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This Morning

Dusty 1 Comment

This morning I am thinking about work.

Not just my work, which, frankly, I wish I wasn’t thinking about; there is only one day left of regular classes, followed by three days of finals — except I’ve already given all of my finals, so that’s three days of nothing — and then the school year is over. My students stopped thinking about school weeks ago if not earlier; I wish I could follow their example. Ah, well, I’m sure after this coming week I will stop waking up at 4am and thinking about school.

Until the next school year starts, that is.

This morning, though I am also thinking about work in general: why we do it, why we consider it a person’s defining characteristic, and why we hallow it. And why my students have such a love-hate relationship with it.

So why do we work? To some extent, of course, work is necessary for survival; life is a struggle, with too much life vying for not enough resources; there’s not another way that life works on this particular planet, that is just, as they say, how it be. When we were primates in trees, and actual predators and prey, we had to work to get food and to avoid becoming food. When we became  hunter-gatherers, it was the same; and we added work required to build a society, starting with a family or a pack and building up to a tribe, a clan, and then, with the discovery of agriculture and animal husbandry, a village and a town and a country. Now there’s all that added work to prepare the area for habitation, and then to protect it from those who are still working in the predator-prey field. And, basically, we still do that: we work to survive, and we work to maintain and protect what we have.

The question is, what we have, and what the threat to it is, and whether it really needs this much work to keep it.

We work for more than mere survival. We work to get more than the minimum: we work for personal gain. I don’t just want enough food to keep from starving, I want enough food to be satisfied, to be fat and happy; and I want the right kinds of food. Not just all the squirrels I can catch: I want donuts. And Cheez-Its. And good coffee. And also, I don’t want to eat squirrels. But now  we enter into the realm of abundance: because frankly, if there are limited resources and we are competing for them, and there are people working to survive while I am working merely for Cheez-Its and good coffee, then the survival workers are likely to win, because they want it more and they will work harder. Of course, there are people working to survive in this world while I work for Cheez-Its (And I feel like an absolute heel saying that, but it’s true, so thank you for reading the work of a heel), but we have localized abundance, and localized limited resources; and we have lots of people working hard to make sure that the people with limited resources can’t take my Cheez-Its.

So now we have working for survival, and working for personal gain and abundance. (We also have people working to protect my abundance, but they generally do that work for the same reason I do mine: they just have a different job. Inasmuch as they work to promote and preserve a culture, I’ll get to them in a sec.) I’m struggling to find a way that my working for Cheez-Its is positive, in the face of the fact that people are starving and working for food. I mean, I can’t fix the famine in Yemen, not even if I give up Cheez-Its (I’m not trying to be flip here, but if I changed to something less shallow than Cheez-Its as my example, it wouldn’t change the fact that I am working for abundance while Yemenis starve to death.); but in the grand scheme of things, there can’t be a moral good in working for abundance in a world with people who lack what they need to survive.

But there are still other reasons why we work. Take the one I just left alone: working to protect and promote a culture. People who do that often work without a tangible reward, which means they aren’t working for survival nor for personal gain. Why do they do it, then?

Take the attempts to reshape the national culture. Fundamentalist Christians are trying to re-brand America as a Christian nation. But we are not a Christian nation, not explicitly nor implicitly, not historically nor ideally; so this means, essentially, that Christians are trying to take the nation we have and turn it into their nation. Why? What would they gain from it?  Clearly not survival and not abundance; there is no money in protesting abortion. (There’s plenty in being a politician or a PAC that promotes abortion restrictions, but I’m not talking about them; I’m talking about the people who march with signs, and yell at people outside Planned Parenthood, and write opinion letters and online arguments about abortion and gay marriage.) Do they work to gain a place in Heaven? No, that’s guaranteed to them based on their own good life and good faith. The salvation of other American souls? That also is based on Americans accepting the Christian faith, and unless you think banning abortion and gay marriage will make people see the light of God in church every Sunday, then the attempts to achieve those political goals doesn’t make sense for their faith.

“Because it’s the right thing to do” seems to be the answer that makes the most sense (Unless we accept the notion that socially conservative movements are aimed at the eventual goal of subjugation of the masses for the elevation of conservative Christians. Then it’s more taking of something that isn’t theirs: power. And there’s a different idea of why we work.). Not that I think banning abortion and gay marriage are the right thing to do, but lots and lots of religious people, particularly devout Christians, do think so, and they’re the ones putting in the work to take these institutions (Is that the word for pregnant women in the aggregate? Marriage is an institution; is pregnancy? Motherhood? Womanhood?) under their control. So here’s another reason why we do work: not for survival, and not for personal gain: for morality. And maybe for control, for power.

Working for power doesn’t make sense. Power is, essentially, the ability to gain something without having to work for it. If I have power over my slaves, say, then I can order them to make me a cup of coffee, and I get the coffee without having to make it myself; presumably I also force my slaves to do work that will bring in enough money to buy the coffee. I’m buying myself a life of leisure, a work-free existence. So if I have to work to gain that power, so that I can use the power to stop working, then it’s a wash. The only thing that makes it make any sense is if I can gain power disproportionate to the work I put in, so I work less hard to keep my slaves subjugated than my slaves work to keep me in coffee and Cheez-its. It would make sense if I put in work at the outset in order to stop working after I gain the power I seek; but that requires a kind of power that remains even when I stop working to maintain it, and there aren’t a lot of powers like that. Most power leaves as soon as you stop working to keep it.

