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Has the War Already Been Won Against Public Schooling?

I come from a long line of public school teachers.  Our family believes in government-sponsored schooling that teaches facts and science and nature.  If one desires something of a Faith-infused-immersed learning, there are Churches for that; we enliven the mind not with mystery or superstition but by hard, verifiable, facts that can be reliably predicted with logic and learning.

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The Titular, Circular, Cyclical and the Forlorn: Rescuing Robert Frost from Himself

Robert Frost won four Pulitzer Prizes for his poetry.  He was an earthy icon and, in some eyes, an American shame, for the man could love only himself and not his children or his wife. I’m not sure if that’s a crime against himself, or his promises, but there is no denying the man was an original and he knew how to write and he knew what he was.

Marred by the mistake of genius, Robert Frost cared only for his poetry, and his legacy, and that’s why the new fascination with protecting Frost’s legacy on the page is so intriguing.

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The Frost King: Defending Helen Keller and Other Non-SuperHuman Deaf-Blind

Helen Keller — a Deaf and Blind woman who became an author and an international SuperStar against the merits of her monumental disability — is one of the most magnificent examples of the human spirit in the history of America.

I have defended the spirit of Helen Keller on this blog, and while I am a tremendous fan of her incredible mind, I’m not terribly interested in her sex life as a lesbian or not, or as the secret, fateful, lover of her teacher, Anne Sullivan’s, husband, or her role as the concubine of a local cub reporter who wrote about her early life and made her a star.

What does concern, and interest me, is the lingering slandering of her as a young child in her effort to write, at 11-years-old, a story for publication called “The Frost King” — that was too closely associated with a previously published work entitled “The Frost Fairies” — that she was accused of plagiarism that haunted and stooped her for the rest of her life.

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World Bicycle Relief: Africa Rides into Zambia

by Nancy McDaniel

Many people who go to Africa for the first time refer to it as a life-changing experience. I know that I felt and said that when I first went to Kenya on safari in 1987. I suppose it is hyperbole to say that each time I go back to the continent, it changes my life. It’s actually more of a re-affirmation. As I once said, when I am in Africa, whether on safari or in a rural area with local people, I am “the best me I can be.” I don’t know why; it just always happens. It is where I am the kindest, most interested, most engaged…  and happiest.

And it just happened again. I returned from two weeks in Zambia the end of July. I still think about this trip every day. I saw a water bottle attached to a bicycle yesterday and I got tears in my eyes (more on that later).

The Reason For The Trip
I have recently become aware of and involved with a wonderful Chicago-based not-for- profit organization called World Bicycle Relief. Their mission is brilliantly simple and simply brilliant: “World Bicycle Relief is a nonprofit organization transforming individuals and their communities through The Power of Bicycles.” I was planning to go to southern Africa anyway last summer and when I saw they were offering a trip called “Africa Rides” to visit their projects in Zambia, I decided to sign up.

Before I went, I started a Grassroots Fundraising Effort for WBR. My initial goal was to raise enough money to donate 10 bikes (at $134 each) which I would match, for a goal of 20 bikes ($2680).

I promised to send photos of kids and bikes when I got back; this appeal certainly worked! Due to the generosity of friends and the powerful appeal of this organization, my total was over $10,000 (that’s 75 bright new shiny Buffalo Bikes, especially designed and built for the uncompromising rough terrain of the rural areas where they would be living)

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Lost in Cultural Translation: Aesop’s Fables, Fairy Tales and Disney Movies

Every plan has a hole.  Every ship has a leak.  Every internet session is insecure.  These are the new universal writs of living in the new ancient world.  I learned that lesson in an especially troubling manner that forced me, in an instant, to reassess my role in the world as a Midwestern White Man teaching at-risk minority undergraduate students at a major New York City university.

I thought the assignment was simple and universally understood. I’d used a similar teaching plan at other universities with great success; but, in reflection, I realize most of those successes were found in mainstream classrooms with well-schooled students who were taught that learning was a priority in the home.

In my new teaching role in the inner city, many of these students working on a B.A. did not come from the same font of mandatory educational opportunities. They scraped by to earn understanding. They fought for what they grasped while others around them had learning handed to them.

There was a great divide of the mind and cultural experience that I quickly had to bridge or the entire end of the semester was at risk of failing, and the blame would solely be mine as the instructor for not being able to quickly re-adjust and move the field lines to be fair to my students so they could find success.

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Advertising Explicit Bodily Functions in People Magazine

Growing up in the 70’s, subliminal advertising was everywhere, and it was always a fun challenge to look at the modern advertising of the day and try to divine the nocturnal missions hidden therein.

“Sex” was a big seller in every way — the most famous evidence of such being the strategically placed curls in Farrah’s hair on her infamous poster.  The “S” in “Sex” is found on her right shoulder, the “e” swirls in the curls above her breasts, and the “x” is found dangling on the inside of her opposite shoulder.

Young men pinned that image to their walls and found great thrills in that lightning rod smile, that hair, and those absolutely hard, and forbidden, nipples!  Yes, Charlie’s Angels on TV was all about erect nipples showing through skimpy bathing suit tops and sweaters.

On today’s television, female nipples are verboten and often blurred by self-censoring series producers.  All the visceral, sexual, fun has been blurred out of current media mainstream.  I’m so glad we have the Universal channel on cable TV where early-morning Charlie’s Angels reruns often appear, uncensored, and still in their full-nipple fury to satisfy the immature little boy left behind in most of us.

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On the Jersey City Heights Streets with the iPhone 5S Camera and Red Squares on Abandoned Buildings

With the arrival of our new iPhone 5S smartphones, Janna and I have been delighting in the new technology.  I can’t believe how lightweight the 5S is compared to my old clunker of a 4s.  Weight makes a mighty difference in the tote along tone and temperature of your day.

Here’s a caveat about the iPhone 5S camera:  When you shoot in bright sunlight — as I did on September 26, 2013 — you cannot see the screen, and you are basically taking blind photographs.  You rely on your iPhone to focus and try to frame what you’re hoping the camera is seeing.

There is also a new “slider set” of features on the  iOS 7 iPhone camera — “square” and “pano” and “video” and such — that, if you are not careful in your screen blindness, can change the way your iPhone shoots and frames the images.  Yesterday, my fingers tended to slide and select things on the new camera that I had no idea were being activated.

I like tall photographs for blog images, but some of the shots you’ll see here are the new “square” feature that I had no idea was a feature until I got home and saw the infuriating results.  I did not crop any of these images. With the iPhone 5S camera, it’s “live to live again!”

Here’s the first image taken with my iPhone 5S.  It’s a view of the Empire State Building in New York City and I am standing in Riverview Park.

Continue reading → On the Jersey City Heights Streets with the iPhone 5S Camera and Red Squares on Abandoned Buildings