Rosewoman's ramblings

MDA summer camp

2011-03-18T14:19:00.000-07:00

I used to volunteer for things, like MDA summer camp. I only had the opportunity to do this for two summers in Eastern Washington before moving back to Western Wash. and losing my MDA contacts. I was reminded of that life-changing experience today at lunch. Apparently one of our seniors, Camille Brown, is involved with MDA summer camp this year for her senior project.

Medical science has vastly improved things for kids with MD, but various forms of it are still torturous death sentences with life expectancy to the early 20s at best. For many, the greatest span of their few years will be spent in a wheelchair. If you can be part of bringing some joy to a person afflicted with a dystrophic disorder, I believe you will make the world a better place. It’s not world peace, it’s not even helping stem poverty, but if there’s any such thing as karma or kismet or the Golden Rule, the balance sheet of good works could always use more on the happy side.

My experience at MDA summer camp was my first encounter with anyone suffering from MD. I had been at Camp Fire summer camps both as camper and counselor for over 20 years, so I knew the value of summer camp for any kid. As an older adult, I was not eligible to be a counselor; I was part of the support staff. The counselors were young people who were vetted. They had to be older than 16 and have references supporting their dependability. Some counselors were assigned 1 to 1, some 1 to 4, depending on the severity of the campers’ disability. Spokane MDA used Camp Four Echoes on Lake Coeur d’Alene, so there was boating and swimming and crafts and sports and games—the usual camp stuff. The campers left on a Saturday, but staff did not leave until Sunday. That day was important. As cool as it is to watch severely handicapped kids having fun in the sun, laughing and playing just like any other kid, underneath, right under your skin, is the realization that next summer, some of the campers will not be there. Not because they don’t want to or can’t afford it or the family is going to Disneyland instead, but because they will be dead. Sunday is the day the staff can release the emotions they’ve all had pent up. The grief. The despair. The unnamed, elusive, indescribable feelings. We cried together. We hugged.

The fall planning meeting for the following year’s summer camp always begins with the bad news. Who has died. That was sad, but there was good news to offset it; an Idaho corporation was paying to have some kids flown up to camp from Boise. This was the first time any MD camper from that area would be able to come. We were all very excited. There were two glitches. We would not be able to vet the counselors, and there was no flight back to Boise on Sunday. The staff would still have campers around on that all important day of emotional discharge and bonding. We all agreed it was bad, but the benefit of giving those kids from Boise a camping experience out-weighed the needs of the staff.

Not being able to vet the counselors turned out to be a disaster. Many of them were not even 16. Several were so unreliable and irresponsible, they’d leave a handicapped kid alone near or even in the water. Several times we narrowly averted disaster. It’s not efficient when the people supposed to be watching over others need watching over themselves. One boy in particular was so useless, we tried to have him sent home. In addition to the regular emotional turmoil we added anger and rage at the immaturity of this one counselor. It was aggravating in the extreme to think we had to have him around on our Sunday.

When Saturday night came and we were left with the Boise kids and the lame-o counselors from there, we decided to make it a movie night and rent R-rated movies. We picked up 3 movies, popped a bunch of popcorn and started to settle in.

One of the campers from Boise enjoying their first summer camp was a boy named Brian. Brian’s wheelchair did not fit him right. He had open sores from the rubbing. We had discussed Brian’s chair problems, and were told that his parents were not able to afford a new chair, nor were they willing to jump through the red tape hoops to get MDA to pay for one. Brian had to suffer. He’d had fun at camp, despite the pain from his chair. He was thrilled to be sitting down to R movies; they all were. Why not? So what if they were 12, 13, 14, they were sentenced to life in the prison of their own bodies. They can hear the F-word, see some sex and violence.

As we were settling down to our movies, a miracle happened. The 14 year-old counselor we were all pissed at picked Brian up and took him into his lap. It took about 45 minutes of wiggling, adjusting and fidgeting to get Brian comfortable, without any pain from his sores. Then, for 6 hours, that irresponsible, useless, aggravating kid held Brian without moving or complaining. That was Brian’s last summer camp.

Prayers for Marcus Walker

2011-03-11T16:47:00.001-08:00

Oh Marcus,
You were the best of men, truly the finest human beings can be. I wish I could send you prayers. I wish I could have sent you prayers while you struggled with cancer. I wish I could have sent you prayers at any time that I knew you.

Couldn't though. Just can't.

I hate it when people I love and respect want to pray for me, or expect me to offer my prayers. Always have hated it.

It's always dicey discussing religion. When I was 13, I felt my life sucked. I had decided to be Jewish, not that I told anyone, (I think I told Marcus- not then, I didn't know him, I mean I told him the story, sheesh). Shortly before I summoned up the courage to commit suicide, I stumbled into circumstances that led me to believe in the whole Christian fundamentalist schtick, forgiveness, to live is Christ, to die is gain, blah, blah, blah. By the time I was in high school, I had become an irritant to people like my best friend Jeff, future atheists. He used to quote the book of Jeremiah when I came near, "Mountains, fall on me." He was quite the raconteur.

Anyway, my reading of the Bible differed from other fundamentalists and most other Christians. The book of Matthew includes the Sermon on the Mount wherein Jesus tells the multitudes exactly how to pray. He dictates what we call the Lord's Prayer. Read it. It's here: (I was going to wait for you to go get a Bible or Google it, but I'm impatient, so I Googled it for you and pasted it here.)

“This, then, is how you should pray: “‘Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us today our daily bread. Forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors.And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one.'"

There is nothing in that passage to indicate that God is a vending machine or a genie in a bottle. Daily bread, forgiveness, not sinning.

No protection from accidents.

No winning football games.

No success on tests.

No special help for a contest or achievement.

No relief from pain.

No cure for cancer.

I'm so sorry, Marcus.

I never prayed for you.

I'm not going to pray for you now.

If there's a Heaven, if there's any truth in Christian lore:

you're with God and happy.

Dear Arne Duncan: draft 2

2010-08-10T10:56:00.000-07:00

I am a teacher, and just to be clear, I don't teach AP or Honors classes. Those lofty class environments are not at issue for this topic.

Just a few years into my teaching career, we were informed that teachers were expected to educate our charges not only in the "three Rs" but also in ethics/morals. My first thought (Hah! I never have first thoughts without a nexus of connecting thoughts leading rapidly to a conclusion, but it feels like a first thought) was, "Better make us a boarding school, then," because no way was I going to be accountable for teenagers' ethical training without 24 hour access to the influences on their lives.

