simplify

I am in the process of teaching, hmm trying to teach, my juniors about transcendentalism - Emerson and Thoreau specifically. I remember not being very enthused about it when I was in school, and a couple of years ago I picked up a neat edition of Thoreau's complete works -but I still haven't read it. As I was reviewing the material and then later in the classroom discussions I realized how much the content resonated with the core of my personal beliefs. It also was another in a long list of indicators that shows me how much of my life I am squandering. The hours between 7:30 and 2:30 seem to be my only meaningful ones. I go home and sit on my couch and play video games or watch T.V., sometimes I hang out with my friends (most of who are smart - but none are intellectual) who still like to think they are 21. I don't read much anymore and I rarely write - but I stand in front of my classes and extol the virtues of those things. I feel like a hypocrite in so many ways. So today I will take some inspiration from two of our fire-siders and evaluate my life.

"Trust thyself, every heart vibrates to that iron string."

- I always know when I am wasting my time, the same way you do. I know when I am doing something the lazy way, or when I should be doing something more valuable and meaningful with my time. I seem to have the same knack of everyone else in ignoring these impulses and continuing in my useless sloth. Why do we accept letting ourselves down?

"Society everywhere is in conspiracy against the manhood of every one of its members."

- We let ourselves down, because society at large justifies it. Our mass media determines nearly every facet of our lives now. How many people in this country plan their days around television? The world doesn't really want a bunch of intelligent people walking around questioning the status-quo. The people in charge don't want change or equality - and we let them keep things going just the way they are.

"simplify, simplify, simplify"

- We spend our entire adult lives in the hunt for luxury and status. What a sad waste. We care more about appearance than quality. I avoid the teacher's lounge for just this reason. People, especially educated people, are far too content to talk about gourmet meals and designer clothes as if they mattered. In the words of Tyler Durden - a duvet is just a blanket. The insatiable need to appear to have substance only lessens the chance of us actually developing it. We have convinced ourselves that extrinsic observation can actually measure our intrinsic value. I determine my own worth and so should you.

American Heroes

Lately I have been lamenting the absence of modern American Hero. I have been reading up on Edward Murrow and wishing he were here now. Where are the people in a position of influence who are willing to stand up and say, "Hey look around! This is messed up.", but they could say it with verve and vigor and maybe people would think again. It seems like the only people calling things out are comedians, who by their very nature cannot be taken seriously.

As an educator I am held in check by fear of job security, and a certain moral dilemma. I think these things should come from people that you want to listen to, and not to people you are required to listen to. I think that I am correct in my opinion, but there are no guarantees. It is unfair to use the class room as my personal soap box, but it doesn't seem to come from anywhere else.

Here is a quote from Murrow -

"Our history will be what we make it. And if there are any historians about 50 or 100 years from now -- and there should be preserved the kinescopes of one week of all three networks -- they will there find, recorded in black and white and in color, evidence of decadence, escapism, and insulation from the realities of the world in which we live. We are currently wealthy, fat, comfortable, and complacent. We have a built-in allergy to unpleasant or disturbing information."

What would he say now? It has been 50 years almost exactly and the only change is that we have hundreds of networks instead of three, and our allergy to unpleasant or disturbing information has changed. We enjoy seeing the plight of lower class/uneducated individuals - we see this in all of our reality programming. Dumb people, doing dumb things for money - or shows like COPS that rely on our thrill in seeing poor minorities tackled and arrested by middle class whites. However, we still don't want to hear about any larger issues that can affect us personally. We ignore government corruption at every level. We ignore the constant damage to our environment by industry. We have all but forgotten the disparity of opportunity between white and 'minorities' - men and women. We have a monumental election in front of us. America has not been in such a precarious position (domestically, financially, or internationally) since before the second World War, and all we hear about the campaign is how women feel about Clinton and blacks about Obama. The candidates themselves have resorted solely to mudslinging, and we are given next to nothing about what they will do. Not that it would really matter, our presidents have a solid track record of ignoring all those campaign promises immediately after they are sworn in, and the only promises they do remember are to campaign backers as their terms wind down and they hand out their pardons.

The scariest thing is that some people think that Anne Coulter and Bill O'Riley are American heroes. God bless America.

