There Are Always More Words

2008-02-02T10:37:00.000-05:00

I read this article yesterday and it supports my claims of 'deal or no deal' kind of politics in ways. The rich get richer, the poor get nothing. In a day when people struggle, the big business continues to benefit from the need for energy without any scruples.

EXXON SETS PROFIT RECORD: 40.6 billion last year

"Exxon Mobil earned more than $1,287 of profit for every second of 2007." That makes me sick, especially when we see how the companies treat the individuals in the host countries where the oil is taken from. I'm just shaking my head. Talk to every politician you come across about this issue.

2008-02-01T22:23:00.000-05:00

My last post was April 7, 2007. Time flies when you are busy. Many changes and alternate realities have found their home in the last year and while not so much has changed, life has gone on and plenty has changed. Welcome back everyone and me. My computer crashed and burned with all of my history of writing perched tenuously on its pixels and whatnot. It sits there, my other computer, reminding me each day to take it somewhere and salvage what I can. In the mean time, I keep on doing what I do elsewhere and not here.

The weather is paramount. Al Gore not only invented the internet, but also invented global warming which is proving this year, that the grammy, nobel peace prize, runner up for time man of the year and oscar all mean my drive to work each day is gruesome. What the heck? It's been a terrible winter so far for us here in northwestern Pennsylvania and I want Punxatawny Phil (or however you spell it) to stop giving us predictions. I just want it to stop!

Politics is becoming streamlined and a broken record. Just get it done. Enough said.

The recession is upon us. I'm studying the depression with my kids and while we have in our nation a 5.0-4.8 unemployment rate, it's not the 30% of those days. We overspend, over extend and let them put the price of oil up to $100 a barrel and whine. The entire southern half of our country should rely on solar power for 85% of their sustenance but the oil lobbyists don't allow it and lawmakers show their 'deal or no deal' greed by folding to the highest bidder. Oil consumption for America is embarrassingly high and we turn a blind eye to it. Heaven forbid a family of four have ONE car instead of three or four. Heaven forbid we keep giving trade agreements to other countries for their political support and it's cheaper to buy goods from them than from our own neighborhood manufacturing companies that support our local economies. Oh wait, give me a check for $600 down the line so I can go spend it at Walmart or Best Buy for some goods that were made in China anyway. You get the drift. Enough said.

A plane landed in Bolivia in a swamp tonight. Everyone survived.

We are in a recession. In the spirit of FDR and hope for the world. All we can do is embrace what is good and will hold us safe in its comfort. Look for the good, tighten the belts, simplify. I appreciate our country. I value our lives that are free. We can survive this.

One more thought....Steve Fossett. Persevere. What we suffer or struggle with brings us so many valuable lessons in life. Limitations. Know what you can do and then set a goal to reach just beyond it. The only way we can learn and innovate is to know this. Tenderness. Life is full of struggle and desperation. Know that love can teach you to accept the world in ways you never believed were possible.

It feels good to be back. Enough said.

2007-04-07T11:59:00.000-04:00

View from a booth somewhere in the middle....

The weeks are flying by and I'm too busy to write. That says it all in a nutshell. I finally have six days off for Easter and managed to catch up with many, many things that otherwise I couldn't do. The number one priority was sleep and I got it and plenty of it so now I can breathe again for a minute. In my absence not much has changed; global warming is still in the headlines although you wouldn't know it here, it's been snowing since Wednesday and won't be done until tomorrow and we've gotten a foot or so. Luckily it is hovering around 30 so I can tolerate that. We always have this April snow and only the week before it had been 70. Welcome to the great lakes region. What else? Troops still dying in Iraq, civilians being massacred every day in large numbers and Bush is vetoing anything that looks like it will ruin his last chance to save Iraq. Celebrity headlines are still around and no one cares that people are finally getting OUT of rehab. They only want to see the failings of the stars. Anna Nicole is finally buried but not the drama....I'm tired of seeing that on my headlines every morning when I check my homepage...

Movies...Saw Children of Men and loved it. Running with Scissors made Mystery Man and I laugh even though it got horrible reviews. The Believer was lent to us by Kissing Peaches and we liked that too. Went to see 300 with a friend and I liked it better than Sin City but after the millionth person had been speared or mutilated with a Spartan sword I found myself looking at the time and wondering when we would be done. The graphics and cinematography were good. Haven't had the time or desire to watch movies of late, busy getting ready for summer. I've been writing articles for a local summer newspaper and that has kept me busy with all the other things. I'm tired of going to meetings. I got six new kids at school and that's always good for a time filler as well. Art in the Park and the Book Swap will be here before we know it and I've got some new things planned for that as well. My grad course has only four more times to meet and I'm ready for THAT to be done. I love history and the information has been interesting, but I am feeling strained at this point.

Kissing Peaches got her own car and registered it this week. She finally has wheels and now I have one more thing to be crazy worrying about, but she's a good driver so we'll see how that goes. I've only written one poem in the last month. That's pathetic. I did finish two more chapters on my summer novel I started last summer but I can't see much being done until I'm off work for the summer. I'm only up to 30,000 words so I still have at least another 50,000 to go. I'm cutting it off a little early (100,000 is always the target for me) because I can say what I have to say in that number. I'm going to print up copies possibly for just a little local selling. It wouldn't have much to say to those who don't live here since it is a very personal little story for the folks around here. We'll see how that goes.

I'm working with two other people from the lake to put a book together for the summer of 2008 on the history of the area. We have a lot of photos and resources and I think it would be well recieved. I have to get through the rest of this school year first and get my bearings before I start gathering more for that though...I'm getting tired already. So if you don't see me again for a while, you've got the rundown on why. Forty days of school left....I'm counting down.