I know you're trying to get a handle on the federal government's role in improving the education of America's youth, and you want teacher pay to reflect teacher effectiveness. Most of us can agree with that in principle, but in practice, not so much. Notwithstanding being held accountable for their moral development, being held accountable for their math skills requires nearly the same amount of control over students' out-of-school environment. We teach our hearts out during school hours, and at 2, off they go, out of our supervision. Anyone who thinks even a small majority goes home and dives right in to homework tasks or even plans the pm hours in such a way as to budget several hours for homework ensuring a reasonable bedtime is completely out of touch with reality.

Give a homework assignment due the following day. First period, you'll get 10%, Second period, 20%, Third, 30% and so on, but you won't get more than 60%. Ever. The increasing percentage is caused by having other classes before English class during which students will ignore what's happening in that class and doing the "home" work. I once bribed an English class with a pizza party if everyone would have a ROUGH DRAFT 3 days after the assignment. Didn't happen; the highest percentage for my sophomore class was 47%. Students don't do homework. They play sports, they play video games, they "hang out" with friends, which seems to be 4 or 5 kids sitting around texting other people.

We send them off and any focus on school evaporates. Parents often aren't around to help them or even monitor them. Increasingly, students exhibit the attitude that school is an interruption in their far more important activities, their social lives, their playtime or their jobs, nowhere near the stepping stone to a better life that we teachers constantly harp about. Their only motivation is to get it done with as fast as possible and with the least effort possible.

What about the kids who want to learn, I hear you object, surely there are some. Yep, there are, and they really brighten up a day. In each class of 30, maybe there will be 3 who have the golden combination of motivation and readiness. They are precious jewels. Others are the most tragic cases of all. They want to learn, but they are not ready for the topics that we are presenting to them. That is a pointless activity, a complete waste of everybody's time and creates a subclass of usually disruptive students who have been promoted grade after grade regardless of any mastery of the content. I once had a student at Spokane Community College who came to me privately and confessed that he had managed to graduate high school without learning to read and could I please teach him.

Social promotion has to stop at every level. How can teachers be evaluated based on the performance of students who are in no way ready to learn at the level they've been placed. It's not rational; it's not fair.

Not just for teachers, either; it's not fair to students. Nearly every kindergartener goes to school excited to learn. What happens between then and high school for so many of them to turn in to sullen school-haters? Here's one scenario: six-year-old Dave isn't ready to read. In his end-of-year report card, his teacher notes his difficulty. Despite his parents' misgivings, Dave goes on to second grade. He has no learning deficit, so he receives no extra help and his teacher has a full class. Dave eventually comes to the end of third grade, not reading well if at all. How do any of us feel about doing something we're not good at? How about being tested on something you can't do? Frustration, anger, negativity, disruption, dropping out.

Make some real change in education; stop promoting children to grades they aren't ready for merely because they have aged a year.

Stop! Thief!

2010-08-10T09:25:00.000-07:00

I'm here in Tully's stealin' their wifi, except that it's free. Next to me there are some men truly stealing. Three guys, one bald, goatee-ed guy with an American accent and two Latinos, one who does not appear to speak much English or he's just quiet. Mr. Loquacious Latina, LL, is chatting with Baldy. Baldy is quizzing him all over the plave about some house LL is working in, apparently painting kjudging from the paint splattered Glidden Tee he is sporting. I wonder how many gallons of paint you have to buy to get one, or do they automatically throw in a T-shirt with each purchase? Hm.

LL answers each query about the job, possible repairs, "How's the floor? Did you do the floor? Should I do the floor?" asks Baldy. "Do you have other jobs lined up? Are you working all the time? Do you have lots of work? I got this $3000 dollar job they'd give me but I need another guy."

There's a bit of diversion as they talk about other contractors who hire cheap labor and do shoddy work. Baldy looks great compared to them. He reiterates how great this other job is, but he needs x, y, and z, and apparently, LL, too.

I can't hear LL too well as he is facing away from me, but he does not seem to want Baldy's other job.

Mid-conversation, Baldy hands LL $800 cash as was agreed for this painting job. There is one moment of theft, clearly. Baldy just stole from the State, Local and Federal Gov'ts. No payroll taxes are paid, no income tax is paid. Baldy stole from LL, too, no FICA, no health insurance, none of the security that comes with an above the table job.

Is LL legal? Unknown, and I don't want to judge, but he could be. There's more theft, if so, but I know plenty of fine, upstanding Americans who are happy to work under the table. Plumbers, electricians, after their day job, they might just stop by the house of a friend of a friend to pick up some extra cash off the books. If you're a home-owner squeaking by on a lower middle class income, it may be the only way you can afford repairs or improvements without doing it yourself and goofing it up.

It's theft. If you'll steal small things, where will you stop? I know some young people with felony convictions leaving them permanently un or under-employed and their crimes were theft related. If any theft is wrong and deserves punishment, all of it is.

Run from the Borders

2010-08-09T15:04:00.000-07:00

I used to moonlight at Waldenbooks, at first it was for extra money, but that didn't work out. Even with a 40% discount, I spent more than I earned. When the parent company began building the free-standing, upscale Borders bookstores, it seemed great. Borders accepted my preferred reader card, and they had great prices and excellent customer service. I even knew some of the staff.

I no longer find Borders great. Every time I go there, incompetency reigns. Today was no different. I had hoped the poor economy might have promoted better customer service, but not so.

To help out the family, I offered to do a favor and return The Girl Who Played With FirewithThe Girl With The Dragin Tattoo. As I walked up to the front door, I struggled to adjust my negative attitude and give them a chance to make my book-buying experience a positive one. Going through the doors, I dredged up patience for standing in the inevitable line. There was no line! It boded well. There was one clerk. I approached her, but first she dialed the phone to leave a message for a special order. Hm, ok. I placed the book on the counter next to the receipt. Without speaking, she picked it up, scanned the receipt and began to issue me a refund. Not what I wanted, and couldn't work, since I had not bought the book. I interrupted her to explain that I wanted to exchange it; she told me abruptly to go get the new book and come back. I went off with the book and the bag and the receipt thinking that if I had done that first and shown up at the register, a clerk could very well think I had brought in the receipt and the empty bag and gotten a free book. Her impatience with me seemed out of place, is all.

As I walked toward the books, I saw a large display of the trade paperback (read spendy, trendy paperback that makes the publisher more money) version. I had already been warned that the mass market size was hard to find. Borders has no "fiction" section. I cruised past literature and saw none in the "L" section. I went over to the Mystery/Thriller section. I'm pretty good with the alphabet, but they interrupt the purely alphabetical listing with collections and special displays, so the "L" section seemed to be farther along than it was. When I found it, there were only trade paperbacks. I asked for help. The guy flipped a thumb over his shoulder and I saw the huge glowing pile of yellow mass market paperbacks of the book I sought. I said to him, goodheartedly, "Oh, there they are! I was told they were hard to find."