So then the people who work for power aren’t looking only for power: they want to wield that power to some other purpose. It makes  sense if this comes back to morality. People who work to gain power over others, so they can force those others to act the way the powerful one wants them to act, because the powerful one thinks that’s the right thing to do: okay. That’s just working for morality at one remove. You could also work for power in order to use that power to gain greater abundance and personal wealth; though at some point the abundance becomes more than you could ever need — Bill Gates, the Waltons, especially Warren Buffett (who is 88 years old), will never be able to spend all of their money. That becomes a circle: work for power, to gain wealth, to gain more power, to — ? Presumably work for moral goals, as the Koch brothers have, as Sheldon Adelson and George Soros do.

Have I missed anything? Is there any other reason we work? Oh, wait, of course: we work for the benefit of other people. I work so I can give my wife food, so I can buy chewtoys for my dogs, so I can afford a house with a fenced yard for my tortoise to live in. (I give my wife more than food, and I do also give food to my pets. Just so we’re clear.) On some level I do these things for selfish reasons, for survival or my own luxury, because I like when my wife takes care of me and when my dogs treat me like a wonderful person — often immediately after I feed them; but I also do work for other people who do not benefit me directly. (I know that many people who fight to end abortion feel they are doing the same thing. Allow me to disagree. I do not think that anyone arguing against gay marriage is sincerely doing that for the sake of other people: it is a moral conviction they hold, and nothing more.)

And here’s where we come to my students. I work hard for them. Not for my survival; believe me when I say I could do a tenth of the work that I currently do and keep my current position, and therefore keep my salary; actually, if I arranged it well, and focused my minimal efforts on prepping my students for tests, I could potentially make more than I do now, because my school has merit pay for test scores, which I consistently ignore in favor of working hard to teach my students. I don’t work hard for personal gain: I don’t get anything tangible from students except the occasional gift of coffee or baked goods. I got a $25 gift card for Starbucks yesterday, but I make $25 an hour or so, and I’ve spend far more than an hour on the student who gave me the gift. (Please know, especially if it’s you who gave me the card reading this, that your gift was much appreciated: far more than my salary.) It’s the same problem as working for power: if I work so I can get gifts that save me work, it’s a wash. In my case, considering the amount of work and the value of my gifts, it’s worse than a wash, it’s a waste.

To some extent I work hard as a teacher for a moral purpose: I believe that education is valuable, and that literature and reading and writing are both valuable and wonderful, and I want to promote those ideas; my efforts contribute to that, I think. But not enough: because for all of my effort and all of my passion, my students do not generally become readers. Maybe they gain some respect for literature and for reading and writing, but they aren’t converted to my beliefs. The other reason I work hard is for their benefit: my students often don’t read well, and rarely write well; I think their lives — not my life, and not necessarily the country or the world as a whole — would be better if they could read and write more clearly, more purposefully, more powerfully. So I try to help them. For their sakes.

The biggest hurdle I face in that effort is, naturally, my students themselves (Also the educational establishment, which would really prefer it if I taught to the test and the skills and standards they have determined to be more important than literature; but that’s their moral purpose for work, not mine, and I haven’t been converted to their views. So, no.). Because the only way my students improve is if they work.

And why would my students want to work?

Not for survival; I hate to think that any of them would be denied food or water or shelter because they didn’t do well in school. I’m sure it happens sometimes, but I would turn that parent in for abuse and neglect, not praise them for motivating their child to learn. Not for luxury or personal gain, not exactly; some of them get money or presents with good grades, but that’s rare at the high school level, and only has influence around grade time: when it’s September and they feel like sleeping in, the awareness that they’ll get paid for every A come January does not get them out of bed to study for that test. The same for the overarching motivation we try to use on them in this country: work hard in school, then go to college (Where you’ll work harder, and buy yourself a mountain of debt which means you’ll have to work EVEN HARDER when you’re out of school) so that you can get a high-paying job. THEN you can work for abundance and personal gain.

You know what? That’s too much work, for not enough reward. The reward is much too distant, and too fraught; because  we all have stories about people who work hard and are miserable, and we share those stories with students. Students see their parents working too hard to earn money, and they are capable of recognizing that their parents may love the work they do, but that doesn’t make it worth the hard effort they put into it. I myself am not a good example to become a teacher: they all know how hard I work for them, and how little reward I get for it. Why would they work hard now, to work harder in college, to work harder as a teacher?

Even my students aren’t that dumb.

Maybe we should rethink this system.

This Morning

Dusty Leave a comment

This morning I am thinking about paying attention.

I had a student tell me the other day that he thinks he has ADHD. He based this self-diagnosis on the fact that those with ADHD have great difficulty in setting deadlines for themselves, that they get distracted too easily and too severely, and they also suffer anxiety when forced to do a task they find difficult or unpleasant. They have trouble focusing, in other words, and this is no surprise.

Butt I was surprised when this young man told me he thought he had ADHD; because I’ve taught him for four years, and I’ve taught and known a number of people with ADHD over the years — and no. No, he does not have ADHD. He’s just a lazy teenager with bad priorities.

I say that with no judgment: I was a lazy teenager with bad priorities, and I was far worse about it than this young man — who is graduating with a high GPA, who has been accepted to multiple colleges, and who has won scholarships based on his academic achievements. The problem with his focus and his ability to accomplish tasks in a timely manner is actually that he’s so smart that he can do an excellent job on his work with very little effort or time; he can blow through an essay in a couple of hours and write something better than what any of his peers can do. He’s known this, certainly for all of high school, probably for all of his life, and so he lets himself do exactly that: he puts off homework and assignments until it reaches the point where he has just enough time to do them, and then he does them.