2007-03-15T17:34:00.000-04:00

Nature's Finest

Spring is trying its best to find a foothold this week and true to form we are getting our St. Patrick's Day Snowfall. Yesterday it was in the fifties and spring was settling in nicely when a wicked, wicked thunderstorm and rain shower came on the cusp of dropping temps. The morning commute was terrible with snow and slush and ice and winter said, "not yet honey". We had some fabulous fog the day before last and part of yesterday and that always puts me in the mood for spring. Terrible to drive in but so cool in many other ways. The grass is very green as the snowbanks melt away and in the morning the birds are chirping up a storm. The sap is running in the trees and my blood is thinning out a little and making me feel a little less sluggish. I can't wait for it all to arrive.

2007-02-24T10:19:00.000-05:00

View from the Corner Booth

Winter is winding back the other way this week. It is warmer out and still snowy but the sun is shining more than it's not and that's always a good thing. I'm finally at the end of craziness week and glad to be done. Some weeks are just too jam packed full of appointments and obligations and this was one of them. I'm still struggling to write this week; the words just won't come and I'm not pushing the issue too much either. When my mind is too full of other things it's a lot like swimming upstream trying to put words down. Even my metaphors suck this week. Hopefully that will all improve this week.

Kissing Peaches is on break this week from college and my younger daughter is in a prom and bridal show on Sunday modeling all the most beautiful (and expensive) fashions so I'll be occupied this weekend with various schlepping tasks. I don't mind. We've spent major quality time in the car over the years and it won't be different this weekend. Mystery Man is on his long weekend of work so I won't see much of him but we did manage a couple of hours last night to watch Babel. Good movie, reminds me of Crash in its structure. The scenery was great, lots of contrasts between the twisting story lines and it was put together in a clever manner. Best Picture at the Oscars? I don't know. I haven't seen the Last King of Scotland yet and something tells me that one has a good shot. I also haven't seen The Queen so I'm out of the loop.

Tonight we have The Prestige to watch so when he drags himself home from work I'm sure we'll watch that and call it a quiet weekend. It's funny, six months ago I didn't know Christian Bale from a hole in the wall but now I've seen him in Batman, The Machinist, and American Psycho and I admit I've become a bit of a fan. We'll see how this one goes.

I'm already sick of the presidential election. I watch it from the sidelines wondering if they even realize how much wasted money and effort is being thrown around. The ironic thing is, how much press the people who are not running for president get in the places that the general population see most often. I think a good marketing strategy for presidential hopefuls is to see how many times they can get their name slipped into an article about Britney or Anna Nicole or The Police. The subliminal impact may just be worth more advertising dollars. Most of the political stuff shows up on the politics page these days and I know there are many in this country who deliberately skip over that page just because it is a lesson in contradiction most of the time to read it with any regularity. Better yet, all those headlines about crazy murders might be fertile advertising ground. Just one line that reads, "Hillary Clinton has denounced Mr. So-and-So's behavior and sent a condolence message to the victim's family," at first would make you say, "huh" but then establish her name in the back of your mind as supporting victims! Okay, so it might not work so well. Just giving myself something to write about. Suffice to say, I'm disgusted with politics, disgusted with pop culture scandals and wish it would quit snowing. My rant is done.

Yeah, so, this blog is full of random nothingness but at least I got some words on the page and that's a plus. Maybe this will be the week I break the writer's block.

2007-02-10T12:13:00.000-05:00

The snow entry

We've had 72 inches of snow and bitter cold for weeks now. I'm not happy.

The Oscars have been announced and the one good thing about snow is being trapped in a house with a pile of movies to watch and no desire to go outside. I don't know who's going to win but there are some great movies nominated. Kissing Peaches does a better job of summing it all up than I, why not check out her picks? The entry also announces that she is being officially published for the first time in the literary journal for her college. Good job kid!

It's funny, I've been writing poetry for so long now and trying to get my kids to appreciate the intricacies of it and both of them hate poetry. I'm hoping they mellow with age. That said, I haven't written anything for a few weeks now and realize that being too busy is a thing that interferes with the one thing I really love to do. I'm taking a grad course in history this semester at the local college and while I thought it would be great to clear the cobwebs out of my brain, it is just tangling them with the rest of my schedule. Some of us were talking about history and if you wanted to hone in on one topic to be your specialty what would it be? It's hard for me to pick. I've been mulling this over all week and as far as knowledge about topics I've narrowed it down the The Holocaust and WWII and The American Revolution. I always loved the middle ages though and yet part of me loves the dynamics of the twentieth century and societal changes. I guess I'm not ready to get an advanced degree in history yet, there's too much to choose from in the end.

I've been teaching science, history, english, math and health to all my students ages 12-18 for almost nine years now. I know a lot about a lot but not enough about enough. Does that make sense? I am really good at Jeopardy and hold my own at any trivia game. I ask myself all the time if I should just look for a job that teaches one subject and develop from there. I'm not getting any younger, so the time to decide is coming. Then I say, on the flip side, maybe I should just keep doing what I do and see what happens. How important is it to go onto even higher learning when I'm learning more everyday anyway? Do I need one more degree in something in the closet? I already have a few. More money is always nice, different opportunities are nice, but can I fit one more thing on the plate? The empty nest days are coming after next year. I'll procrastinate until the little one is at college, then decide. I always say I think I'll just walk away, open a coffee shop/bookstore and just spend the rest of the time being around people and talking about all we know as a world. Must remember to buy the Powerball ticket this afternoon....

2006-12-31T10:42:00.000-05:00

Etc....

I went outside in my sandals today. Okay, I wear them way too late in the seasonal turn, I admit, but it's not raining or snowing and it's 40 degrees today. I guess that is important only because every other year we seem to have this long lasting snow storm that starts Christmas day and goes until New Years day. Not so this year. I didn't mention this yesterday but thought about it last night and realized its kind of along those global warming thoughts I had yesterday. The geese have been flying north and northeast for the last two weeks. I've never in my life seen so many geese flying north during this week. I'm one of those people who notices the season's progression and what kinds of things the animals and birds and insects are doing throughout the year. We've had an unseasonably mild winter this year and consistent with that is the fact that the squirrels never really hid out so far, skunks are still rumaging around the neighborhood and the birds that are just hanging out at the lake aren't leaving. We've had two resident bald eagles floating around all year and they're still here too. The lake isn't even getting a glaze of ice on it so far. Yes, there is a Santa Claus. I don't know why it's like this, but I like it like this. I could manage to enjoy my winters like this from now on I think. As for all you whining people who say you wish the snow was here so you can get your snowmobile out....sorry for you, maybe next year.