"They're in the section," he answered, curtly. Sure, "in the section," but not with the others and not alphabetical.

Back at the checkout counter, a new clerk was taking over. My good attitude having completely fled with the snarky "in the section" comment by the guy at the "help" desk, I am afraid I told the clerk how much I did not like Borders and this trip had been no exception. Guess what. She promptly scanned the return book twice, thus confusing the checkstand computer, necessitating a call to a supervisor while I waited.

Customer Service! Why is it so difficult. Two days ago, the deli clerk at Safeway, Toni, went out of her way to guide me through the remodeled store, let me buy bananas at her till even though it was the deli, and let me get away with paying her 2 cents less so I would not have to change a bill since the manager had not brought her change yet. The Pearl Safeway is closer to my house, but I'll now be shopping there, Toni's customer service won a customer.

Big box stores who have no competition do not need service I guess. When there are no examples in our society of treating people well because stores don't teach their employees to do it and parents aren't around to insist their kids have manners, what hope is there for a civil society?

just a note and a great webcomic

2010-06-11T19:27:00.000-07:00

Yep, this is my kind of humor. Now that I'm healthy (AND SCHOOL'S ALMOST OUT) I'll be blogging more regularly. Maybe I'll even fine a following, huh.

2010-01-23T21:33:00.001-08:00

Economics probably began with barter. “Dude, I’ve got too many of these yummy berries and you’ve got more fish than you can eat before they start stinking, wanna trade?” Voila, the free market was born. When each person in a trade comes away feeling like he got a good deal, it’s a win-win, right? If I value a pound of my berries as being worth a pound of your fish and you agree, we both have created an economic balance, we’ve achieved equilibrium, forged positive relations between your lowland people and my highland people and improved each other’s nutrition. If you take my pound of berries to some people farther away and trace it for two pounds of their fish, it hasn’t hurt me and you’ve made an honest profit. Now, recognize the old phrase “buying a pig in a poke?” It refers to old markets where pigs were sold in bags, or pokes. As long as the pig seller was honest and each poke contained the promised pig, everybody was fine. If you bought a poke, took it home before opening it to find the squealing creature inside was not a pig but was a cat, then “the cat was out of the bag” and you’d know you’d been cheated. If your fish was caught last week and not last night, and I gave you my berries in good faith that the fish was fresh, then the free market system has not worked because at least one of the parties has cheated. If you tell me it’s not fresh, maybe we can still make a deal for a lower price. (Incidentally, if you buy reduced price produce and meat at Albertson’s or Safeway, it is very likely those products have been there a while, so don’t delay using them.)

Or perhaps on a small island, several people, some with fish, some with game, some with clams, and some with fruit formed a community wherein each person brought his or her specialty to the others and, behold, the birth of communism. The people worked all day or all week, produced far more of their specialty than they can use alone or in their family group, brought the excess each week to the collective meeting place and divided it up equally between all of the participants. Everybody works, everybody shares. Maybe one guy figures he can slack off and just show up without a full payload. If the community is small, he’ll probably be called out. If the community has grown large enough that he goes unnoticed, he can get away with it and the system has fallen apart because somebody cheated.

An open and above-board free market system or an equal-work-equal-pay commune system seem so obvious. Of course they work. To their proponents, each is a perfect system. The basic problem with the commune system is it must remain small. There have been several successful communes in our history, notable Home here in Washington State. There is a tipping point for all of them. As soon as the system becomes so large that even one person can malinger, yet still share the fruits of the effort of the community, that’s all she wrote.
The free market system, using supply and demand, should be perfect no matter how large it gets. If the market needs wheat, grow wheat, make money. If there is too much wheat, the markets will flood, the prices go down, so the market itself provides the disincentive to grow wheat. Supply and demand, if left alone, will create a balance. There’s the key, the phrase, “if left alone.” If nobody gets smart and tries to manipulate the market, the market will balance. Artificial attempts to change that balance, especially in order to make a bigger profit, tip the scales and the free market system isn’t. Isn’t free, free of interference by GREEDY PEOPLE! Create a monopoly and you can set prices wherever you want. Over-produce a commodity and you can shove prices down so far your competitors go broke. Or even better, threaten to over-produce and get a government to subsidize (bribe) you to keep supply low and artificially keep prices high. Flood a foreign market with cheaper products than that market can produce and you can thoroughly disrupt a country’s economy. Sound familiar? It happens all over the world and I’m not necessarily pointing fingers at the US.

Greed. That’s what it is, isn’t it? What makes someone surreptitiously cheat his neighbors in a commune? Why not just accept a fair price for your product? Why not cooperate with your economy, whether communal or free market? “I’m gonna get mine, forget the other guy.” It’s all based on greed: pure, unadulterated, unabashed greed. In the movie “Wall Street” Michael Douglas’s Gordon Gekko says,
“The point is, ladies and gentleman, that greed, for lack of a better word, is good. Greed is right, greed works. Greed clarifies, cuts through, and captures the essence of the evolutionary spirit. Greed, in all of its forms; greed for life, for money, for love, knowledge has marked the upward surge of mankind. And greed, you mark my words, will not only save Teldar Paper, but that other malfunctioning corporation called the USA. Thank you very much.”
I don’t know about you, but I’m not a fan of Wall Street right now. A small group of people, manipulating markets in secret, arcane ways, like, derivatives, are simply exercising their enormous penchant for greed.

That’s why liberals like me prefer to pay taxes so we can have regulations to overtly manipulate the so-called “free” market and hope to thwart the efforts of the secret manipulations being perpetrated by the greedy elements of big business. The US economy hasn’t been a “free” market since Captain John Smith instituted the “no work, no food” policy in Jamestown. Seriously!
Republicans! Quit lying! Quit being disingenuous about our economy. You know most people are not educated enough to understand the fine points and you are shamelessly using their ignorance to promote an agenda of greed!

Odd people are everywhere

2010-01-17T21:07:00.000-08:00

The Chinese don't wear sunglasses. All the time I was in Beijing, despite the relentless glare of harsh, flat light through the smog, I never saw anyone sporting shades. It was therefor difficult to find any store that sold them, and when I did finally happen upon a shop with a meager spinner rack of them it was difficult to find some I wanted. The very helpful shop keeper kept handing me over-sized, very feminine ala the fifties fashion eyewear, while I sifted through his wares searching for the mirror-coated lenses that I prefer.