Then, of course, the issue grew complicated. First it became a point of pride, as it always does, because everything in our culture is competitive. Someone in the class says “Did you do the project?” And someone who works very hard in school responds, “Yeah, I spent all weekend on it. Almost killed me.” And then the smart one says, “Huh. I threw something together at the last minute. Took me about an hour.” Then the projects come back with grades, and the smart one has the same grade as the hard worker, or even a better one, and the hard worker expresses some sort of envy. “Man, I wish I could do that. You’re so lucky.” So our smart one does this as often as possible, in order to win that praise, even if it’s only from himself, looking down at his test grade and thinking, “I didn’t even study for that. Damn, I’m smart.”

The eventual result is that this smart young man can’t bring himself to put real work into anything, because he likes the accolades he gets when he does minimal work that still turns out well; and he loves the freedom that he gains by working this way, by taking perhaps one-fifth as much time to complete his work, which leaves him four-fifths of his time to play video games or watch YouTube. And life is grand: until, of course, the inevitable happens, and the work gets difficult enough that he can’t finish it in one-fifth the time. Things don’t go as well then, and his grades start to slide, and the accolades dry up — and then he starts looking for excuses. Then he develops ADHD. (The really funny part of this, by the way, is the H, the Hyperactivity: this dude can barely bring himself to get out of bed in the morning, and he slouches and trudges his way through his entire school day. I’ve never seen a less hyperactive student.)

It can certainly come about in other ways: a student who is not as bright, not as capable, but who  is charming and well-liked, and so gets out of assignments because the teacher likes them, or who gets other people to do work for them; they too never develop the ability to do hard work for an extended period of time — and they too decide that they have ADHD. Or simply someone who was never pushed to complete tasks, who is in an environment that is not very concerned with school, and is therefore allowed to spend study time playing instead; they never learn to focus and pay attention, and eventually, lo and behold, ADHD.

If you genuinely have ADHD, or you have seen someone with ADHD, you know it. It’s called a disorder, which I don’t agree with, because the only problem with it is it doesn’t conform to the type of behavior we generally prefer in our children and in our students (Which still adheres to the old Puritan ideal of “seen but not heard”); but when people have it, it is unmistakable. The fact that people are using this very genuine condition as an excuse for just not wanting to work very hard is, frankly, disgusting. I don’t really have a suggestion or advice here, other than — well, shut up and do your work, you lazy punks.

This Morning

Dusty Leave a comment

This morning I do not have time to think. Sorry: I have seniors who are graduating in two days, and I need to grade their work. I spent part of last night arguing when I should have been grading, and so this morning, I need to spend time grading which I would rather spend writing.

This is a good substitute, though: since I started my gun posts with a discussion of what needs to be done to fix school shootings — but I never got to a practical answer — here is a reasonable and practical answer that actually has very little to do with guns, from a teacher in Colorado. Please do read it.

I’ll try to write again tomorrow.

I am a TEACHER in COLORADO and Here is Why Guns are NOT the Problem or the Solution.

This Morning

Dusty Leave a comment

This morning I’m thinking about the Constitution. About the Second Amendment.

“A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.”

I have thought about this particular sentence quite a lot over the years. I’ve shifted my position on this several times, generally in the same direction; not because the side I’ve shifted towards is entirely right (Though it is the right-wing position, the conservative position, that doesn’t make it the right-minded position), but because I came into this debate with a pretty extreme view.

See, I was raised to hate firearms. Violence of all types, certainly, but firearms in particular. My mother, a nurse and a pacifist and the kindest person I have ever known, never even let me have a BB gun, no matter how many times I watched “A Christmas Story.” There was one occasion when I was about 8 or so when our family went over to visit friends for dinner; my mom and dad liked this couple quite a lot: he was a computer guy who worked with my dad, and she was a ceramic artist. They all got along great — until Ben, the husband, showed my brother Marvin and I his pistol. I have a clear recollection of the gun — a revolver — being entirely unloaded, the cylinder open with no shells in it; I remember him letting us hold it. And I remember my mother coming in the room and finding us there holding a gun.

We never saw them again. Not only didn’t go over to their house, but we never saw the Kirchners again. I think my mom saw Mrs. Kirchner at some point, because we had a number of mugs that she made; but we never saw Ben after that.

So I’ve never been in a fight, and I’ve never gone hunting, and I’ve never killed an animal larger than a mouse, and I’ve never fired nor even held a gun past that one time when I was eight. I remember being in an online debate when I started taking this topic on, and my opponent accused me (as online debaters — read “assholes,” including myself when I debated online — are wont to do) of being a hoplophobe, someone who is irrationally afraid of firearms (Please note that this is just a politically charged insult recently coined, like “snowflake” or “soyboy” or that kind of bullshit.). And my response, which stunned the asshole who threw the word at me, was, “Yes. Yes, I am.” I did add the clarifications that I was afraid of people wielding firearms, not of the weapons themselves, and that this fear was not in fact irrational.

The response was basically that I should get a gun and learn to defend myself like a man.

This is a bullshit argument.

But it’s not actually the argument behind the Second Amendment.

Let’s be clear: the Second Amendment has been misinterpreted (in my opinion) by the courts, and even more by the general populace. It does not define the right to self-defense: there is no need to define and protect the natural right to self-defense, because self-defense is never a crime. But I don’t believe there is a guarantee in the Second Amendment that an individual has a right to, needs to, or even should, have a gun for self-defense.