On this topic, Kissing Peaches made my birthday complete this month when she bought me my own copy of An Inconvenient Truth. My kids at school groaned when I came in excited to tell them about the GREAT gift I had gotten from my very hip, very with it daughter. I think they thought I had gotten the go ahead to appear on "what not to wear" but sorry, it wasn't meant to be, instead I got an environment movie. They'll be watching that DVD in the near future and they're going to like it! I sounded like a mean mother right there...."You're going to eat your brussels sprouts and LIKE IT!" But honestly. My own kids who waste more energy and expend more pollution in the air than I do actually found it interesting and not too plodding, so we'll see.

I think that's all I had to report on this last day of 2006. I think I'll ponder the 2007 list of environmental things to change in our daily lives for this coming week. Oh, there was one more thing that just popped into my head as I wrote the words 2007 list. I got a DVD from the Film Guy for Christmas that I've had on VHS and pioneers the use of lists in our lives...High Fidelity. Love that Jon Cusack and the lists he compiles in that movie are worth watching the movie to see it all. Great cameo by The Boss in it too. Now that's really it...have a safe New Year's Eve.

2006-12-30T13:56:00.000-05:00

View from the corner booth....

What does the last week in December mean for all eternity in 2006? It was the death of the good, the bad and the ugly all during this week. Gerald Ford healed our country after an unthinkable tragedy of political trust and ethics opened our eyes to our government's wiley ways. James Brown was the godfather of 'bad' and everything after that became repetition and the ugliest man on earth found his demise in the clutches of a noose. Who would have ever figured that these three men would find some kind of connection in this crazy world we live in today?

I've been away from here for a while and it's nice to settle back into the armchair of the blog for a few minutes. I have no good or bad excuse for not being here, just haven't done it. The new issue of Scribe Spirit is out and I have a poem (Anticipating the Fracture of Glass) perched nicely between some wonderful work by some great authors, artists and poets. If you are into cinema, check out Kissing Peaches' favorite young man as he writes about film and all its nuances. Jonathan Burdick is not only a great guy but knows his stuff about all those movies we love and hate. Cinema Fusion offers up some interesting info about all things connected to film.

Speaking of film....I took my kids and the film guy to see Pursuit of Happyness on Christmas night and it was well worth the $7.50. What a tearjerker...Will Smith did a wonderful job and his son is just too amazing for a little tyke to be playing a starring role as he did. Look for great things from that one. We have some new DVD's left beneath the tree...Polar Express finally in our collection and we watched it Christmas Eve. Both Pirates movies are here, watched the new one with my daughter Christmas afternoon, and the everloving Ani DiFranco (thanks Mystery Man). Her DVD Trust is my cup of tea although my daughter can only keep noticing that she doesn't shave her armpits and just can't get beyond that. Despite that, which doesn't bother me in the least, the DVD is almost like being there. I've seen Ani in concert twice and she's a real gem and can that girl play guitar!

Mystery Man was away in California for a week and just returned so he hasn't busted into his five hours of Led Zeppelin DVD that was waiting here for him. I'll let him savor that himself while I'm at work and he has his days off. He did bring some Harry Chapin DVDs home with him (his father is such a cool guy) and so we'll most likely break into those first.

Here we are ready to start a new year again and it seems like 2006 flew by at light speed. We are healthy, happy and doing what we aim for and enjoying it. Can't beat that kind of lifestyle. This year will bring more writing, education news, environmental tales and always more opinion. The weather, how could I forget? Other than one massive storm that dropped a foot and a half on us in early December, it seems as if global warming might just be working for us here. Mild winter....only three months left. I think I can handle it. I'm alreading thinking of this summer's Art in the Park and since the day the Book Swap ended in September, I've spoken to dozens of people who are saving up their books for this summer. That starts again on June 24. I'm taking a history class at the local university this coming semester and it will be nice to clear the cobwebs out of the brain and be a student again for a few months. Three more days of vacation and then back to school, the year is flying by and the kids are great! Enough gushing in this pre new year's blog, Happy New Year to everyone and have a healthy, happy, successful 2007. Be kind to yourself and those around you and life will treat you well.

2006-11-18T10:12:00.000-05:00

Issues, Issues, Issues.....

While I am not a constitution thumping activist anymore these days, I do have a political soap box I do find beneath my feet at times and with the presidential election looming on the heels of a rallying cry of “democrats in da house!”, it’s time to start re-researching the issues again. As an educator, I have that nasty obligation of reading through it all and presenting it as carefully as possible to be unbiased. I’ll use my blog to rant instead about what I think is important. (This is the point where you can click the little x in the upper corner if you so desire.)

As my about clearly states, I am an environmentalist geek and as a natural reaction to this constant state, I have a simple theory about politics. In order to survive on this planet we need five main things: 1) Atmosphere that is conducive to respiration-Air we can breathe, 2) A viable source of energy- Sun (not necessarily petroleum products), 3)Clean drinking water, 4)Nutrients to sustain us – food, 5)Climate that allows us to live –reasonably temperate without aid of more than basic structures.

This list is of course the bare basics and pretty well explains the migration patterns and societal/cultural habits of all humans/humanoids in the world for about the last four million years. It really is survival of the fittest and since we can now thank the Neanderthals for mating with homo sapiens and giving us that all important brain gene, we fancy ourselves smarter than we really are. My thinking on this matter derives its inspiration from the fact that we have destroyed or are in the process of destroying most of the things on the list within, oh, the last three hundred years or so.