Mirro-shades may not really be better at protecting eyes than other sunglasses; that's not why I like them. I like to look at people and people frequently don't like to be looked at. It's fantastic to actually LOOK at people. I was talking with someone today about the variation we humans have bred into dogs, and we chuckled at the thought of such a range imposed on people. Imagine seating on planes then! The variety that does exist among people is still pretty extensive. My main people watching days were back in the 80s in Spokane. While hanging out at The Pipe Rack among 99.99999% men, I head some things my white-bread, college-educated self had never heard before, no, not what you're thinking (although I heard some of that, too). I'd never heard everyday insults like "being hit with an ugly stick." That particular expression got me thinking. Thereafter, from behind my mirros, I'd occasionally try to find a truly ugly person. It's hard to do. When you really look hard at people, not many are actually ugly.

Some people do have unfortunate flaws that at first glance may well be off-putting. Sometimes it's not physical features at all, but might be, clothing, gait, voice, a tic. You can think of or picture someone like that, I'm sure. We all come across people who make us uncomfortable in some way. I suspect that, upon coming across someone in that category, all of us have the immediate instinct of avoidance. All of us. This is not really about guilt for feeling that way, but, if you never take a chance on your own ability to maintain your composure, you can miss some really interesting people.

Oh hell, what am I saying? Too may of us cannot get past skin color much less a limp, a stutter, a twitch, a growth, a droopy facial part, a visible scar, scaly skin, a horse laugh, whatever. You'll never know what you're missing until you can get past your fears. Go ahead, feel the fear, experience a shudder or revulsion, but then say hello.

2009-11-21T07:46:00.001-08:00

Teachers love to tell stories. For example, my dear friend Joe Everett, a Spanish teacher, has three favorite words in English. He may have favorite Spanish words, but since I don’t understand most of his Spanish, I couldn’t tell you what those are. His three favorite ones in ingles are “But I digress…” Occasionally, we teachers will run into former students. Invariably, they do not remember the boffo lessons we taught about Poe, or congruent angles or eukaryotes or the irregular verbs; they remember the anecdotes we peppered our lessons with. Students know we like to tell stories, and even though a teacher may be aware that a question asked by certain students who are deliberately asking it to try to derail class, we’ll bite, because through stories we can teach other lessons, which are sometimes on topic, other times only loosely related to the topic but may be way off topic.
I have stories I tell every year, like the Don MacDonald story about letting rumor and reputation determine how you treat people. Yesterday’s story was one I tell about seating charts and choosing groups, two of the more annoying necessities of teaching. It would be fantastic if a classroom full of kids could choose partners or seats wisely, that they would sit where they will not be distracted and choose an arrangement which did not isolate anyone. Without teacher direction, they will invariably choose their buddies and not be able to focus on work, and if there is any way the seating arrangement can isolate the “weird” kid, they’ll do it.
In my very first year of teaching, I had a 10th grade English class that was difficult to control. My teacher preparation at EWU and Whitworth did not include any successful strategies for classroom control. I had one master teacher whose 10th grade class was amazingly well behaved, but his tricks did not work for me. To this day I don’t know how they worked for him. I got there in April, after the students had been trained, and I think I missed crucial steps in the process by which he beat them into submission convinced them to comply. My 10th graders one year later never did settle down. Discipline is one of the most, if not the most, difficult parts of teaching. It involves saying “no” and punishing people you like. I liked that class, but nailing down what the problems were proved extremely elusive.
Finally, one day, needing to create yet another seating chart that would make us all happy or at least not aggravated, I decided to use one of the strategies I had been taught in teacher school. I had everyone write down two people they wanted to sit by and one person they preferred not to sit by. It backfired horribly. That afternoon I tried to accommodate one of everybody’s desired neighbors and seat each person at least one seat away from the person he or she chose to “keep away.” It was immediately obvious that it would be impossible. Each person, save one of course, had chosen the same kid as their personal anathema. No one wanted to sit by Bob.
I liked Bob. He was smart, funny, nice-looking, animated, alert to the lesson most of the time, although maybe that’s just because no one wanted to talk to him, now that I think about it. I could not imagine why he was the target of so much enmity. I was troubled about how to deal with it. The seating chart I created was of my own device. I included not a single request, partly out of pique.
The next day, Bob was absent. I still don’t know if it was the right thing to do or not, but I decided to confront the class about their shared feelings about Dennis. I asked them what they did not like about him, why did no one want to be by Dennis. They shifted uncomfortably in their seats, their eyes darted to the floor or their desks. Nobody had anything distinct about Dennis that they could put a finger on. Eventually, after a long enough awkward silence, I gave them a mediocre lecture about tolerance and blah, blah, blah.
The next day, when Bob returned, he brought me his homework and pointed to the heading. “Miss Kurz,” he said with a twinkle in his eye, “I no longer want to be Bob. From now on I’m Baub,” he said, sounding out the vowel tone just a bit longer than 'Bob' would.
“Baub?” I said, imitating him, "like bauble?"
“Yes,” he said, “Baauuuub.”
“Ok.” Names are important to our identity, what did I care how he spelled or said his name.
Years later, at a retreat for an A.I.D.S. peer education group I advised, I met a young may named Tom, oops, Thom. As he was short, slight and a tad effeminate, I teased him by calling him Thor. He realized I was riffing on his uncommon choice of spelling Tom with a th. He was a pretty good sport about it, and he even taught me about a tendency among gay men. “Gay men,” he said, “often will choose to either go by their complete name, like Thomas, or they’ll change the spelling, just to be different or special.” The next weekend, I went to Ivar’s with my family. Our waiter sashayed (yes!) up to our table and announced, “Hi! I’m Eric; I’ll be your waiter.” At least it sounded like Eric. I looked at his name tag. Sure enough, he spelled it Aeryk. Poor Bob, er Baub. Now I knew why the other kids did not like him and also why they couldn’t articulate their attitude. It was 25 years ago, and very few people were comfortable talking about homosexuality anywhere and certainly not in a classroom. I don't know if Baub is gay, but he was certainly flamboyant and expressive in a similar way to other gay men I've known. He also did an expository speech on Madonna. As any teacher knows, merely appearing effemnate in any way, what am I saying, just being different from the common herd in high school can make you a target of horrifying cruelty.
I have recently been reconnected with him via Facebook. He’s doing extremely well, having landed in La La Land (Hollywood). I heard part of his B.A.U.B.radio podcast today. It's wild and fun!. He has his thousands of followers and is of course a growing force on Twitter.