The Second Amendment is also not in any way a defense of hunting or target shooting or collecting firearms to display in your home. None of those are rights. They’re amusements, hobbies; you have no right to a hobby. “But Dusty, what about people who hunt for food?” Well actually, you don’t have a right to food, either. People should have food, and it makes sense for us as a country to ensure that people have food and the ability to get food; but we do it because it makes sense, not because it’s a right. If it stops being sensible to provide food — let’s say we all voluntarily go into the Matrix, and survive on pink goo pumped directly into our gastrointestinal systems — then the provision of food will stop, without any violation of rights.

Let me explain a bit before I go too far into the weeds. The Second Amendment states that the people — not a person — have the right to keep and bear arms, in order to defend the security of a free State. The implication is that the main threats to a free State are external: I think that’s the “security” line. If it was primarily about the defense of a free people from the state, then it would say something more like “to ensure the integrity and continuation of a free State.” But I don’t mean to be one of those people who parse every word of the law in order to determine what the point is: I don’t actually idolize the Founding Fathers, and don’t think that their intentions should be the deciding consideration when trying to interpret the Constitution. I think we should look at what the document is really supposed to do, not necessarily what the men who wrote it wanted it to do.

The Constitution is intended to create and preserve a nation based on the rule of law, and not the whims of men. Laws need to be interpreted and executed by people, so our opinions have some importance; but the defining, essential purpose of the Constitution and the Founding Fathers was to escape and prevent the tyranny of powerful men.

You know how you escape the tyranny of powerful men? You spread power out as much as humanly possible. You create separate but equal branches of government, with checks and balances. You ensure that, as much as possible, the people who run that government are beholden to the masses, through the power of the ballot. (It’s probably a good idea to ensure that the people who are in charge of the actual laws are not quite so beholden to the people, but rather to the law itself — but that’s a different topic.) And because physical force is a source of power, you spread out the physical force as widely as possible: you don’t allow it to concentrate in the hand of a few, or even, if you can manage it, in the hands of many: you put it in the hands of all. That’s what the Second Amendment does, and what it does is right to do: the wider the dispersal of power, the less likely power is to be abused.

I do think the Second Amendment is intended partly to ensure that the people stay free and are able to defend that freedom against a rising tyranny in their own government. But it’s not that specific: it’s intended to create resistance to any gathering of power. The Ku Klux Klan have less power when the Black Panthers have rifles: it’s really as simple as that.

That means that we need to have the right to own firearms, as firearms are the most powerful individual force-multiplier we people can own. Tanks would be better, and an entire air force or navy owned by each individual WAY better; but that’s not feasible.  Anyone can own a gun, and a person with a gun is more deadly than one without. That’s why the Amendment defends the right to keep and bear arms. That does also imply that we should have the right to defend ourselves from personal harm using firearms. It makes sense: the point of maintaining a free State is so we free individuals can have a place to live; therefore the purpose of defending a free state also encompasses defending a free individual. Also, not to get too silly, but you can’t defend the state if you get killed by an intruder in your home.

But here’s the thing: there’s nothing in the Amendment, neither the wording nor the logic, that implies that we should not require background checks on every single purchase of a firearm. And a national gun registry of every owned or manufactured firearm. And red flag laws that allow the removal of firearms from dangerous individuals. And mandatory firearms training and testing, just like we have for motor vehicles. And limits on types of firearms (To some extent — there should be a limit on the limits so that the limits do not become a de facto ban), and on magazine capacity, and on everything else that we see fit to regulate. See, the goal here is to ensure that power is spread out: not that power has to be granted and defended for every halfwit who can pull a damn trigger. Not that the power has to allow one sovereign citizen to take on the military, or even the police, and win. The arguments against regulation are all predicated on the (rather paranoid) idea that the main purpose of the Amendment is to limit the ability of the federal government to control people, and that’s just not the case. Anyone who is a threat to us needs to be controlled, primarily by the limiting of power in the hands of those who are a threat. Note that: if we fear the rising power of the Federal government, then clearly the answer given by the Constitution is to limit that power, not to rise up against it. The worst case scenario is that the people will need to overthrow their own government, but the Amendment isn’t the plan for that; the Amendment is part of the plan for preventing that.

Our ability to own firearms is one thing that helps keep the government from the most simple and brutal sort of tyranny (And it really does do that, and I think I’ll have to talk about that at greater length on another day; the topic is too complex for a single post); but to keep us from turning our power on each other (And to keep the citizens from turning their power on the government for corrupt reasons, too; let’s not forget that. Let’s not imagine that most revolutions are idealistic and freedom-loving.), well — that’s why it says “Well-regulated.” Right there in the front of the Amendment. Even before the “keep and bear arms” part.

 

I think this will have to be continued.

tHIS mORNING

Dusty Leave a comment

This morning I am so tired I can’t even think straight.

I feel like I am swimming through pudding: I can move, but everything is slower and takes more effort. And I have absolutely no strength, as if all of my bones and muscles have been replaced by down pillows, and the only thing that lets me move is momentum and weight: I need to pause and set myself before I do anything, like I’m rolling myself to the top of a hill, pausing at the edge, and then — down I go. And then when I do it, since I’m still moving through pudding, I do it so slowly that my mind actually wanders in the middle of it — mostly just to say, “Man, I’m tired.” I’m drinking coffee, and I think the exhaustion beast that is prowling and growling and slouching around inside of me is laughing at the caffeine. Laughing at it. It’s like throwing water balloons at a five-alarm fire. Poor useless coffee.

