Your other left

Construction sign seen on northbound U.S. 75 at Spring Creek Parkway in Plano.

I guess you shouldn't pay attention to the arrows. TXDOT meant your other left.

A wary Luddite in a 2.0 world

I hate to admit this...I really do. I have a MySpace account. It is set on private...so only friends can see it and my address is not publicized. I don't update it much and am embarassed to have it. But I have it because it's a super easy way for me and some of my college buddies to keep up with one another. I just wish MySpace wasn't the forum. It seems so lurid and depraved. There's nothing wrong with it if you use it the right way. But so many people out there use it in ways that seem kind of gross...to find women and plan Roman-style fandangos. But even some churches and Sunday school classes are setting up MySpace networks...so it can be a positive force.

My MySpace tagline is..."A wary Luddite in a 2.0 world OR An analog man in a digital universe."

Texas Flood

A friend of mine once told me he wanted to move to Seattle because he likes rain and had heard it rains a lot there. This year he wouldn't have to move that far to see a lot of rain.

Rained again today...got caught in the Wal*Mart parking lot in a downpour. Our yard is turning into the type of wetlands greedy wealthy industrialists love to eradicate.

I've been in Texas now for almost ten years and haven't seen this type of deluge. I haven't set out my sprinklers once this entire year. Usually by April I've been sprinkling several times a week. I learned once I moved here that you have to keep the foundations and the ground next to your house from becoming too parched or cracks will destroy your foundation. The Texas clay cracks easily.

Last year we were under drought restrictions. This year it's monsoons. Must be global warming. We can blame everything on global warming...or Dubya. Appropriate year for the movie Evan Almighty and the story of Noah.

Anyway...stay dry, my fellow Texans and Oklahomans.

photo: frog (or toad) in the backyard wetland.

Renaissance or Medieval Faire?

I'm not usually one who goes for costumes...but a few weeks ago Kimberly and I attended a wedding of a friend of hers at Scarborough Faire. Scareborough Faire is a "renaissance" festival held every year for a month in Waxahachie, south of Dallas. As a history teacher I was interested in going to the fair...but not in costume. However, costumes were strongly encouraged for the wedding and Kimberly wouldn't relent.

So when we got there we stopped at a costume rental place and I immediately decided upon being a monk because the outfit looked similar to a Jedi Knight's gear. Plus it was raining walruses and clams and a monk's cloak provided great rain protection. The whole fair was one muddy mess...but we had fun. I was amazed how many people came in costume to the fair...not just to the wedding. Some people take this costuming pretty seriously.

I will say...and Kim says I'm splitting hairs here...the faire was actually more medieval than renaissance. And most of the renaissance stuff was of the northern variety rather than the more famous and influential Italian strain. Hey, what can I say...it's my job to notice these things. But we had fun and hopefully the next time we go it will bit drier.

Books read in 2007

My students are often interested in what I'm reading (believe it or not!). We're halfway through 2007 and here's what I've finished reading so far...

The Songlines by Bruce Chatwin

Black Swan Green by David Mitchell

Freakonomics by Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner

Banker to the Poor by Muhammad Yunus

One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez

Tritessa by Jack Kerouac

A Brief History of Time by Stephen Hawking

Midnight's Children by Salman Rushdie

The Road by Cormac McCarthy

Collapse by Jared Diamond

Dining with the Devil by Os Guiness

1776 by David McCullough

Satori in Paris by Jack Kerouac

Mayflower by Nathaniel Philbrick

Candide by Voltaire

I'm currently engaged in reading "The Devil in the White City" by Erik Larson

All the above books are good but the ones that really stood out to me were "The Songlines," "Midnight's Children," "1776," "Black Swan Green," and "The Road." But I would recommend all these books. It's been a good year reading so far.

Jackson recommends "Fire Engines"

Entering the Fastlane

Okay...you may have noticed that I hadn't blogged in a month. The reason...our dial-up connection had become intolerably slow. As of today...we're now on DSL and internet life at home is much less frustrating. And we're actually saving money since we could cancel our DFW metro line and just get the cheap local service and rely on our cell phone. So I get high speed internet and save $30 a month. No brainer!