2009-11-15T13:19:00.001-08:00

Today’s Meet the Press has a segment on education. They played a sound bite from Obama reporting that his daughter says she does well in school because she just likes having knowledge. At breakfast today at Knapp’s Pat told of being at the aquarium watching kids excited to learn things about the ocean environment they didn’t know and comparing it with having kids in a science class who truly could not have cared less about knowing anything about the ocean or any other subject in biology. I have to say I have real trouble understanding that portion of our student body that is not only uncurious, but even openly disdainful of learning, knowing things. To be smart would be anathema.
When the administration of the school offered to support a committee to discuss discipline in school, despite being really busy, I jumped to join it. We call it the Safe and Civil committee. After the last meeting, another member expressed appreciation for my presence on the committee basically because of my ability to be blunt. It’s one way I deal with discipline in my own classroom. I just like to cut to the chase. Whatever the situation, instead of dithering through discussion or argument, I want to discover exactly what’s going on, get to the bottom right away. Time is too precious. Sometimes that makes me appear confrontational, and I get in trouble sometimes. Why mess around?
My father influenced me a bit in this regard. He’s scrupulously honest, even returning extra change to a clerk. Another influence comes from my fundamentalist period. Matthew 5:37. Let your yes be yes and your no be no, anything else comes from evil. Don’t bother lying or prettying up your prose or adding obscenity or swearing to your discourse. Tell the truth and tell it plainly. Emily Dickinson notwithstanding (tell the truth but tell it slant), I’ve worked hard to try to speak plainly and honestly. Do I never lie? Well, not never, and I don’t always tell everything I know, but I do speak plainly about what my students are doing. If they’re mocking me, I let them know I recognize it. If they’re trying to control the classroom, I’m going to let them know I understand their need for control, but that I have to run the class. During my very first year of teaching, I had to confront a student who had erased other students’ work from a floppy disk (remember those?). At one point he said, “Are you calling me a liar?” Of course I did not want to admit that I was indeed calling him a liar, but that’s exactly what was happening. It was a horrible feeling.
That situation taught me a lot. Later that afternoon I called his mother. She was very grateful for the call. Her son had planned to go to a party that weekend that she did not want him to attend. She thanked me for giving her a reason to say “no” to him. I was shocked. To be fair, I don’t have kids of my own so I do not know how difficult it is to say “no” to my 14 year old son when he wants to go to a party where I suspect there will be drinking. His behavior in class was consistently poor: talking, ridiculing others, refusing to stay on task, bullying, insubordinate, surely his mother saw some of this behavior at home!
The way teachers are treated by kids completely shocks my 80 year old parents. My dad looked forward to school; he respected his teachers. I loved school, although I did not respect all my teachers I certainly did not treat them badly (except Mr. Jensen, but boy is THAT another story). Some of my students still like school, come to school ready and willing, desirous of learning and treat their teachers very well. They are not the majority. If they were, education would not need fixing. Teachers are being asked to motivate the unmotivated, move the immobile. Lots of people are talking about extending the school day or school year, but forcing unwilling kids to endure more of something they hate or are not prepared for makes no sense. Am I too blunt? More to follow…

2009-11-11T21:02:00.001-08:00

A long time ago, seems like a different life, now, my goal was to live in Forks and ride my horse to my job at the local radio station. I was a camp counselor at the time at Camp Sealth, now just across the Puget Sound from where I work at Gig Harbor High. Even back then I was torn between loving primitive, natural things and technology. Ah, technology! How you’ve changed. Riding home from the movie tonight we had to stop at a red light by a Radio Shack, now just “The Shack.” There had been a radio shack in the movie, Amelia. An aside about the film: Hilary Swank will not be winning as Oscar for it. Not many radios being sold in Radio Shack these days I don’t suppose. How things change. CenturyTel is now CenturyLink, I noticed. Not too long ago, in Cheney, I had a party line as my only phone. Now we connect by land lines, cell phones, Blackberry devices and computers via wi-fi and Skype. Communication is instantaneous and ubiquitous. Whereas a letter might have taken weeks to travel, we can now send our words immediately. Science fiction is real.

We must know so much more about each other now. We are constantly in touch with our friends and acquaintance, right? Wait, let me navigate away for a second and check…

I have another new follower on Twitter, even though I don’t tweet hardly at all. My dad has forwarded another uber-conservative rant, and several newspapers have updated me. Amazon is letting me know that one of the authors whose books I have bought will be publishing a new one, etc., and two of my co-workers are currently logged in to their facebook accounts. I could click on chat and talk to them. I could also just pick up the phone and call them. In actuality, I feel as though I have already made a connection. I fertilized their farms on Farmville AND Farm Town. Our friendship is so much stronger now. There: I just sent them a turkey. Maybe they’ll gift one back to me. I especially hope they’ll send me a red maple tree, otherwise they’re too expensive. I may also have some Farkle chips waiting for me.

Walking through the halls of the high school, the students have their noses in a tiny keyboard, texting each other. It’s what passes for conversation. They’ll sit next to each other, never speaking, while they send cryptic alphabet soup through the ether. Well, they can’t talk, they’ve got earbuds plunged into their ears forcing digital music deep inside. I love music; I used to listen to more music, before it got so convenient. I have an iPod, Bose headphones, Skullcandy earbuds, even a sound dock. More and more I want to hear real sounds, people, wind, birds, breathing, paper shuffling. There’s music in those sounds, too.
I guess I’m having connectivity issues, besides having my network cable cut because I wasn’t home and SOMEBODY didn’t know where that wire went. No, my issues are that I’m too connected and I don’t know whether to reject it or not. I don’t know whether I want to ride a horse or buy one for my digital farm.
Eh! I’ve got to hurry and post this on Blogspot; My TV show is starting.

2009-11-01T17:53:00.000-08:00

In '91, I learned a Ukrainian dirty word. I was teaching in the Everett School District and was forced to divide my time between the high school, teaching English, and the middle school in a poor section of town teaching English as a Second Language. I had no training, no materials, no help and a principal who thought I should write Individual Educational Plans for each of my students, one of whom was VietNamese, one of whom was Romanian, 2 of whom were ethnic Russians, and the rest of whom were Ukrainian refugees from the former USSR, most of whom shared the last name of Babak; they were all cousins, apparently.

After attending a conference, I learned that immersion is the best way to learn a language. It takes about three years, but so does any other method, so I divided class time into two parts, some direct instruction in English, and watching English language movies. This seemed to work pretty well. Soon, they learned enough English to express preferences, one of which no surprise, was cartoons. The other was religious movies, chiefly, Ben Hur, "Judahbengur, judahbengur," I would hear every day. "Teacher, teacher! Judahbengur!" I guess the chariot scene crosses culture barriers. Actually, these were the children of Christian refugees. They left the USSR because to stay meant daily humiliation and oppression from ethnic Russians who had been sent to Ukraine to be teachers and other authorities. The children refused to wear the red scarves that signified Communism, so they were fair targets for any bullies, including teacher bullies. They did not love Russians. The two Russian boys in the class, the Rubashkas, were ok, because they were members of the same fundamentalist Christian faith as the Ukrainian children.