It doesn’t feel terrible, actually. It feels like I’m just a little bit drunk, or just a little bit high. I think I probably should not drive at the moment. But I don’t plan to. Nor operate heavy machinery.

Nor lift up a heavy topic like the Second Amendment. Sorry about that. I did start to write about it last night, and hit a snag that I need to think about: my utter lack of respect for Antonin Scalia. See, Scalia wrote the 5-4 majority opinion in the D.C. v. Heller case, which is the one that establishes the individual right to own firearms under the Second Amendment, and the second I see that (though I do agree in some ways, as I’ll get into it when it doesn’t take me a couple of seconds to remember where the “c” key is) I just think, “Well, of course that’s bullshit, it’s Scalia.” But that’s not fair, because even partisan bastards like the former “Justice” are sometimes right in their thinking. So there are things I need to think about regarding the Second Amendment before I write about it, and this is not a good morning to start.

So instead, I’ll just see how much coffee I can mainline, see if I can wake up at least enough to do my job (Which first means I need to wake up enough to get to my job. And remember where my job is.), and then I’ll try to take another crack at the big issue tonight and write about it tomorrow morning. It may have to wait for a weekend, though. I hope the people reading this don’t mind a few posts about nonsense; I don’t have a lot else in me right now. Goosefeathers and pudding.

And this song. Which is a perfect song.

 

This Morning

Dusty Leave a comment

This morning I am thinking about ending gun violence.

Really, the solution is quite simple: after the apocalypse, when we’ve all reverted back to Stone Age savagery (Well, mostly died; those few who remain will revert), guns will be nothing but strangely-shaped clubs that occasionally explode. But since I seek to save lives, the idea of letting things go their course until the majority of people have died (My same solution would work for climate change, too, I’ll note) is antithetical to the purpose. So let’s be serious.

For simplicity’s sake, because I want this to be a short blog, let us assume that the Second Amendment is worth preserving. I’ll come back to it tomorrow and discuss it at length  (Hopefully not too-long length) but for now, let’s just agree that it’s part of our Constitution, that it’s the accepted law of the land, and that fighting against it or arguing against it directly is going to be counterproductive. I hope we can also agree that there is value in it — I think there is — but we’ll save that for tomorrow.

Because the first thing I want to say about this cause, preventing gun violence, particularly trying to put an end to gun violence in schools (This post is a continuation of this one, if you haven’t been reading along.), is this: it doesn’t begin in our schools.

It begins with the military.

There are two reasons. Three, really, but one of them will wait for tomorrow. The first is that we live in a culture soaked in violence, steeped in blood; that culture influences us to see violence as an answer. The military is the first and most prominent source of this idea, that violence is a solution to problems; because not only does our diplomacy start and end with force, but we laud it, incessantly, as the best thing about us: we are the world’s superpower, we are the global police force, we are the shining light on the hill — which we think is the Bat signal. Anyone anywhere needs help, one of the first things we do is send the Marines. Hoo rah. All of our military veterans are heroes, everything good about this country — our freedoms, our values — are due to the military.

And what does the military do? The military kills people.

Of course that’s not all the military does; and the other tasks, I would gladly maintain. I would cherish a global rescue force that sent in manpower and superior engineering knowledge to help with natural disasters. I would absolutely adore a massive collection of dedicated, patriotic men and women who actually lived and worked among real people in terrible places, and helped them, and got to know them; I think those soldiers, the ones who win hearts and minds, are indeed heroes, and the best possible face that we could put on America to people around the world.

But only if those same soldiers don’t kill the people they have gotten to know.

That’s the second reason why the military has to be the first place we do something to end gun violence: because an Iraqi child’s life is not worth less than an American child’s life, and while we grieve sorely for the school children we have lost to gun violence, I don’t hear the same outpouring for the tens of thousands of children in Iraq and Afghanistan whom we killed.

I don’t blame soldiers for the violence they commit and represent; that is their job, and it is we, the people, who ask — who insist  — that they do it. So this is the first place to start, if we’re serious about ending gun violence. Anything else, any attempt to remove firearms from the hands of our civilian populace, while we pay a million men and women to circle the globe with their fingers on the trigger, is absurd. First we have to put down the nation’s gun.

In a practical sense, I’d suggest keeping a massive and essentially unbeatable National Guard, with as much of it as practicable as Reserves: let’s go back the Minutemen, one of the first and most important ideas of the founding fathers, and one of the first that they lost, because a standing army is just such a useful tool. You can use that hammer to smash anything. Or anyone. I’d also suggest that as many of our current assets as possible be transferred to the UN for their peacekeeping forces — or to another similar body if we’re not happy with the United Nations specifically. I do recognize that force is necessary at times, to stop atrocities around the globe; but I also recognize that we are too reluctant to commit our own troops to that cause. So we should participate in the cause, but not be in charge of it. Frankly, we could use the humility.

That’s first. The second step in ending gun violence for real is something that should happen in this country, and it is this: legalize all drugs.

I don’t know that drug users and drug dealers are the biggest source of illegal activity that includes gun violence, but I know they are one of the worst, and also one of the easiest to put a stop to. Legalize drugs, control them, build a market for them, and not only does the majority of crime in this country stop (or take on a different tenor, which is certainly likely; the other thing we need to do to stop crime is reduce income inequality — but that’s a different blog and also a societal issue that leads to property crime more than violent crime. Drugs tend more towards violence, especially between and among dealers.), but also the majority of violent crime and societal instability in Mexico.

Are you listening, Trump? You want to make Central and South America a better place, with fewer gangs and less violence, and therefore less reason for people to emigrate to the US? Here’s your chance. Legalize drugs. Problem — not solved, but certainly ameliorated.