The connection to politics is simply this...walk the walk don’t talk the talk. I know that sounds cliche, but I don’t see anything about bashing each others brains out on the list to help the human race survive and cloning and prolonging life taking the first place finish out of the issues for the next election defies the purpose of the life cycle in general. I’m not opposed to either of those issues in some ways, but if the environment is going down the tubes, we’ll all be older than we want to be and unable to stop the consumerism trend that our world is addicted to as we speak. We consume things at an enormous speed without thought of the consequences and have developed a mentality of more, more, more that drives me nuts.

We have an Americanized idea of thinking and this makes us sheltered to how the rest of the world operates. We were born and bred on Democracy and freedom and it doesn’t take a big thick history book slapped to the side of our heads to realize that the rest of the world doesn’t necessarily feel this way. Religion and religious zeal is one of the most important issues on the state of global affairs. This isn’t on my list. It doesn’t mean it isn’t alive and well everywhere. I have no solutions on how to deal with the issues that surround concept. As a history buff in addition to being an environmental geek, I am aware that the ‘God’ (this term is all encompassing for all spiritual founders- it’s just the one I grew up with) who originally was written and spoken about in the early years of most religions; Jesus, Yahweh, Muhammed, Confucious, etc...All told similar tales of how to honor the spirit and it didn’t involve killing and speaking against the love of humanity in general and love of self. That said, we race ahead to the future and things have gotten a little bit misinterpreted, a little misconstrued.

Back to the election....the poles are melting, a big Japanese truck factory was opened in Texas this week, our shorelines will soon be inundated with melting glacial ice packs and our weather is changing. Watersheds are affected, our fish will be inedible by 2048, and smog will slowly kill off the lungs of three quarters of the people living in major cities globally over the next decades. It’s time for us to wake up. Vote your conscience and think about your children and grandchildren. Surely they will adapt to whatever we send their way, those that are left anyway.

2006-11-04T15:40:00.000-05:00

Poetry Time
A couple of recent poems...not feeling like discussing the world so much, it's all been done lately.

Anticipating the Fracture of Glass

My eyes follow the leaf as it falls,
too fragile to grasp the hint of gravity
seeing only its branch circling away
far into the sky, so distant now.

Reminded I am, as it tosses on the air,
of a lost day of circling words,
freefall genuflects to no image
on days such as that.

Red tinged and delicate, it hovers
as the breeze plays its scale upon sunlight,
then it drops suddenly— my breath waits,
not to be daunted, it dances somehow.

And your body waited there in darkness
for me to arrive—hope found direction
and I held back my tears at your brokeness,
urging you to find the calm somehow.

Quietly it settles at once, gentle was its halt,
and I wonder if it has capacity to know,
how distant its journey had been,
fraught with danger and despise.

But we know now of its journey,
somehow in this fall we once held,
on a distant day in the past,
no longer anticipating the fracture of glass.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Mendico

Memories struggle then shrug;
capturing the totem gods of yesterday
is akin to catching raindrops in the hand
and filling a sea with the fistfuls of damp.

I have no time for grasping now,
the hot sun is as escapable as dreaming,
and beach sand holds the history of life,
long before I thought of divining spirits
from its memories.

Clairvoyant snatches of time
reclaim the scent of you on the breeze
and touch of skin across the fingertips,
fleeting and soft as a murmur,
then gone, much as the season.

So the spirits weave as they always have
and dodge the rhythm of time,
glinting upon the waves of mystery
struggling in the shrug of yesterday.

2006-10-11T18:13:00.000-04:00

View from the Corner Booth

I'm tired of violence, hatred, fighting, war and bad news. Part of the problem is that I listen to the news on the radio much of the time, read the papers daily and listen to those around me discuss the things they feel are important to discuss. It seems lately we've been assaulted with stories of war across the globe, death and destruction in the name of religion, school shootings orchestrated by teenagers that barely know how to make dinner for themselves or wash their laundry but can boobytrap a school and have automatic weapons at their disposal. Let's not even go into the cloud of worry over global warming and nuclear proliferation.

I've gone on and on about how we are what we produce and this month, I'm not so proud as a citizen and member of planet earth to say I'm part of the big plan based on the headlines that are reported. I don't understand how we can be sucked into a world of hate. This is not a black hole we're talking about here. There is some human choice involved. I don't get it and this week I'm not trying too hard to understand. It seems too overwhelming.

There was a school shooting last week where a group of young Amish girls were killed. The reaction to this by the Amish community was grieving and then forgiveness. While in the hearts of the family and friends of those girls, forgiveness might be difficult, the fact that the stance of the group enmass was forgiveness is a humble lesson that we should all take to heart. I know that is a naive concept and perhaps it is because I'm the middle class American who is too idealistic, but I find it comforting that there are people out there who choose to make amends with the spirit of what they believe and it's proactive, not destructive.

My view of those around me is that this week everyone is flying around all bluster and fuss, not sure if they are happy or sad, angry or delighted. The weather is going through a major transformation from incredibly warm to suddenly cold and snowy. Like anything else, those storm fronts create havoc with the electro-magnetic field of the psyche. I'm talking straight bunk here according to scientific knowledge, but I notice this kind of thing and until things settle down and stay either warm or cold...we know it will be cold here....I think it's true. Life as a storm front...sounds like a poem waiting to happen. We'll see.

On a last note, check out this month's issue of ScribeSpirit.org. A shout out to Jody Kuchar again for putting together a very nice collection of work by some great people. This issue's topic was "food" and if you read "It Was Never Goodbye" you'll find an oldie but goodie I wrote about the drama of life and change. Hope you enjoy the issue.

Today's beautiful thing I experienced was the sound the leaves crunching under my feet as I walked to my car. It felt and looked like what Autumn should be.

2006-10-08T15:57:00.000-04:00

What they said....

I haven't said much here for a while. Summer has ushered in a beautiful fall here and the weeks are flying by in the same fashion as summer did. School is in session and it is shaping up to be a good year. I packed away all the books from the book swap this summer and not a week goes by where a few people I run into tell me they will be back in the summer with all the books they've saved over the winter. Literacy can be free and our small community proved it. I've read over fifty books since June and have found some gems in the bunch. Some I have mentioned in other blog entries but I have to say my favorite new author is Lisa Gardener. Her mystery stories tend toward the serial killer genre, but are so believable that I haven't gotten tired of the creative plots yet. There is so much out there to read and so many new kinds of writing that I look forward to those warm Sundays in the summer to catch up with all the friends I've made and the books they bring to share.