Summer is Nigh!

Whew...Four more school days until summer vacation! Kimberly and I have almost made it through what has to qualify as one of the craziest school years in memory.

Three days before my school year started my principal was "re-assigned" or fired basically...which you can imagine threw our campus into waves of uncertainty. By Christmas our district's superintendent retired out of disgust for petty school board power politics and a new principal wasn't hired until February.

Then Jackson made his wondrous arrival into our lives in January and changed everything wonderfully. Kim was off from Christmas to Spring Break. I was off for the first two weeks of the second semester. I missed more days this year than all the previous years of my teaching career combined. That of course raises the level of insanity when you return to the classroom.

We of course quickly, yet wearily, adjusted to four or five hours of sleep and something must have worked because for the first time in my teaching career 100% of my students passed the statewide TAKS test. Even 100% of my regular (I hate that description) students passed. Thirty-one of my thirty-nine A.P. students achieved commended scores. Maybe I should be absent from the classroom more often! I'm not quite sure I like the conclusions that can be drawn from that fact.

I started an AP European History class this year at KHS and it went very well. Having three preps (AP World History, Euro, and World History) really wasn't that bad. Kimberly had a fantastic second year as a school counselor. Jackson entered daycare in the same building Kimberly works and adjusted marvelously.

Still...we're exhausted and can't wait for this summer to start. Mine is basically here. I only have four half-days left and only six of my students are taking my final exam due to exemptions they received for passing TAKS. Only students currently failing my course have to take my exam...so I'm basically done.

It's been a crazy year...my eighth and Kimberly's tenth! Crazy in some wondrous ways (Jackson's arrival) and tumultous ways (administration upheaval). I haven't even had much time to blog...maybe I can catch up during the lazy hazy days of summer vacation. What a great job teaching is!

Jackson Update

The Jackson Update: Four Months on May 8th.

Jackson is surprising us in new ways every day. He now laughs out loud. He loves his baths and really loves to make big splashes with his feet. He is now grabbing anything that gets within reach. He's rolling over from his belly to his back...he's found that's the easiest way to get out of the dreaded tummy time. His head control is great. The last three nights in a row he has slept eight hours at a time...much to the relief of Mom and Dad.

The coolest thing however is that he now is kissing people on the cheek...not the usual baby slobbering mush...he is really puckering and kissing people on the cheek. He's only four months old and he's kissing people! He really likes the ladies...he flirts with the daycare women, the nurses at his doctor's office and the doctor herself. He is really doing great and we are loving him more and more each day.

We celebrated Kimberly's first Mother's Day today and Jackson is the greatest gift a mother could ask for (according to Kimberly).

Ending poverty is a bad thing?!?

My policy on my blog is that I do not publish anonymous comments. I'm not asking for anything more than a first name and the city where you live. I want people to stand by their comments and not hide behind anonymity.

Anyway, I received a comment that really surprised me regarding my post about my microloan to a ceramics maker in Mexico. Among several ridiculous notions mentioned was that I should have loaned to someone in another country other than Mexico so my dollar "could go further." I guess we should base our charity on exchange rates now rather than on the human equations.

They also expressed a great concern that by empowering the lowest classes they would soon constitute a large lower middle class. They thought this would greatly upset the class system and create unknown chaos. They pointed out that the poverty rate around the world has remained stable at around 15% and that this was a good thing because it created a sense of stability.

I would post the actual comment but they hid their bizarre ideas behind the cloak of anonymity and I can actually see why. Why would anyone be in favor of people remaining in poverty? Not only is this notion callous, inhumane, immoral and classcist it is sheer evil. Poverty is an artificial creation. Bringing people out of poverty is not only humane but a moral peregotive we have as followers of Christ. To justify keeping people in poverty because of the unknown effects on the world economy if they were to improve their lot in life is absolutely ridiculous and unacceptable.