Music

Technology is such a double edged sword, as evidenced by how quickly that phrase has become cliché. Listening to music used to be a real investment, not in money, but time. You had your record player and box of records and you sat there and listened to the music. It was a personal experience. Now, while it is wonderful that music has become so accessible – I feel that we have relegated it to merely a background role. We listen to music almost all day long. We listen in the morning, on the way to work, at work, on the way home, at home, and all night long. There is a surprising number of people who are truly surrounded by music 24/7. This might be good, but it is impossible to do anything really well while multi-tasking. In many things this doesn’t really have a negative impact, and as a result we have come to believe that multi-tasking has only positive connotations. However, those people with the 24/7 musical assault, probably don’t spend much time actually listening to the music, at least not exclusively. But this is where the relationship is formed. This is why we have so many songs about lip-gloss and tennis shoes, no one bothers to really pay attention to the music. We have given up the fire and passion of the relationship for the promise of half interested companionship.

Another issue is the degradation of sound quality. We have chosen quantity over quality in the digital music age. Yes it is awesome to download an album and load it onto your Ipod in a matter of minutes. It is a powerful tool and I am glad for it, however think about the tradeoffs.

1st – In the name of speed we have recoded and stripped down the quality of the digital recordings in order to achieve the fastest possible transfer speed.
2nd – Ear Phones are not a good medium for music. It is nice that you get such a heavy degree of immersion, but your headphones cannot process the full range of sound. Be it the highs or lows or mediums – Nothing can compare to a quality speaker system.
3rd – Artists make albums for a reason. Picking and buying single songs at a time and compiling giant lists of hits and top party/dance/whatever songs has really hurt the artistic purpose. Everyone is focused on making an album full of singles and those that do focus on a real album (a collection of songs thematically intertwined) are considered financial mistakes.

Modern music has the feel of abridged Reader’s Digest collections, snippets of great works with the soul removed. This is in no way an indictment of the music industry, they are merely responding to consumer patterns and demands. Albeit greedily and with no regard to the quality of their product. It is up to us to demand quality music. Music that is well crafted, produced, and enjoyed – maybe with a little lyrical substance even

I mean seriously folks, how can you be so happy with the sad state of lyrical artistry. While there are many many great lyricists out there, the vast majority of top songs feature pathetically mundane lyrics. It is like we are proud of our ability to say nothing at all. There are a lot of great things in the world worth talking about, and a lot of bad things as well; I, for one, would not include lip gloss in either of these categories.

Lil Mama - Lip Gloss lyrics
I Said My Lip Gloss Is Cool,
My Lip Gloss Be Poppin I'm Standing At My Locker,
And All The Boys Keep Stoppin What You Kno Bout Me,
What Cha, What Cha Know Bout Me [x2]
I Said My Lip Gloss Is Poppin,
My Lip Gloss Is Cool All Da Boys Keep Jockin,
They Chase Me After School Mac,
Loreal, Yep Cuz I'm Worth It O The Way I Put It On So Perfect Wipe,
The Corners Of My Mouth So I Work It When I Walk Down The Hallway,
They Can't Say Nothin Ooo My Lips So Luscious
The Way I Spice It Up With The Mac Mac Brushes
Loreal Got Them Want Watermelon Crushes
Thats Probably The Reason All These Boys Got Crushes ************

As a contrast I offer some Saul Williams:

From Untimely Meditations on Amethyst Rock Star

The fiery sun of my passions evaporates the love lakes of my soul
Clouds my thoughts and reigns you into existence
As I take flight on bolts of lighting claiming chaos as my concubine and you as my me
I of the storm you of the sea we of the moon land of the free
What have I done to deserve this?
Am I happy?
Happiness is a mediocre sin and for a middle-class existence
I see through smiles and smell truth in the distance
Beyond one dimensional smiles and laughter lies our hereafter
Where tears echo laughter
You’d have to do math to divide a smile by a tear times fear equals mere truth
I simply delve in the air and if that’s the case
All I have to breath and all else will follow
That’s why drums are hollow
And I like drums drums are good but I can't think straight
I lack the attention span to meditate
My attention spans galaxies here and now are immense
Seconds are secular, moments are mine
Self is illusion, music’s divine
Noosed by the strings of Jimi’s guitar I swing Purple hazed pendulum
hypnotizing the part of I that never dies
Look into my eyes are the windows of the soul
It’s fried chicken, collies and cornbread
It's corn milk, flour, sour cream, eggs and oil
It's the stolen blood of the earth, used to make cars run and kill the fish
Who, me? I play scales The scales of dead fish of oil slicked seas
My sister blows wind through the hollows of fallen tress
And we are the echoes of eternity, echoes of eternity, echoes of eternity
*************