Sasha Rubashka was one of the most memorable of those kids. He would speak to me frequently, quite urgently, in Russian. Every time my answer was the same, "Sasha, I don't speak Russian." He would grimace in frustration, but repeat the performance some times several times the same day. One day, as I was asking him something in English as part of my unscientific immersion style teaching, he answered in his thick accent, "I don't speak English," and then laughed uproariously. The others joined in, and so did I. It was brilliant.

Oh yeah, the dirty word. One day, as I prepared that day's video extravaganza, they gathered around me shouting "Cartoon cartoon!" but I assured them there was no cartoon that day. One of the Babak's was walking by the VCR flopping his head back and forth and repeatedly muttering, "Cartoon, pardoon, cartoon pardoon..." I asked Natalia, whose English was very good, what pardoon meant. She blushed a bit and said quietly, "um, it mean, bottom poo."

I'm remembering all of these kids because of the recent flap over R-71, the referendum to the people that endorses the legislation already passed by the state legislature that gives domestic partners, same sex or heterosexual seniors, "everything but marriage," insurance coverage, inheritance, visitation in the hospital, things like that.

By purely anecdotal evidence, the largest contingent of anti 71 demonstrators in Tacoma all attend a local slavic church. It's likely that this is the same type of fundamentalist group that fled the Soviet Union to escape persecution. Like most religious groups offended by gays, they do not make the connection between their own persecution at the hands of a government that refused to allow them their beliefs and persecution of homosexuals. The irony is that in the USSR, they could not speak freely ANY of their beliefs, and yet here in their adopted country, they are free to believe whatever conservative faith they'd like and to protest the granting of rights to another persecuted minority. Although I disagree with them, knowing as I do that being gay is no one's choice and therefore not possibly a sin, I am happy they are here in the US and free to announce their opinion and thus their bigotry. Only they don't know yet that it is bigotry. They need to be educated, to learn that whatever they fear is not really anything to fear. Gays are not going to destroy their marriage or devour their children. They will learn it, but it will take time. Immersion is the best method, though, and eventually they will immerse themselves in American life.

2009-10-26T18:45:00.000-07:00

This morning I received a gift I do not deserve. I accepted it as graciously as possible, meaning I stuttered, spluttered, stammered and then burst into tears. A co-worker, whose boots I am not fit to lick, gave me a quilt she made specifically for me. It is perfect. Had I shopped for one for ages, I could not have chosen a better one. She meant the gift to thank me for my friendship. I have done a few nice things for her but not nearly as much as she has deserved for being a friend and mentor. We're both teachers, but she is an amazing teacher. She can reach the slowest student with compassion and encouragement and the speediest learner with intellectual stimulation and motivation. She is a caretaker, not only for her own needy family members, but also for everyone around her. No one ever knows how much she grieves or struggles, because she is always, ALWAYS, upbeat, energetic and positive, always working for the greater good of her students, the entire school and by extension, the community and the rest of the world. None of us is an island. I believe six degrees of separation is more like three and Patty Robison has sent ripples of guidance, encouragement, humor, camaraderie, and love all across the world. I am indeed fortunate to be in the first degree, receiving the first wave of the energy she exudes. Thank you Patty. I am honored beyond belief to be cuddled up in this gorgeous quilt.

Capitalism in secret

2009-10-25T20:50:00.000-07:00

Moore, in his latest film, blasts Capitalism, calling it evil, apparently inherently so. He even calls on priests to weigh in in agreement. Here’s the definition from YourDictionary.com :
capitalism definition
capi•tal•ism (kap′ət 'l iz′əm)
noun
1. an economic system in which all or most of the means of production and distribution, as land, factories, communications, and transportation systems, are privately owned and operated in a relatively competitive environment through the investment of capital to produce profits: it has been characterized by a tendency toward the concentration of wealth, the growth of large corporations, etc. that has led to economic inequality, which has been dealt with usually by increased government action and control
I must admit, I expected a different definition, one that included the concept of the free market economy, the idea of supply and demand. I learned in economics class that a free market was an essential part of a capitalistic economy. Wealth might result from entering into the free market, but only by filling a demand with a product or service that either no one else produced or that you could produce better. The free market would foster healthy competition and innovation. It’s why Bill Gates owns a healthy complement of Apple stock. It’s not just to keep away from anti-trust issues. If you’re the only game in town, there’s no impetus for improvement. Coincidentally, a PC/Apple ad just played on TV.
In the film, Moore spends a significant amount of time showing that it is unlikely that Jesus was a capitalist. He wasn’t very materialistic, pretty much insisted on monopoly and hung out with tax collectors. The deeds of American barons and magnates don’t much resemble his. I don’t agree that an economic system is evil in and of itself. It seems to me that it’s not the profit, even the obscene profit, that makes our society so unbalanced between the rich and poor, but the secrecy. If the CEOs and traders and shady realtors showed openly the kinds of shenanigans they’re pulling, then the free market laws of supply and demand could protect unsuspecting consumers from being taken advantage of. A mortgage document with the increases in interest rate hidden in fine print and written in lofty sounding legalese seems innocuous. If the prospective home-owner saw clearly and could understand the danger, or if the kindly realtor was open, honest and above these financial board about it, fewer of those dangerous sub-prime loans would have been granted, fewer people would have defaulted, fewer low-income people would have been hurt and the ripple effect of the defaults would have been drastically reduced.
I loved the part about derivatives, another culprit in out recent financial troubles. I recently took a refresher course on the calculus, the lofty math some financial geniuses used to gamble on the lending industry. These are the tiny numbers that allowed banks to spread the risk to insurance companies like AIG. If the guys who manipulate them can’t even explain them, what gives them the hubris to base a company’s financial security on them?
Shine some light on these guys and their business practices. If people are informed about what a company’s policies include and if they don’t like those policies, the free market will kick in and they can chose to patronize a competitor. For example, recently, Hall’s has produced an ad for a new cough drop which shows a mother taking with a boy her son’s age. They both suck on cough drops while staring into each others’ eyes, exaggerating their mouth movements as they enjoy the lozenges. It’s quite sensual. I wrote them and complained that I thought it was tasteless and offensive. They did write back, but just to defend it. I did learn from the exchange that Hall’s is part of Cadbury who used to own Snapple and 7-Up but now they don’t, but they still own Schweppes. Giant corporations buy and sell segments of companies to and from each other with alarming frequency. It’s just a game of number to them. Consumers beware! Capitalism isn’t inherently evil, but in the dark and in secret, capitalists do evil things.