The Microcredit Revolution

I first heard about microcredit when Bangladeshi economist Muhammad Yunus won the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize this past year. I was captivated by his story and quickly read his book "Banker to the Poor." His concept to help alleviate world poverty is elegantly simple yet radically effective. Many suffering in poverty could work their way out of their horrible conditions with the help of a tiny loan...a loan that allows them to start a business or enhance an already existing business. The problem arises when they seek loans from their local third world bank or money lender which charge exhorbitant lending rates.

Microcredit allows an enterprising person to borrow a sum that is almost insignificant by first world standards with little or no percentage rates. They work with local NGO's to make sure worthy candidates are screened and enabled to pay the loan back in a timely manner. PBS and the New York Times a few months ago featured one of these microlending operations on Frontline: World. KIVA (meaning 'unity' in Swahili) allows people to loan as little as $25 to a recipient in a third world nation. Kiva also allows lenders to keep up with their loan recipient's progress. So far 100% of the loans have been repaid. Slate.com recommends Kiva as one of the best microlenders to use.

I made my first loan today to a middle aged woman in Mexico who is trying to support her family through the sale of ceramics. You can check out her story at http://www.kiva.org/lender/david5133. Even if I don't get my money back ($25) I'll just consider it a donation.

I went with someone in Mexico because people in Texas are always debating immigration. I believe in helping people where they are rather than just complaining about people moving here. If we can empower our neighbors they won't have to make the difficult decision to leave home in the first place. When she repays the loan...I'll reinvest in another loan. Besides, it's money I received for my birthday. This is a much more fulfilling way to spend my money. And it's not just a donation. Its money that's helping empower someone to help themselves lift themselves out of poverty and in turn make a positive difference in their community.

Check out www.kiva.org. They're safe and reputable and they're doing a wonderful thing. It doesn't take much to be an international micro-financier with great organizations like Kiva facilitating the process.

The Stupid Media

I'll say this in as few words as possible and with no pictures.

Splashing his videos and manifestos all over the airwaves accomplishes exactly what the Virginia Tech killer wanted. Let's focus our attention, thoughts and prayers on the victims and survivors.

And let's focus our efforts on the prevention of possible future such tragedies.

Let's not glorify a crazed murderer any more than we already have.

What goes around...

I haven't read any mention of this...maybe it only interests me. I find the symmetry of Billy Gillispie beginning his head coaching career at UTEP and now ending at Kentucky fascinating. Remember, forty-one years ago, UTEP, then known by the much cooler name of Texas Western, beat the Kentucky Wildcats for the national title. The game was famous for an all black team defeating an all white Adolph Rupp team.And now the former UTEP coach heads to Lexington.

I also find it interesting that Bear Bryant left UK to coach at A&M...before ending up at Bama. Now an A&M coach is ditching College Station for the Bluegrass state. Maybe these little historical ironies are only fascinating to a trivial minded person like myself.

What to Expect from a Snake

I can understand why Kansas State fans are angry at Bob Huggins' departure after only one year in Manhattan. I feel for K-State...this is a school who won more Big Six/Seven/Eight titles than anyone else in their conference between World War II and 1990...more than even the hated Jayhawks. People forget that K-State was a basketball school long before Bill Snyder came around and turned the Little Apple into a football Mecca. But they fell into the abyss in the 1990's and got desperate for the good days. And desperate people make bad decisions. Hiring Huggins was a mistake before the ink dried on his contract.

And that's why the Wildcats cannot be too angry at Huggins. They should have known what they were getting when they brought that snake into town to resurrect the program. I've heard different variations of the old story but the story goes something like this...a turtle saves a snake's life by carrying it across a flooded river on it's back. Once on the other side the snake bites the turtle and the turtle asks "why did you just do that? I just saved you." And the snake responds, "what else did you expect. That's my nature...I'm a snake."

Kansas State should not be surprised today and they really shouldn't be angry. They should only be angry with themselves for bringing in the Riverboat con artist from Cincy in the first place. Huggins is a liar and a thief. He exploits people, using them for all their worth and then leaving them high and dry. Huggins' record was no secret. And now K-State in order to keep his ill-gotten recruiting class has hired one of his like-minded assistants as head coach...a man kicked out of the Florida High School Coach's Association for recruiting kids.