I am not going to say that there is no place for the lip gloss song, but why can’t music with a message be in the top 40? The top 40 reflects your fear of being aware of what is going on in the world, and we equate awareness with responsibility. This isn’t completely true, but it is good to know about our world. But, I digress from my point.

What I would like for you to do is take your favorite album and listen to it. Don’t do anything else, just sit and listen to it all the way through – and think about what it is saying to you. This can’t be done on your Ipod or through some headphone. We need at least a CD and some speakers. Try to experience what you have forgotten.

optomism?

I am starting to feel pretty good about this whole teaching thing. The kids, my kids, are starting to respond to me pretty well. The honesty thing has really paid off. Just because the kids aren't all smart doesn't mean that they are all stupid. They at least know when we are just giving them another line of crap. I have been very honest with them and they know it, plus I truly care about them. They are starting to realize that I am more on their side than the institution's. It makes me so happy when they tell me that mine is their favorite class. One of the kids who started off the year on a bad foot, with the school and me, told me today that all first hour he just thinks about getting to come to my class. I realize, of course, that this is an exaggerated claim; but it still is great to hear. The other teachers and the administration gives me polite encouragement, but I know that I am not the ideal teacher for them. What really matters to me is that the students are comfortable in my class, because that is all that really matters. After time has had its due influence in our lives, and the decades are blurred in memory; I know that no one will look back and think that my lecture on the character of Walter or Beneatha from A Raisin In The Sun had changed their lives. The magic is always between the lines. It is in the associations and the extrapolations - it is the learning itself, not the content but the simple act of it. It is about the place where they learned to confident in their voice and in their minds. I will be happy if they just remember that I stopped making them say that things are gay when they mean bad.

compulsory education

I think our system has succeeded in proving that compulsory education is a failed concept. The Chinese system which requires rigorous testing and summer programs be completed or the student is not allowed to attend. I do believe that every child has the right to an education, but I do not think that we are doing them any favors by forcing it on them after a certain point. Our educational system is not seen as a reward, merely a necessary delay before the "freedom" of adulthood.

I think that too many parents want their children to go to school so that they are accounted for during the day or merely because it is required, they do not honestly invest themselves in making sure that the child is actually being educated.

Forcing the children to attend school only waters down the system, and the strength of the education that everyone else receives. It has forced us into a position of teaching to the lowest common denominator rather than being able to compel each child to push their limitations.

It is far too drastic and "militant" to ever be taken as a serious proposition, but we are diluting the minds of all children for what? Because at least 30% of them just aren't allowed to drop out, but have no interest or aspirations for their education.

half mast

Today's announcements included a moment of silence and a declaration of Kansas flags to be at half mast today in memory of the latest Kansan soldier who died in Iraq. This is 1 of 3776.
Three thousand seven hundred and seventy six. Why is our flag not lowered everyday? Has there been a day since this "war" started that someone's son or daughter has not died?

I want to go on and rant about divisive practices and ideals, but that really isn't the point. I just want to think about the world outside of my personal experience. Everyone that dies in this war has a family, they all fought for an idea - and far too many have died for it. There is not one of us that really knows all of the reasons and purposes for this war, don't delude yourself. I feel it is wrong, but I could be wrong. I just can't accept that whatever the reasons are justify that number.

How long has it been?

How long has it been since you have said I love you to all the people you love? Outside of immediate family, we tend to be so artificially distant. It is so empowering to accept your feelings and project them into the world. We are so easily consumed by our fear of rejection that we create a emotional buffer zone for everyone. This is justified in many settings, but I think that we should allow ourselves more exceptions. So today, tell your best friend that you love them. Tell your brothers and sisters. Tell that person who consistently makes a difference in your life. Let it out.