, are shut out of the equation.


Welcome to the world and I offer my sincere apologies for the state of affairs. I will do my part to improve this community and pass on a different and more inclusive message.

Tropic Cities and Hill Towns

Immediately, you know which part of the city wins that race for things. The "have's" live in lofty condominuims and the "nots" live in squalor. This city is clearly divided into three distinct areas: the old city, "little Miami", and the slums. As I look out over the city from a monestary in the midday sun, scant attention seems to have been given to sanitation, cleanliness, and basic infrastructure. Simple creature comforts are absent except, from my experience, a TV in every home! So much of the wealth of this potentially beautiful city is concentrated in the hands of the elite that the rest have difficulty wrestling any of a share. I haven't looked at the statistics of any of these things in Cartegena, Colombia, but through the casual eye of my brief visit, the extreme wealth disparities of this part of Latin America persists.
The old city has the makings and the architecture to rival Dubruvnik in Croatia, Venice and Amsterdam in its latent beauty and its context in history. I realize that this is a big statement, though I think Colombia could do amazing things with this spot if only they could shed its white powdery image, and shake off the pesky "Big Stick" from the guys to their North. If only it was that easy. They got a strong man right now, but he needs to be willing to help the country stand on its own and then build alliances with its neighbors.

For the momentary visitor, some of the old streets are cleaned up nicely. The police keep out the riff-raff (Colombians not invited to the game of have's) to make for some lovely strolling while bathed in the evening ocean breeze. The gorgeous, big hotels that I venture in were unfortunately not Colombian owned, but stunning in their inner courtyard architecture. Then there is the thin stretch of barrier penninsula that is saturated with Miami style, white-washed highrise condos for the few with some cash to zip up an elevator and lavish themselves in pesos. The streets below are not clean and the beaches are vast but leave much to be desired. There is a telling area photo that shows the extent of pollution reaching into the Carribean Sea all the way to the country's crown jewel. Those same beaches get some of the afterthoughts from the Magdelena River, the main artery through the country.
In a city with a population well into 7 digits, the rest live spralled in dusty cement cubes with electric wires running in all directions. At sea level and about 10 degrees north of the equator, it is scorching hot all day, and the cement has the lovely quality of absorbing the heat and radiating it throughout the night making it seem somewhat hotter. This hazy and oppressive visual, reoccurring throughout much of Latin America, depresses the most ardent and hopeful traveler. I hate the fleeting thoughts that venture in my head as sweat is pouring down my chin. I generally side with the oppressed having spent much time reading and studying on the subject, but in that moment my "gut" says that they are expendable.After Cartegena, we hop on a super air-conditioned night bus to Bucaramonga, then on to the small town of Barichara. We endure a horrific death match movie where inmates have cool cars loaded with ammunition and kill eachother all on live reality television. English subtitles are not necessary. I assumed, or maybe hoped, that this was a one-of-a-kind cinema event, but on the return trip am graced with a nearly identical movie save the inmates are on an island with ammunition caches and wired with cameras for the dedicated television viewers. Apparently, female inmates are all exceptionally beautiful. I didn't realize. There is a good chance that implants are offered within the prisons.

Once in the mountains, the northeast fork of the lengthy Andes mountain range, the landscape plateaus at a seemingly idealic climate with fertile farmlands abound. This small cobbled town has identity, a sense of history, that felt pristine to a visitor's eye. Their industry is tourism and managed within the community and scale of their environment. The townspeople take care of their town. Yes, they do not have to deal with an overwhelming population problem and they were designated a national heritage site. Things change, soils lose fertility, trends in tourism fluxuate. This towns seems at a scale to adapt.

Colombia is stunning, large, ecologically and geographically diverse. As a outdoor enthusiast, I find wonderful places to explore. I get a sample of something that works and something that marks unchecked corruption and a horrible allocation of resources.

We head back to our big neighborhood in the vast metropolis of New York City, where main streets are being reinvented, community reinvigorated, and economies of scale are being reintroduced.

Algonquin Mountain

The Adirondack Mountains are becoming a reoccurring retreat from the norm. As in most backcountry activities, it provides a chance to stop the march of the clock, turn everything off and slow to the rhythms of nature. There was no snow in Keene Valley, but within a few minutes of the trailhead snowshoes became a necessity. We headed up over a pass on a well-marked trail that had obviously not been used much throughout the season. We made some fresh tracks through a frozen top layer of snow. It always takes a few miles before my body comes into agreement with what I have endeavored upon, whether a run, hike, or bike ride. That visceral rebellion probably stops a lot of people from doing a lot of things.