I hope things work out for the Wildcats. But as Dr. Phil says "past behavior is the best predictor for future behavior." I don't believe this will end pretty.

Yoshimi in New York

Word is out that the Flaming Lips album 'Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots' is being adapted as a Broadway musical. Aaron Sorkin, the creator of Sportsnight and The West Wing, will be the primary scriptwriter with several Tony winning producers crafting the musical adaptation.

Now that will be a show worth going to New York to see. Yoshimi has been one of my favorite albums since it came out. And props to the Oklahoma City based band for making the Great White Way.

Between Iraq and a Hard Place

One of the most dangerous jobs American soldiers face in Iraq is going house to house in search of weapons. The weapons are confiscated and often destroyed. This begs the question...what about the Iraqi's freedom to bear arms?

One of our sacred rights as American citizens guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution is the right of the citizenry to arm themselves against potential tyranny. Isn't it hypocritical not to allow one of the bedrock rights of our consititution to the Iraqis? After all I thought guns don't kill people...people kill people...right? That's what the NRA says. So why are we taking guns away from the Sunnis and Shias? It's the people pulling the triggers not the guns themselves.

Dick Cheney (quite an expert marksman himself) said before the war that Iraq was made up of a large, stable, educated and "talented" middle class. Shrub said democracy in Iraq would provide stability for the entire region. Yet we don't allow them a major component of our American democratic framework. Do we not trust the "talented" people of Iraq?

Or is possible that guns actually do kill people? The U.S. military understands this better than anyone. Stopping the dangerous proliferation of guns has become a key priority for the Army in Iraq. Shouldn't the NRA take note? Maybe gun violence actually has a correlation to gun availability. The United States experiences more gun violence than any other first world nation on the planet. The U.S. also has the greatest amount of firearms circulated among the population than any other first world nation on the planet. Coincidence?

There will be 54 gun shows in the Dallas/Fort Worth Metroplex this year. That's more than one gun show a weekend. You want to grow a church in Texas...place a "Gun Show Here" billboard pointing to your church and you can't keep the people out. Guns at Wal*Mart? Are you kidding me? Let's learn what the Army has learned and think about all these guns floating around our nation.

Routine Jackson

As you can tell, I haven't had a lot of time to post blogs lately. My schedule has solidified into the following routine...

6:00 am - get up and get ready

7:10 am - report to work and read the news on the internet until 7:30

7:30 am - 3:45 pm - Stomping out ignorance with a bunch of knucklehead high schoolers.

4:15 pm - Arrive at the brickhouse and tiptoe as not to wake Jackson from nap. Take out the trash, recycle, read mail, kill stupid texas fire ants, and vegg for about 10 minutes.

5:00 pm - eat dinner and entertain Jackson

5:30-6:30 pm - hurredly do some chores around the house sometimes with Jackson strapped to chest.

6:30 pm - Jackson bathtime and wind down for his bedtime

7:00 pm - Attempt to put Jackson down to bed...sometimes successful sometimes...not so much.

7:30 pm-9:00 pm - get stuff ready for work the next day...ironing, making lunch that sorta thing. Maybe catch a show I videotaped since I rarely get to see shows as they air.

9:00 pm (yes 9 o'clock if lucky and Jackson cooperates) - crash on my bed utterly exhausted

Midnight - Jackson wants to eat and be changed

4:00 am - Jackson wants to eat and be changed.

6:00 am - it all starts again.

But oh the greatness of being a teacher. This next week is Spring Break. I am not going to the beach and I am not going to the slopes. I am going to sleep.

Chalk it up!

One of the important debates of our time revolves around an issue of singular importance...Chalk or Dry Erase Marker?

I have to admit...I'm a chalk guy. Despite my proclivity for technological innovation I prefer the old stick of chalk to the dry erase marker. Yes, the dry erase marker allows you to write in different colors (although you can get different colors of chalk). However, you always have to worry about popping the cap on and off. They also have to be replaced often. Plus my handwriting suffers with the dry erase marker because of the lack of traction on the board. Also, your hands become marked up in red, blue, green and all the colors of the dry erase rainbow by the end of the day.