2009-08-25T17:54:00.000-07:00

Years ago a friend who was (and still is) a science teacher at Everett High School took me to attend ancient music concerts with her. The music was performed on period instruments by people who were expert in their use in buildings in and around Seattle with some pretty amazing acoustics, churches, actually. Hearing medieval polyphony played this way is truly transcendent. It's as if there is no other music in the world, nor does the world need any other. I was quite happy to accompany my friend to these concerts and didn't mind a bit that I was only there so she would not have to go alone. Sometimes profound experiences come from mundane , even inelegant ones. She also purported herself to be an atheist. After one particularly amazing performance, as we discussed the music, she expressed with amazement the idea that there must be something to all that religion stuff since religious belief had inspired those ancient composers to create such incredible music.

I did nothing to disabuse her, but it's also likely that the religio-politics of the time obviated any other form of music. More on this anon...

2009-08-20T13:07:00.000-07:00

If newspapers die completely, I'll be honest, what I'll miss most is the comics. I can't miss the funnies. Today, in Dennis the Menace, Dennis was sitting at the dinner table opining that he would rather eat next door at the Wilsons'. Looking at his plate, you see the typical cartoon drawing of food, various lumps. I had an epiphany this morning, which may explain why I truly love mashed potatoes. The only thing I really miss on those high protein diets in mashed potatoes. They aren't really the most flavorful thing on the plate, nor are they extraordinarily nutritious. They do, however, resemble cartoon food. Just check out the Simpsons or any other cartoon where the family sits down to eat. What everyday food could possibly look like those lumps? It's gotta be mashed potatoes. I remember wondering why the food on my dinner plae did not resemble comic strip food. For some reason, it all looked really tasty, just lumpy squiggles on the plate.

On a related note, go here: http://www.kingfeatures.com/features/comics/bizarro/aboutMaina.php and get the comic for July 1, 2009.

I think this comic is quite apt for Americans. After I got back from six months in China, I started to notice how fat we are as a people. We're fat. Not all of us are, of course, but lots of us, dare I say tons of us. I'm fat, but I'm not as fat as many, so people say, oh, you're not fat. No, I'm fat. It's affecting my health in many not good ways. If you're fat, do what you can to become un-fat. If your health is not suffering now, it will be. It's only a matter of time.

2009-08-16T05:58:00.000-07:00

"Let's wait and see," he said. Exactly a year later, I went back to him with my foot. He still had no clue, so he decided to send me to a specialist. At the time, my insurance, like so many plans, did not allow me to decide for myself whether or not I should see a specialist. He sent me, after a full year of suffering constant pain, to the best podiatrist in Seattle. He looked at my X-rays, poked at my feet and announced that I had soft tissue damage and now that a year had passed, it was too late to do anything but amputate my little toe. Or I could wear shoes with a straight last, shoes that cost $300 dollars.

The shoes eased the pressure on my throbbing foot, and the following year, my school district offered a new insurance option, slightly more expensive of course, wherein one could refer oneself to a specialist. I jumped all over that. Over the next several years I found 6 different ortho guys who also perused the X-rays and found nothing. I kind of gave up and went with my $300 shoes. Then, after moving from Everett to Tacoma, one of the other ailments I had brought to my "wait and see" doc got so much worse I needed a complete hysterectomy. While in the hospital with a morphine drip, my foot hurt so bad I could not sleep. OK, I thought, one more podiatrist.

My new podiatrist looked at my old X-rays and immediately saw two breaks in my fifth metatarsal. That was ten years ago, and although my foot still hurts, I now have much better ways to deal with it. It will never be cured. That ship has sailed.

All this talk about having a government bureaucrat come between you and your doctor is amusing to me. A bureaucrat might have been helpful, since my own doctor came between me and my health care. Options people, we want options. It may be true that the best health care exists in the USA, it is also true that our system often keeps us separated from it. That's ridiculous.

The hysterectomy, BTW, went very wrong and that will be the subject of a future installment of Rosewoman's take on health care needs in America.

Quackery, and I don't mean AFLAC although it's related

2009-08-14T21:11:00.000-07:00

When I lived in Everett, I had a doctor I liked; I liked him as a person. We had great conversations, but as a doctor I did not like him. He was a "wait and see" doc. I say that to other doctors and a knowing half-smile creeps across their face. They know just what I mean. He was so poor at diagnosing he would say, "Let's wait and see," perhaps in the hopes that whatever problem the patient has would simply go away on its own and he would therefore be absolved of any responsibility for actually doing anything.

Well, back then I had four problems I took to him, all of which received the wait and see method, but I'll spare you the details of all but one, my left foot. It was Christmas, and I was walking downstairs in my new abode. I thought I was on the last step, not so much. I felt the popping as my foot broke. Doc saw nothing on the X-ray. "Let's wait and see...."

I waited one year...

2009-08-14T13:05:00.000-07:00

I had a different topic in mind for today, but it'll keep. I finally remembered to write a letter to Comedy Central.

Here is my letter, edited blog-style:

Ever since I discovered The Daily Show with John Stewart, I have been amused at Stewart's use of what most consider foul language, only to have it bleeped later during the broadcast. After all, it's pretty obvious what he's saying. His show is not ad libbed, it's scripted, so if Comedy Central really wanted it censored, it seems like Stewart would write his material without obscenity in the first place.

Lately, though, I've noticed that although the "F-bomb" is censored, the "b-word" is not. Obviously Comedy Central does not think the "b-word" is as offensive to people. Maybe they even have focus groups to determine these things. Until recently, I'd have agreed with them.

I now believe the "b-word" has evolved from mildly racy to patently offensive. Here's the link to my favorite dictionary site's entry for the word. http://www.yourdictionary.com/bitch

From simply meaning female dog, it became a description of an unpleasant female and by extension, the act of complaining or nagging. Kwitcherbichin is a nicely alliterative and assonant phrase popular in my family. Recently, however, from hip-hop, the phrase "make you my bitch" has shaded the meaning of the "b-word" more maliciously. To be someone's bitch is much more demeaning than just to be an annoying woman. As someone's bitch, you're their ultimate servant, complete underling, even sex slave. As difficult as it is to do after 50 years of using this word, I have deleted it from my vocabulary. As a teacher, it is on the list of words not to use in the classroom and words I will not ignore if I hear them, even if said quietly.