But the legalization of drugs, while it would stop some of the worst gun violence we face, would actually contribute somewhat to what is possibly the saddest cause of gun violence, and the hardest to fix: domestic violence and abuse. This is the third step we have to take. Not only because the thousands of women who are killed by their partners every year are not worth less than the school children we grieve so sorely, but also because it has to be obvious by now that one of the potential causes of school shootings is a violent, unstable home life, generally one cause by abuse and neglect. (And inasmuch as drugs and alcohol contribute to abuse and neglect, my second solution makes this one harder; however, I would hope that legalized drugs would have less stigma attached to seeking help, and maybe that would make some difference, too. There would need to be stiff penalties for crimes committed while under the influence. That’s probably another blog.)

I don’t know how to stop this, to be honest. I can’t understand someone turning in anger and attacking their own loved ones — and I also can’t understand someone living with people they don’t love. Of course desperation is part of it, especially for people who stay with abusers; so maybe solving our income inequality and poverty problems are more imperative in this cause than I thought. I do feel like this one is the hardest and the longest-lasting problem, one that will take at least a generation of hard work to reduce if not eliminate; because the only way to solve this is to break the cycle of abuse. Abusers are broken people; and they break the people they abuse. (Not everyone. But it’s no shame to be broken by someone who seeks to do it, and it does happen, far too often.)

That is, when the abusers don’t simply murder them. Often with guns.

So these are the first three steps we must take. And I’m fully aware that just that first step is essentially impossible in this country in this day and age; everyone in politics is beholden to the military, forced to kowtow to them in a country where even the NFL, a bastion of American spirit if ever there was one, was humbled by the rumor of disloyalty to the military. And of course there is the very real possibility that the military would not allow itself to be dismantled: there are a number of very powerful people with a vested interest in maintaining our addiction foreign wars, and if we think a military junta couldn’t overthrow our government simply because this is America, then we haven’t been paying attention. There’s also the awesome might and influence of the military-industrial complex, and they have less than no morals. I kinda feel like, if this blog were to go viral, they would murder me just for suggesting this.

That’s all right, I’m not scared of them.

I’m scared of someone coming to my school with a gun to kill people. To kill my students, my friends. To kill me. But despite my fear, despite the immediacy of it, if we don’t start with these three steps, then anything we do claiming to reduce gun violence is just hollow.

Let’s do this right.

This Mother’s Day

Dusty Leave a comment

You know what I’m thinking about.

Since I posted recently with all of my mom’s favorite music, I think there’s not much more I can say that could make her happier, so I’m going to make this one a more general musical tribute.

(I love you Mom!)

(Also, thank you, Toni, for being such an incredible mom to our pets. They love you enormously, every second of every day.)

 

So I think this will be a multiple-choice post. Select the song that best represents your mother — or yourself, if you are a mother (AND YES, PET MOTHERS COUNT!). Please comment with your selection. And have a wonderful mother’s day!

 

#1: Mother’s Lament, by Cream

 

#2: Mama Told Me Not to Come, by Three Dog Night

 

#3: Your Mother Should Know by the Beatles

 

#4: Mama Said by Metallica

 

#5: Mama Liked the Roses by Elvis Presley

 

#6: Mother’s Little Helper by the Rolling Stones

 

#7: Mama, I’m Coming Home by Ozzy Osbourne

 

#8: Mother by Pink Floyd (from The Wall)

 

#9: Mother by Danzig

 

#10: Mama Said Knock You Out by LL Cool J

 

#11: Bohemian Rhapsody by Queen (Because of the lyrics, of course.)

 

Any other choices are also welcome. (By the way: my mother is #3, as The Beatles are one of her all-time favorites and this has a good dance theme, which is where her heart lives; my wife is #11 because she is epic.)

Love to all mothers!

This Day

Dusty 1 Comment

This day, I’m thinking about Kendrick Castillo. And about Riley Howell. And about gun violence.

Kendrick Castillo was the high school senior, three days from graduating, who lunged at a fellow student who came into his classroom with a gun in Highlands Ranch, Colorado, this past Wednesday. He was shot to death. Eight other students were wounded by the two gunmen, one of whom was detained by a school security guard. Two other seniors tackled Castillo’s killer, and the other people in the classroom credit Castillo with saving their lives.

Riley Howell and another young man tackled another gunman at UNC-Charlotte on April 30. Again, it’s believed that their actions stopped the shooter from murdering more people, potentially many more people. Howell was shot three times, and died of his wounds.

We call them heroes.

We call them martyrs.

We grieve for them, we remember them, we hold military funerals and vigils for them.

And then we make more of them.

I had a brief discussion — not a bad one, though I was a bit rude and I made the other person upset with me — on Facebook about Kendrick Castillo and whether or not he was a hero. I said he was a tragedy, and I was told that his situation was certainly a tragedy, but that calling him anything other than a hero dishonored him and his leadership and his legacy. And I struggled with how I wanted to respond to that. At first I said that I understood the other person’s point, and I agreed with it, for the most part. But really, I’m not sure that I do. I don’t mean to rehash the argument without giving the other person a chance to rebut my points, so I don’t want to get too far into this specific topic, but — I don’t think that my consent and participation are necessary for someone to be honored. I’ve disagreed often with those we choose to view as heroes, as leaders, as those worthy of honor; I don’t think my opinion has much of an impact on their status or their reputation or their legacy. Especially not something I say in a Facebook comment, or even on this blog. I will say that I would not state my opinion directly to the person or their loved ones, I wouldn’t go to John McCain’s funeral and call him an asshole even though I wrote a multi-page essay to that effect during the 2008 presidential race. But I do also think that if I lost someone I loved, if my wife sacrificed her life to save her students from a school shooter, it would not make me feel better if people told me she was a hero. So if I ever spoke to Kendrick Castillo’s family, I think the first and last thing I would say is, “I’m so sorry for your loss.”