The greatest gripe against chalk used to be the chalk dust. But the new dustless chalk is quite good at keeping things dust free. I rarely have to worry about the chalk getting on my clothes and never have to worry about it marking my hands. I can just pick it up and start writing without having to think about where to put the cap and making sure to put the cap back on when finished. Plus chalk gives me a traction on the board that makes using it much easier...much less slippage.

So I have resisted the urge to replace my chalkboards with white dry-erase boards. I used dry-erase markers for a whole year at Highland Park so I think I gave them a fair shot. In one of the great intellectual discourses of our time I think I have to kick it old school and side with the chalk...as long as its dustless of course.

I also may be unduly swayed by that scene in Raiders of the Lost Ark where Professor Jones is in the classroom writing the word "neolithic" in chalk...not dry erase marker (didn't exist in 1933). He wrote the word in chalk and in all caps and I think of that scene everytime I write neolithic on the board at the beginning of the school year.

Acquiring Beauty

I find it fascinating how certain appreciations do not reveal themselves at first glance. There is a beauty that must reveal itself one layer at a time. The time of its revealing may depend on many factors such as your current frame of mind, your recent and past experiences, your current station in life and your overall evolution as a thinking human being.

There have been many instances where I did not appreciate some work of art the first time I approached it. Often I have discovered new meanings in familiar objects. I did not appreciate John Coltrane's "Naima" until one day it enveloped me in epiphanies of new understanding. The same was true for Albert Camus' "The Rebel" and "Spirit" by Willie Nelson, the works of Miro and a host of other works of art.

A tree appears differently in morning than it does at night, or in winter than summer or in rain than drought. The point is to keep looking at the tree to gain new and different appreciations.

Freakonomically Speaking

I am reading my second straight book on economics. This is strange since usually the idea of reading a book on economics would have sent my eyes rolling back into my head. Sure I've taught economics in the past and took many economics related courses as a Political Science (sometimes referred to as Policial Economy)/History major. But all the charts and graphs always bored me. But these two books have enlightened me to the practical applications of economics in both thought and deed.

The first is the wildly successful Freakonomics by Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner. There really isn't a unifying theme to Freakonomics. The authors even admit this. But I found unifying ideas in these principles discussed throughout the book.

1.) Conventional wisdom is usually wrong. Sometimes you must look at things from an uncoventional manner to find the true story. Sometimes you must ask unconventional questions to discover the truth about everyday subjects. Conventional wisdom is lazy. Freakonomic thinking is challenging. This explains why very few actually challenge conventional wisdom.

2.) Incentives are the prime motivator for most human behavior. You want to know why people do the things they do? You want to alter negative behavior and encourage constructive behavior? Examine the incentives.

3.) Economics should be more than numbers and graphs. It should help explain human behavior and perhaps offer ideas on how to improve our lot in life. Freakonomics is fascinating and offers interesting insight into American life.

The second book on my reading list with an economic premise is "Banker to the Poor" by 2006 Nobel Prize winning economist Muhammad Yunus. This book deals with the success of the microcredit movement in Bangladesh. It has fascinating insights in to how to approach poverty in a pragmatic and successful way. I'll post more on it later.

So to me, to think freakonomically means to think in new and innovative ways. To examine issues from a different point of view and sometimes that means boiling things down to their essence. Simplicity in perspective is often an elegant and enlightening pathway to understanding.

American Trainwrecks

America loves a good train wreck and the past few weeks we've seen a perfect storm of train wrecks. Astronauts wearing diapers, the death of Anna Nicole Smith and Britney shaving her head...ridiculous stories that have found their way on the front page of major newspapers and the lead slot on local newscasts. It's embarassing that our nation is so fixated on these trivialities. Maybe we need a dose of these stories to keep ourselves from being completely overwhelmed by the bad news coming from Iraq, Sudan and other places around the world.

One last thing. Anna Nicole Smith was no Marilyn Monroe. She was a sleazy gold-digging pillpopping two-bit stripper who got lucky in finding a millionaire sugardaddy knocking on death's door. Nothing More. Let's move on America.