There is a specific image that was in the news that really convinced me to rail against this word: Snoop Dogg at the 2003 MTV Music Awards. It can be found here.

http://music.msn.com/music/artist-photos/snoop-dogg/?gallery=13931&photo=b0086f15-f93d-4698-8f05-bbf867b0d1f8

A picture is worth 1000 words, isn't it?

Frankly, I'd rather hear the f-bomb than the b-word.

Thank you.

2009-08-13T07:00:00.000-07:00

Last evening, we attended Jose's graduation from the Goodwill Industries Youth Build program for kids who have had poor starts in life compounded by a series of bad choices on their parts. Using the setting of the construction industry, young people who are no longer part of the public school system gain preparedness to pass the GED, earn a pre-apprenticeship certificate and be able to get jobs or further training. Jose did very well in the program; he worked for a time as a laborer on a site with a major construction company, got his GED and remained substance-free during the entire duration of his enrollment, something he told us the other kids mostly did not do, even though it could have meant expulsion. One of the final activities of the program was a tour of several local colleges.

I know what colleges popped into your mind, community colleges and technical schools, institutions that are a logical step for youth who have struggled, whose reading levels were barely 9th grade and math levels were middle-school when they started 8 months previously and have now improved to GED level, which isn't very high. Part of the graduation ceremony was a slide show chronicalling major events and activities for them. They hauled these newly hopeful youths to Central Washington University, Gonzaga University, WSU and University of Oregon.

I don't want to denigrate their achievement. Without Youth Build, these kids would still have no credentials nor training nor job readiness of any sort and be sleeping all day and roaming the streets at night (I'm just quoting the commencement speaker), but there is no way any of them, many with felony convictions, are going to get in to Gonzaga. There was one photo in the slide show that I think was unconsciously symbolic. It was at Gonzaga. All of the kids, identifiable by their Youth Build T-Shirts, were peering in to an vague space through one of those roll-down barriers, essentially through bars. Whatever was behind the barrier was clearly fascinating to each of them. But like Gonzaga itself, clearly unattainable. As good as the program is, it's not enough to get them into a four-year university of that quality. Maybe CWU, or even WSU, but Uof O and Gonzaga? I do not understand why they spent so much money on such an excursion. Why not take them to area 2 year colleges and training programs? Why give them a false sense of encouragement? True, I don't know how the trip was presented to them, but seeing that photo, disadvantaged kids, clinging to a barrier at an institution of higher learning while peering intently inside, really stung my heart.

2008-06-02T20:46:00.001-07:00

This campaign season has forced into the open a topic many of us would rather ignore. During my five month stay in China, I learned that when the Chinese think of an American, the face they picture is Caucasian. I suspect that is true for most foreign countries. Our leaders are mostly white men, so it’s not really surprising. If you only visit selected American places, especially small towns away from the coasts, or West Virginia (apparently) you could receive and hold indefinitely the impression that The United States is a white, Christian country.

Yesterday, at Tacoma Mall, I saw two people walking together who embody my idea of America. I noticed them because one of them was absolutely stunning in a floor length, purple gown and stiletto heels. The rich purple complemented her deep brown skin. Her hair was swept up into a feathered crown. She seemed a bit overdressed for the mall, but even more overdressed when compared to the woman walking with her. She wore jeans, a sweater with wide horizontal grey stripes, non-descript sneakers, and her mousy-brown-straight hair was shoulder length. As they walked together, they were clearly engaged in comfortable, friendly conversation. Their smiles were genuine, their friendship shone clearly; an aura of conviviality surrounded them. A glamorous, slim black woman and a very average white woman walking along as natural as could be, and that, to me, is one of the best things about America. It is time that the leadership of America reflects the citizenship of America.

There’s been talk in recent years that we are really two Americas, and they’ve been color coded into red and blue. Maybe that’s code for white and blended. The heartland of America, the interior, seems to find it easier to identify “us” and “them.” If you’re white and you can manage to live in such a style that you never see people of color, or if you do they are easy to ignore as part of the landscape, as a gardener, perhaps, then you might actually think of America as a white country. The actual statistics of our ethnic diversity would be meaningless if you are insulated from an ethnic experience. Tacoma is a city of diversity, but there are communities very near Tacoma where a monochromatic lifestyle is indeed possible. The existence of these Caucasian enclaves does not change the fact that they are aberrations. Any American’s everyday reality of a mono-white America is in reality unreal.

A recent Bloom County comic in the Sunday paper involved the regular cast of characters beginning a debate centered around the current presidential primary campaign. Their first question was, “Is Barack Obama a black man with a white mother or a white man with a black father?” When no one in the strip had an answer to the question, they ended the debate and went swimming. I was immediately reminded of a student I had years ago, a very lovely young woman with creamy beige skin tones, very curly light brown hair, and a hint of Africa in her features. Her father had one black parent. For Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday, she received an invitation to the breakfast for all of the African-American students in the school. I innocently handed it to her in first period. She flew into a rage. “Why do I have to be black? Why can’t I be white? Almost my entire family is white. I hate that side of my dad’s family! They have never been nice to me! Why can’t I choose the white side of my family?!?” I had no answer for her, but it reminded me of the scene in Showboat when Julie has to leave the boat because according to Mississippi law, a person with “one drop of black blood” made one black. The problem is that Julie is married to a white man, which was illegal in the state. Her husband takes some of her blood into his mouth in order to split hairs, saying there is at least a drop of black blood in him, too. Naturally it doesn’t work and Julie leaves the Showboat. It still seems to be true that in America, the great melting pot, if you have any non-white relatives anywhere in your family tree, you are not white. Tiger Woods is considered by most people to be an African-American golfer despite the fact that he is more ethnically Thai than black.

We do not seem to have moved very far past Julie having to leave the Showboat. In our human need to define people, we have left no wiggle room. The census did not allow people to choose multiple ethnicities until 1997 as if before that time we could all easily be plopped into clearly defined racial categories of Asian, black, Native or white. It’s past time to move beyond defining people in these narrow terms.

In his speech in Philadelphia, Barack Obama said, “Race is an issue that I believe this nation cannot afford to ignore right now.” He’s right. We have avoided an open discussion about race for quite some time. 60s civil rights legislation was a step in the right direction but clearly we cannot stop there. There are still inequities and misconceptions from every corner. Jon Stewart’s take on Obama’s speech was relief that we finally had a politician who would talk to Americans about race as if we were grown up. Let’s truly grow up as a country. Let’s bring the issue of our ethnic diversity on to the table and let’s elect Barack Obama so that an important face of America more accurately reflects America.