But none of that is the point I wanted to make here; just the impetus that has me writing about this terrible topic, again. During that same discussion, I wanted to say that I would rather use my grief for the loss of Kendrick Castillo, and for Riley Howell, to try to ensure that this never happened again, that nobody else would ever have to make the choice that they made.

But I couldn’t say that. First because I don’t know that I am grieving. I’ve grieved for deaths before, and this feels nothing like that. I will say that, inasmuch as you can grieve for someone you’ve never met, I do feel genuinely sad and sorry about these deaths, and I have been thinking about them all day; so if that’s grieving, then I am. If it’s not grieving, then I’m doing whatever this is, and maybe that honors their lives and their loss.

More to the point, though, I don’t think I’m going to do anything to prevent this from happening again. I want to, I genuinely do; but I’m not sure what. I can post on this blog, or elsewhere on the internet, and maybe my opinion can sway some others — but first I have to know how to sway them (you)  in order to make a difference, to move us closer to this goal we all share of never again having to hear of a school shooting. I usually think that’s the most powerful impact I can have on issues; because I have this small platform, and I can use it. Though as I said above, I’m not sure how much this blog, my words, these posts, really matter. Probably not much. I could run for office, but I wouldn’t win nor want the job; I could work for a campaign — and I might — but I’d have to be sure that the campaign I was working for was the right one, the one that would help make this happen. Of course I can vote, and will  — but again, I have to know that I’m voting for the right person. And when it comes right down to it, if the options are between someone who doesn’t share my opinions about preventing gun violence, and, say, Donald Trump — well, I’m not fucking voting for Trump.

I suppose I could also carry a gun, and stand guard at a school building. But I don’t think that is the right answer.

So the first thing that I need to do, to actually accomplish, is to decide what I think is the right thing to do. And then look for opportunities to pursue that right thing.

I’m saying this because I want to help move other people to do the same. My opinions may not sway anyone, but I do hope that when I say things that make sense, that aren’t simply my opinions, then people will listen: and this makes sense. We need to figure this out. We should all decide what we think is the best thing to do. We should also be open-minded and willing to listen, and honestly think, about what other people say is the best thing to do. We need to do this thinking because if nothing else, the 20 years between Columbine and Highlands Ranch, and the incessant stream of similar tragedies that have paraded by us over those two decades, should show us that we don’t know what to do. Because we’ve done nothing. Nothing other than drill students in how to deal with school shooters: and that has led directly to this point, these two dead men, these — heroes. We made them. We taught them what to do, we encouraged them, we failed to do anything else to prevent these situations where they chose to sacrifice themselves for others. If they are martyrs, then we are not the inheritors of their gift, the beneficiaries of their sacrifice: we’re the ones who killed them. We’re the Romans, with the cross and the nails. We’re the Inquisition, with the stake and the fire. We’re Jack and the hunters, chanting “KILL THE PIG! KILL THE PIG!” while Simon comes down from the cave.

At best we’re the ones watching it happen. At best.

 

I actually intended this post to be about what I think we should do to stop this. But it hasn’t gone that way, and I don’t want to get into it now. And tomorrow is Mother’s Day, and I don’t want to talk about ending gun violence on  Mother’s Day. So I think I will leave this here, for now, and come back to it next week — probably Monday.

I will end with this last remark. I do not think honoring dead men like Kendrick Castillo and Riley Howell as heroes does one single thing to reduce the tragedy of their loss. In a perverse way, if they are heroes, then that makes their loss worse, because heroes are valuable people, people who improve the lives of others, and they shouldn’t have to die to do that: they don’t have to die to do that. If they die doing it, then that is the end of their heroism, and it is a loss, it is a terrible loss in addition to the unforgivable loss of their lives. I think they probably were heroes, because I think that fighting to stop or prevent harm to others is a good thing, one of the best things, and so people who try to do it are good; if they try to stop harm this horrific, then they are great. I can call them heroes for that.

But still, the only thing I can say is: I am so sorry for your loss.

Image result for kendrick castillo

Kendrick Castillo

Image result for riley howell

Riley Howell

 

This Morning

Dusty Leave a comment

This morning I am thinking about appreciation.

Yesterday I tried to recognize the teachers and educators I have worked with (And I still forgot a few — so thank you, Mary Wells, for all that you do, and thank you, Nora Caragan, for being the best paraprofessional in the history of paraprofessionals), and I got a grateful and heartwarming response. Teachers loved hearing what I had to say.

But there’s a problem there: I had to say it.

One of the things I object to, even though I participate in, is the support network that teachers provide for each other. It is a staggeringly wonderful thing: these people, who are already working so hard, and who are already giving so much, turn and without hesitation give even more to each other. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen it: teachers go into each others’ rooms all the time, and frequently the visitor comes in mad or frustrated or down — until they see the face of the person they are visiting, and see that that person is feeling even worse. Suddenly, whatever the teacher came in to complain about or vent or even ask for help with is gone: frustration vanishes in concern, and the visitor says, “What’s wrong?” Prepared, in an instant, to take more burdens onto shoulders already weighed down with overwork and the emotional strain of seeing up close and personal the struggles and sufferings of children (And also with the strain of struggling through the suffering caused by children — and the worst is that it is often the same children, that those who are neediest and most desperate are the most obnoxious people we see. Which is saying something.), not because we don’t need help any more, but simply because a friend, a fellow teacher, needs help more, or even just needs help too: and so we help.