Kissing Peaches is off at college and I had the good fortune to have lunch with her today and her hot tip for a new movie is "The Departed". I'm a Marty fan and who doesn't like Uncle Jack? She said that it's the best movie she's seen in a long while. I may just have to start the winter habit of going to the movies on Sundays a little early this year and catch it next weekend.

This month will continue to be busy and all my good intentions to pick up the blog again and write revolve around one thing...the falling snow. The geese just started traveling this past week and I'm thinking that we may have a mild winter as this is late in the season to be heading out. Let's all keep our fingers crossed. I'm not the snow bunny type and the cold is best reserved for ice cubes in the Diet Coke and air conditioning on a hot day. As always...time will tell.

2006-08-24T19:11:00.000-04:00

Nature's Finest

Pluto is no longer a planet. There are only eight planets. All my science books are wrong. Time to revamp the lesson plans. Why couldn't they have done this at the beginning of summer instead of four days before school starts? I think it's a conspiracy. I'm going to pretend Pluto is still a planet. This is just plain wrong......

2006-08-22T20:47:00.000-04:00

View from the corner booth....

Does money mean better education? Throwing money at school systems with careful aim at certain hallways and with resounding slaps against the doors of administrations to do the right thing with the cash is an interesting concept. Some departments get more, others less. Some staff is cut, some staff is added, depending on the trends of test scores, politically driven programming and what the higher ups see as cutting edge education. I've been involved in education at the professional level for twenty five years and looking back at the way it has all gone, I realize that it really is all just about the government and fixing the problems rather than paving the way for success. The catch phrase in the last fifteen years or so and especially in recent years is the 'grant'. When one applies for a grant it fills the gap left by the budget cuts and is supported by the taxpayers in more benevolent ways. All those computers we bought over the years allows major computer stores and corporations to use us as a tax write off because they give grants to schools for various tech projects. The money we spend as consumers ends up costing companies too much in profit, so they give back the money in those special increments to those that need it and give themselves a nice tax benefit.

Is this wrong? Oh how the mind wraps itself around the issue. Most of our children have benefited from the grants offered over the years. Textbooks, technical equipment, conferences for leadership, health, science, the arts all have been funded in these ways.Teacher training and school based education for parents and caregivers have been funded in these ways. I've been a recipient of these projects, most of us in education have. The cycle continues and this is just a little treatise on an issue that revolves like our credit cards....it all goes around and around....

2006-08-17T14:39:00.000-04:00

People are strange........

Okay, your head and entire body would have to under a rock for centuries not to know about the JonBenet Ramsey case. Just when the cease fire in Lebanon happens and I think to myself, nice job...a little bit of down time before the next big news story takes over the media making us think nothing else exists in the world, here is this man in Bangkok confessing to a murder that just about took over the media for far too long. People are killed every single day in very sad, uncommon fashion and many of those killings never get the benefit of a moment of silence out of respect or a hefty investigation. The names are never published and yet the grief is still as palpable. Anyone who has had a death in any fashion knows this. I won't even start in on the entire Iraq death count, starving children or deaths from not having enough or good enough water in the world. It disgusts me that this guy who confesses gets his fifteen minutes of fame in this way. The news reports hinted that he's a pedophile and the record shows he was caught in a kiddie porn thing before. Who knows how many other lives he's damaged in all the countries he's been flitting to as a teacher? Grrrrr.....Just because he is 'allegedly' the one doesn't mean that 11 kids didn't just die in the last three minutes. Statistics probably show that three of them were murdered by individuals or governments in one form or another. Alright I'm done with my ranting and raving about it. I wish they'd just ban all press coverage until its over. Negative reinforcement is what's wrong with the world.

Let's focus for a moment on all the kids who are loved and honored in the world. Look at your own kids, your nieces and nephews, the kids on the block who are nurtured and cared for by those around them in good ways. The perfect parent has yet to be invented. The loving parent teaches a child to understand and accept life and be there for them when they need it. Children are all going to be different and its our job to look out for them and do the best we can with what we have. Let's spend a lot of time thinking about that instead of all the fears that are out there. Children will learn to react and troubleshoot in much better ways if they are loved first and warned second. It's a tough job but we have no choice once that child is inside growing. Bad people are a fact of life but I really and truly feel that there is more good than bad out there, so embracing that is perhaps a pipe dream on my part, but it makes me feel like we can all raise our next generation with a little hope.

2006-08-10T12:44:00.000-04:00

View from the Corner Booth

I have one more week of vacation and have to ask myself where the time has gone. It's been a wonderful summer for me and the fall will be welcomed without a doubt. I'm ready to get back to the scheduled life of the school year and see what it brings. Kissing Peaches heads off to college on the twentieth and my younger daughter is working in a real job, glad her birthday finally showed up. My reading this week was replaced with lesson plans and getting ready for the first month of school. I love the internet. Years ago, the way to update information on the subjects taught was to buy books or read articles about certain topics. Now there are a million resources available and I love being able to bring some fresh information to school in each new topic we discuss.

I went to see Inconvenient Truth, the Al Gore movie. I found great solace in knowing that what I've been teaching for all these years is finally in one movie that I can reference in school. I loved it, was saddened by the reality of it, but very satisfied that he is getting the message about global warming out to the world in a major way. Kissing Peaches and Mystery Man went along for the ride and all the things I've been harping about for years finally hit home.

I've been writing all summer and enjoyed that as I always do and maybe finally this year will be the publish year, gathering up all that poetry or fiction and doing something with it. We'll see.

I'm disgusted and appalled at the middle east situation with Lebanon...grrrr....

Not much else to say....the busy time is kicking in and I'm right there in the middle. I'll miss summer, but look forward to another great one next year. There are always more things to do.