This lean-to sits on the frozen Lake Colden about six miles from the road head. Tents would be a warmer option, but this provides some space to cook and hang out. The temperature dropped to sub-zero during the nights. Our water froze immediately after it was poured forming interesting lattice structures in the bottles. I doubled up on the sleeping bag putting my 15 degree bag inside the 30 degree bag. In the morning, the water bottle that was left out froze solid and we had a fresh layer of snow.

Algonquin is the second highest in New York. The trail winds up a stream valley from the lake. Just as it gets above the tree line the the trail reaches a saddle in the range and the west winds blistered through our peeled layers of clothing. The last 500 feet are up a rocky face marked by cairns and completed with the official National Geologic survey medal stamp indicating the height of the peak. We sat behind a rock outcrop to shelter from the wind and eat some lunch.

On the return, we glissaded down the trail, winding through trees, yelping like ten year-olds, guiding ourselves with our hands and the back tips of our snowshoes. Glissading in this way is basically a butt slide with speeds similar to the epic gradeschool snowdays where half the neighborhood dragged their sleds to the hill in the local golf course. Rather than the 30 feet of elevation in those days, each of the slides were a hundred feet or more.

Dogsledding

With the start of this year's Iditarod in Alaska and some of Jack London's stories resonating in my distant memory, we set off on a blistering winter day in Leadville, CO for a mini-dogsled adventure. We wanted to get a tiny taste of that 1150 mile adventure. At the very least, we would see the dogs up close and feel their pull on the sled.

At 10,000 feet in a valley, the piled winter's snow covered everything, and the cloud cover changed from moment to moment. A haloed sun peaked through near whiteout conditions. Our rented car was only two-wheel drive, much to the shagrin of the upgrade happy saleswoman at the Denver International Airport, but we made it on the well-paved state highways winding through the central Rockies. Anyway, the ranch was only a few miles outside of town.

There are ninety-five dogs at this particular ranch all with their own little dog houses. We were introduced to each individual that would pull our sled.

There were three vantage points provided during this couple hour ride. The coziest, of course, was being nestled in the sled, wrapped in a blanket with only your face exposed to the elements. The second was the person at the helm, in charge of the brake, yelling "mush" to the ten dog team. And because we really didn't know what we were doing, there was the seat on the sled being pulled by a snowmobile about thirty yards in front of the dogs.

We finished up the couple hours with a drive back to town, and some local brews with the welcoming folks at Rosie's BrewPub.

Assateague National Seashore

We arrived late from NYC, DC, and some airport in Virginia. It was midnight and we snuck into the national park, grabbed a sleeping bag along with something to stave off the mosquitoes, and found a part of the beach without an active campfire. I bought this funky little mosquito net that provides a dome of netting right around the head of a single sleeping bag, sort of like the top end of a bivy sack. Shawn and Chris didn't have this, thus didn't get the wonderful four or so hour sleep under the stars. It started to rain, so we slept the last few hours of the night into our cars. The tent nor the Winnebago toting neighbors were present until the next night.The learning curve for kite surfing can be frustrating ranging from lack of or blustery wind, gear problems, and just not knowing what the hell you are doing because you just learned a skill yesterday and the learning of the next level skill has the assumption of complete competence in the previous. Shawn was the first to get completely airborne with his wayward kite during a body drag . Chris practiced some emergency techniques while we waited for wind. Wind was not his friend on the last day. I blew out my eardrum during my triumphant, yet brief, plane on the board. Successful planing on the board means the pilot can control the 11 plus square meter kite in the wind window, sheet in and out for power, and trust that he can do everything relying on muscle memory.
While waiting for Gary to arrive the third day, Shawn found a nice quiet port-o-potty to take care of immediate business, only to have the industrial wondervac roll up next to the stall.
Random comments of the pictures above so I sound like I gained some understanding. The resting position is straight over head. The wind keeps the kite aloft like the wing of a plane but doesn't have any power. Shawn demonstrated a successful landing of the kite along the edge of the wind window.
A good waterproof camera would have been perfect for the second day, because we were in the water for four or five hours . One of the kite boarders launched himself over us. We were standing and he, in complete control , dipped his kite into a power stroke and jumped over us. None of us are quite at that level yet!Take the Cape May/Lewis Ferry if only to avoid a couple hours of I95 and add some beauty to an otherwise congested drive along the Northeast Corridor.