It’s amazing and inspiring. I will say, without any humility, that I participate in this, that I support my fellow teachers at all times and in whatever way they may need, and that I rarely ask for help myself because  I don’t want to trouble them.  I’ve even seen this go too far, when I was part of my union’s negotiating team and we were  fighting for better compensation and working conditions; trying to get teachers to actually stop working, to stop sacrificing, to start asking for something for themselves — and not luxuries, but a living wage and necessary health care and the like —  was nearly impossible. They wanted to give up whatever they had to give up in order to make everyone else happy. The magnificent bastards.

But here’s the thing: we shouldn’t have to do that. Of all the people who should be sacrificing in order to keep teachers sane and healthy, IT SHOULD NOT BE TEACHERS WHO DO IT. That makes no sense. It defeats the purpose. We not only put on someone else’s oxygen mask first, we take ours off and strap it on top of that person’s own oxygen mask just so they can be twice as safe while they watch us suffocate.

If it’s not clear already, this drives me nuts, that teachers do this. I don’t like that I do it, either, but it is without doubt who we are as people, and what the culture of teachers encourages in us. This is why we spend our own goddamn money on school supplies for our students, despite how little we are paid. And perhaps the worst part, though this is not the place to get into this, is that we are therefore propping up a system that is in many ways a terrible system: not terrible for us, though it is that, but terrible for the students, and terrible for the country. Yesterday I bought donuts for all of my students taking the AP Literature test. I encouraged and helped students to “succeed” on a high-stakes test run by a private corporation with disproportionate influence on college admissions. I structure the whole class around that damn test: a test I should be opposing with every fiber of my being. But I bought them donuts.

So here’y my request, for those who want to appreciate teachers — REALLY appreciate us, not simply nod in our direction while we lie bruised and bleeding in a ditch. (I know, it’s hyperbolic, but it’s also the end of the year, and it feels like that. I feel bruised. I feel sick because I haven’t been sleeping, and I feel sore because my body has been too tense for too long: my shoulders honestly ache right now.) Ready?

Make it so we don’t have to hold each other up.

Give us enough support, and take away enough of our burden of responsibility, that a single person can do a teacher’s job alone, or at least can handle the pressure alone.

Specifically, that means essentially three things: money, time, and trust. In the first years of a teacher’s career, there is a fourth, which is: help.

I don’t want as much money as I want, if I can be permitted that sentence. I want as much money as is needed so that I don’t have to worry about it. That’s all. I’ve been a teacher for twenty years, and I still don’t earn enough to own a home, and I don’t have any retirement savings, and I still have debt that I haven’t been able to get rid of.  I want to make enough money to take care of those problems. I don’t need enough to pay for vacations or jet skis or that diamond-encrusted pirate hat I’ve had my eye on; just enough so that I don’t have to suffer from money stress. I want to be middle class. I aspire to the bourgeoisie.

I want enough time in my school day to get my work done in my school day. I don’t mind planning lessons from home; it’s kind of fun sometimes. But I don’t want to have to spend one more weekend grading, not one more evening filling out paperwork. I already work 40 hours a week at school; why is it that I am expected and required to add another 10-20 hours on top of that, every week? It’s because I have too many students, and too many requirements for teaching those students. Too many things I have to cover, too many things I have to compensate for, and too many people I need to report to and satisfy in order to show that I did my job. You know what should be the only evidence needed that I did my job? That my student can read a book, write an essay, discuss a poem. That’s it. Don’t ask me to prove that I did my job: ask the kid. See what he can do. And ask him, honestly, if I helped him do that. Make it his responsibility to prove that I did my job. He is the product, after all. (Please note: this is not a serious suggestion for assessment of teachers. Students shouldn’t have to have that burden either, and too many of them are not reliable witnesses nor reliable learners. All I’m saying is that I don’t want to do it, to prove to all and sundry that I did my own job.)

And anyone who thought “But you get summers off!” just know: I am currently mentally punching you in the brain. Hard. Kicking, too.

The last thing I need is trust. I have proven that I am a good teacher. I’ve won awards, I’ve won accolades, I don’t have anyone who disagrees with that basic premise: not students, not students’ families, not other educators. Of course not everyone likes me or likes my class: but I don’t believe there’s a single person who could genuinely say that I teach badly. So please, I beg you. BACK OFF AND LET ME TEACH. Don’t try to improve my curriculum for me, or my methods. If you’ve got suggestions, I’ll listen, of course; but don’t tell me what to do, especially if you’re not versed in my subject or my profession. Stop assessing me: my driver’s license is valid for 25 MORE YEARS: and that’s based on a single test I took more than 20 years ago. Yet my teaching license expires every three to six years, and requires hundreds of hours spent on learning to be a better teacher. I get observed every year, often twice a year, and have multi-page evaluations, every year. How much proof do you need that I can do this job? The answer is that there will never be enough proof that I can do it, because I will never be trusted to do it. That has nothing to do with me and everything to do with our culture and our system, but I don’t care why it is that way: I just want it to stop.

I already care about my profession, and about my students, and about my subject. I care about my fellow teachers and educators. Please, stop making me also care about and for myself: let someone else do it. Give me some real appreciation.

And don’t let it come from other teachers.