2006-07-25T11:02:00.000-04:00

Summer's Escape

Where is it going and why won't it slow down as it races away? I don't mean my car as it's being stolen or an ex boyfriend as he races away...I mean summer. It has been such a great summer so far and here it is on the edge of August already. Mystery Man is out changing the front brakes on my car, I'm sitting here planning next weekends arts events and its sunny and hot. Only four more weeks of this and back to the classroom and business as usual. I started working on lessons for the fall yesterday and that only makes me realize how quickly this time will go. It seemed that when I started the summer in early June, the days would stretch out in front of me forever. Not so. The events I've been involved in are all going better than anticipated and everyone's happy. No injuries, complaints or crying.

Kissing Peaches and I sat eating french toast this morning and talking about summer. She worked her first real job where she had to hustle and it has paid off for her. Waitressing is a tough thing to do and she's made enough money to not have to worry so much about paying for things in college in the fall. In the beginning of the summer she worried about her last summer with her high school friends and how her social life is important for her. After getting some decent tips all summer and working a lot of hours she's had no major social life but doesn't care. The money bug has bitten her and its all downhill from here. All her friends get it too and they are working just as much so that's life. My younger daughter turns 16 next week and has a job waiting for her as well and I have to say I'm glad they both are starting to get the gist of financial responsibility. My not having to pay for everything will be a treat (although I'm sure I'll still be doing some of that) and now maybe I can start saving something myself. Being a single parent has been an interesting experience as far as all that goes and having the kids chip in is a definite treat. Everytime Kissing Peaches buys me a soda or cup of coffee I tell her that she's paid off the two o'clock feeding for that day eighteen years ago. She's into June 1988 now and still has lots of feedings to make up for but I'm not in a hurry.....

Outside this little summer world the big world is a mess lately. California, New York and St. Louis have power problems, Islamic and Middle East woes continue to grind away at so many issues about war and beliefs, and mayhem in the rest of the world assaults us everyday in the news. Where we once had life moving one step at a time, now it moves so quickly that we can't keep up and ask ourselves, why should we? I'll keep plugging away in my little corner. It's all we can do....

2006-07-17T17:12:00.000-04:00

Nature's Finest

We all can feel the heat here in the US. It's 91 right now and the humidity is soaring and this week isn't going to be so comfortable. It is summer though right? The difference between now and February is that despite I will be sick of the weather at both times, I don't have to shovel heat. My car will not slide off the pavement. My fingers will not become numb as I clean off my windshield. This ain't so comfortable though. My flowers on the other hand, love this. The colors are vivid and green and growing in the steam of humidity. It's all good. That's what it is supposed to do. Both my kids are out swimming. It really does feel like summer today. It's one of nature's finest days.....with or without the humans.

2006-07-13T15:33:00.000-04:00

What they said...

Last Saturday I ripped my big toenail nearly off my foot. Words like wince and cringe might come to mind here if you have never experienced it but can imagine it. Words like F*** and so on will come to mind if you ever have. Yeah, it hurt. I talk to lots of people, am involved in lots of things, so when I hobbled around this week, I got lots of good advice. Ninety five percent of the people said, "Wrap it up, it will turn black and fall off." I've been doing that, waiting patiently. In the mean time, my toenail has been jabbed and hit and mangled by all kinds of things like dogs, Mystery Man (by accident...when you are 6'5'' those legs end up getting in the way sometimes), my couch (it jumped out and hit my toe) and other various low level objects. This morning I went across the way to talk to my neighbor, who happens to be a pharmacist and has also experienced this condition, and she informed me, "You need to get that nail off. A fungal infection will do more damage to the toe." I believed her, more than the other 95%.

In the meantime, Mystery Man and his friend Josh went out to help me on the nature trail I'm building with my students for the summer. They got the chainsaw out to cut some trees that had been clear cut some time ago and remnants of the timber were in the way of the trail. Two hours later the trail was clear and my toe was throbbing from being in a real shoe for the first time in a week and being jabbed by logs, roots and other foresty things. I decided the time had come. Let's talk about an educated woman being reduced to tears by something as simple as cutting off a toenail. It wasn't that tough to get rid of it really, snipping my way along until I got to the bottom. I'm a teacher for a good reason. I didn't want to be a nurse. The sight of blood and all that stuff is not my cup of tea. I couldn't even get anyone to help. Mystery Man, Josh ,my daughter and her friends all had no intention of getting within twenty feet of my orthopedic dilemma. So much for loyalty. I've prolonged this for an eternity now, this description, but I'm done. Suffice to say, it's gone and now I can move on with my life.

Finally, I'm at the point of the point of what they said. Kitchen Table Advisors have all kinds of advice and little experience or background to back it up. They are like the Monday Morning Quarterbacks. It's fun to listen to and sometimes it's the right advice, the right call. People who think they know the truth will wrestle it to the ground and be very convincing while they do it. In this case, I took the word of one woman who knows drugs and conditions. Oh, I also was told by the other 95%, don't bother going to the doctor, they'll just tell you to wrap it and let if fall off. I am so easily convinced by people who shy away from doctors. I don't go until the last possible minute and hate being manipulated by them. Let's talk about irony. I was manipulated by the Kitchen Table Advisors....oh the conflict, oh the agony...what they all said.

2006-07-12T12:41:00.000-04:00

View from the Corner Booth

I'm taking a two day hiatus from rushing around. I realized that I had to catch up on a lot of small maintenance things around the house and rest for a bit. Summer has become the thing of craziness for me and now it's half over already. I've been doing everything I planned back in June and am having a great summer. Art in the Park is working well, averaging about 20-25 kids per week. The Book Swap, now it its fourth week is turning out to be more fun than I ever imagined and bringing more people around weekly. We get in anywhere from 50 to 100 books per week and they are turning around and going out just as quickly. I'm still staying at the 380 range for how many I start and end with each week and that's the beauty of it all. I've met so many avid readers and people in our little corner of the world that I might not ever have met and each one has something wonderful to bring to our Book Swap both in actual books and their own presence.

I spent Sunday and Monday at the college my daughter is going to in the fall at orientation and that was mind numbing. We were both exhausted at the end of it all. We got all the info we needed and she had a chance to meet her fellow freshmen as well as spend the night in the dorms. She's ready to go and I think I'm finally coming to terms with letting her go.

Just for fun, have a look at this issue of Scribe Spirit, an e-zine in which I am honored to have some work published. It's a global snapshot of writers from all over the world expressing their work in a variety of media. Jody Kuchar has managed to find a wide spectrum of writers from the far reaches of the earth and place us all neatly on her pages. The cool thing about it from my vantage point is that we can all relate in the important ways to all that is spoken of here, no matter the nationality, country or personal differences.

I've been reading. I just finished The Jesus Papers which apparently was a hastily put together series of something (I'm not sure what) that Michael Baigent felt was necessary after the entire DaVinci Code debacle. Baigent was the co-author of Holy Blood, Holy Grail and in this work he seemed like he was trying to back up his theories on Jesus and his place in history as well as his relationship with Mary Magdalene. He didn't succeed as far as I'm concerned. It was a disjointed series of loosely gathered pieces of information that proved very little in the long run and was based on a lot of assumptions of less than circumstantial evidence. Dan Brown was the first to admit his story was fiction based on some true information. Baignent didn't answer any questions for me at all and in truth it seemed more like a 'what if' kind of book. He would have done better to write a book of fiction and made us wonder rather than just deflate his reputation even further.

I also have read a few mystery kinds of books. Patricia Cornwell's, Body Farm and Point of Origin , as well as Lisa Gardner's The Killing Hour. Good stuff, all of it and worth the read. Another excellent book I read was The Ash Garden by Dennis Bock. This book was one I'd never heard of but Mystery Man picked up at a used book sale. He loved it, I loved it. It weaves three World War II survivors into and unlikely union in its pages and I honestly could see it as a movie one day. It has a lot of fresh views on the war from the vantage point of a Hiroshima Survivor, an Internment Camp refugee and a key player in the Manhatten Project. Aside from the idea, the writing was strong and well done overall.

I haven't been to the movies but we've rented our share lately and enjoyed Transamerica and Once Upon a Time in America (1984) We also liked the Weatherman even though I am not a huge Nicholas Cage fan. On the downside, we just watched Thumbsucker last night....yikes...so much teenage angst, so little rich content that we will no longer believe a word my youngest daughter says about 'good' movies. Keanu Reeves, Vince Vaughn, Vincent D'Onofrio, Benjamin Bratt..we figured it was worth a try. Guess you have to be 17 to appreciate it. We haven't seen The DaVinci Code, Superman or Pirates of the Carribean yet, believe it or not, but hope to find the time this month.

So, that's my view this month so far. It's been a great summer and hope it continues...time will tell.

2006-06-25T20:20:00.000-04:00

Summer Song

My vacation has ended for the most part this week with the start of the summer activities on Saturday and today. My kids are fully ensconched in summer stuff and the weather has been more than cooperating. I started writing a summer book about work and get my 4,000 words in every day just about. Normally, I am chomping at the bit when I don't do summer school, but this year I have two events on the weekend that are my "summer kids" so I won't be getting bored.

Mystery Man and I went to our public library used book sale a couple of weeks ago and bought books on the last 'bargain' day. We walked out with 344 books for $14. Every Sunday in the local park we have a book swap. No money needed, just bring a book and take a book. Today was our first day and we had 50-60 people who brought quite a few books and over the course of three hours quite a large number were taken as well. Starting out with 344, I ended the day with 379, but the turnover of books was great. This is not an event to make money or sell books,and its strictly a volunteer operation. It's a chance to just get out, meet new people, reconnect with neighbors, swap books and chatter, and encourage literacy. I was very happy to have quite a few kids getting books too. I would encourage every one to get one of these events running. I like to think that it will keep us focused on what really matters and keep us in tune with our communties in a positive way.

My Saturday morning art and activities started as well and we had about twenty kids showing up with not a broken bone or tear shed during the morning. We did a kind of zany games thing with a craft and I had the honor of my students from school helping out as my volunteers. It was awesome. We gave out ribbons as awards for the events and today as I sat at the Book Swap, several of the kids came by and grinned as I commented on the ribbons that they were wearing! A little encouragement goes a long way in building self esteem for kids and we can all learn from their accomplishments, both as parents and as the responsible adults. Can't wait for next week.

This week will be more of the same things, keeping busy, lazing around when I can and catching snatches of conversation with my kids as they zoom in and out of the door. Summer is pretty nice.

2006-06-11T11:36:00.000-04:00

View from the corner booth...

First off, congratulations to the Class of 2006 wherever you may be. Graduation from your schooling, whatever it may be is a great accomplishment and the world is waiting for you. Do something that makes the world a better place...please, for all of us and especially for yourself and future generations. Not everyone in the world will be a major player in world politics, environmental movers and shakers, or highly paid celebrities. Take your small corner of the world, involve others with like minds and watch the ripples flow. You can make a difference that hopefully will reach farther than you ever imagined. We are all connected in this place we call earth. Do your small part and be part of something bigger. Okay, my cheerleading routine is done...

I started a small ripple a month or so ago by taking on a summer art program that didn't exist and now, I'm getting donations from all over the place from a lot of angels and in a few weeks, there will be a lot of kids doing art in the summer on Saturday mornings for free. The thing I'm finding out by spearheading this is that people are more than willing to help out with time and supplies if you just ask. No one ever wants to be in charge, but they don't mind helping out. One of the greatest things we can do as humans is interact in positive ways that allows us to show the good in the world. There is enough negativity out there to make us bitter forever as a human race. If you want to find a way out of that tunnel, get involved and do what you can to encourage and set an example for others, especially kids (tomorrow's leaders) that gives them positive memories and allows the good in the world to shine. It's not that hard, it means stepping away from the things that connect us to technology, step out in the sunshine and learn to use those human social skills that mean face to face interaction, caring and trusting. It's never too late to do something and its the best medicine in the world for what ails you...Okay, my Pollyanna act is over now too...have a great day.

2006-06-04T18:43:00.000-04:00

Too Much of This, Not Enough of That

I spent a while today reading the Sunday paper and checking out the internet headlines and have come to a not so startling conclusion. There is too much of some things and not enough of others and we as a society spend way too much time sweating it all and doing nothing. There is an old adage about how its better to be part of the solution than the problem. That makes sense to me, but what if we are part of a problem we don't know about until they tell us. Be assured, someone will tell us at some point. This week I saw:

Japan's fertility rate has dropped to an all-time low of 1.2 children. An aging population no longer will have youth to support it and it is projected that the economy will begin to suffer rapidly from this. Progress and competition forces men and women to work long hours and have no "life" to raise families.

The FDA is encouraging restaurants to limit portion sizes on burgers, pizza and fries to fight the obesity problem in our country.

Immigrants are being arrested with dizzying speed in various parts of the country and deported in light of the immigration problem that has existed for thirty years and is only just now being dealt with and the immigrants are complaining that they don't even get a chance to get their things in order before they are deported.

College costs are skyrocketing as drop out rates in high schools are escalating right along side.

Home heating and gasoline prices are rising to the point where the poor can not afford to heat their homes or drive to work while the prices on SUV and other gas guzzling automobiles rise to be purchased without pause by those who have less concern about these issues.

You get the point. We have too much crime, too much violence, too much pollution, too much obesity and too much unemployment. We don't have enough working youth to support us when we are old and gray, not enough cash to feed our energy addiction, not enough smarts to realize that we are all part of a big problem or two.

Pick your topic and become part of the solution. That's today's sermon.

2006-06-03T13:44:00.000-04:00

Nature's Finest

I looked out my window today and saw the helicopters flying from the tree. When we were kids we used to watch the helicopters swirl to the ground, gather them up and toss them back into the air. Nature has a way of spreading the chance for life just far enough away so another tree can grow a few feet from the mother. We would open up the seed part and put the wings on the ends of our noses. Who needs video games and television? We went outside and used the things we found flying in the air and resting on the ground to entertain ourselves. It wasn’t our care that one less tree would grow. Day by day either through ignorance or lack of caring we yank the earthen carpet out from the hands of nature and little thought goes into the action.

I live in the country. There are acres upon acres of trees and rivers and lakes. There is more green in my daily life than I could possibly destroy. Unfortunately I am one person in an army of millions and billions. The big machines come in to destroy more and more acres every day and alter the fabric of our world with the goal of progress and money as the cash crop. The United States has been making the effort for the last forty years or so to reverse the trend of slowly killing off the earth’s natural resources in some ways. The disturbing part of it all is that unless it is a global effort, our motives are in vain. NPR recently had a story about dust storms in the Colorado mountains and how the dust comes from China and other areas in Asia, the Middle East and Africa on high air currents and dumps its load on the snow, causing it to melt faster and interfere with the natural watershed movement.

China is a third world country in terms of its environmental impact on the world at large. If factories and other industries continue to spew deadly levels of pollution into the atmosphere, it is not only China that will suffer. The human made footprints in our growing world stir up more than the developments in the modern world. Dust storms in the Rockies are one such result. Someone at work asked me what I thought the hurricane season might be like this year and I said its hard to tell. We can predict the weather in small increments as it relates to our regional hypothesis, however when you have the visitors of dust from China affecting the water patterns in our country, there is no facet of our weather that can be predictable now.

A recent headline about the poles once having tropical like weather patters some 45 million years ago as a result of a naturally occuring blast of CO2 reminds us that nature happens and even as we destroy it by unnatural means, sometimes there is an underlying something that occurs without warning and is not something we can control. Nor should we try to control it. We are a product of our environment and nature rules, no matter what anyone says. We’ll roll with the punches or become part of the nitrogen cycle. By the time it all comes to fruition, we'll see what we see and react as we do. We are just along for the ride. Nature teaches us all to be humble.

2006-05-25T18:08:00.000-04:00

View from the corner booth....

Transition time has arrived. Prom is over and both of my kids survived with good memories and my wallet isn't that empty for once. Graduation is looming for Kissing Peaches in two weeks and the excitement and mixed emotions of this is not lost for either of us. The school year is drawing to a close and the summer is a wide open blue sky waiting to be filled at the moment. I'm going to have that art program with area kids that I've thought about for some years now and that will be a very interesting experience for me. My living room is littered with samples of the projects we will be doing and a thousand details are slowly piling up around me, but it should be fun and the mayhem will be controlled chaos hopefully. I'm most of all looking forward to the week after school gets out when I can sleep as much as I want and drive much less than I do normally.

Things on my agenda for the near future include seeing The DaVinci Code, reading the rest of the pile of books I have nearby and enjoying the warm weather we have hovering around us. After I have finished with all that, then I'll start writing and doing the artsy stuff for the summer and I'm sure it will all pass too quickly. I have a kid going to college in the fall and the best part is that fact that she won't have to pay for it. Thanks to scholarships and grants she has earned her way into college debt free. Let's hope she keeps up the good work. Did I mention how proud of her accomplishments I am? Well, I am. (Sorry KS, the gushing will end now.) The nest is half empty but I will try to keep the happy face on. I still have two more years before I can panic and when the young one leaves then I'll see how I feel.

On other topics, I had an interesting conversation today with a Department of Education person who called me to take a survey about teachers in our state. Lawmakers are trying to draft legislation which deals with the growing number of students who are in special education and children at risk and the demands of society in the future when it comes to these kids. I was happy to tell her that I thought the state should spend more money on finding inventive ways to prevent kids from dropping out rather than pay for their stay in prison when they become adults. I could go on forever about this topic but won't. Kissing Peaches will one day be a teacher if she follows through on her plan. I'd be interested in being a fly on the wall of the classroom when she is in her forties and see just exactly where education will be then. Time will tell......