Saturday, October 08, 2005

one of my favorite modern poets wrote this, Philip Levine... im copying it from his 1979 work: Ashes, Poems New and Old. if his publisher or he finds this, please dont sue me. im poor. but i really enjoy his poetry. i first saw him do a reading about 5 years ago. it was a cold fall night, and he was in the shambaugh auditorium at iowa. id had a vague idea about his past, that he was connected with the writers workshop, so as a free event, i thought id go. i always hated poetry. but after i heard him read them, it was quite different. it was alot like prose stories and thoughts. and the sound of his voice had matched what i had in my head. so. as i sit on this first crisp fall evening, several years later, i came across this paperback copy, and thought id share... in a reminiscing mood.


LOST AND FOUND

A light wind beyond the window,
and the trees swimming
in the golden morning air.
Last night for hours I thought
of a boy lost in a huge city,
a boy in search of someone
lost and not returning. I thought
how long it takes to believe
the simplest facts of our lives--
that certain losses are final,
death is one, childhood another.
It was dark and the house creaked
as though we'd set sail for
a port beyond the darkness.
I must have dozed in my chair
and wakened to see the dim shapes
of orange tree adn fig against
a sky turned gray, and a few
doves were moaning from the garden.
The night that seemed so final
had ended, and this dawn becoming
day was changing the moment
by moment-- for now there
was blue above, and the tall grass
was streaked adn blowing, the quail
barked from their hidden nests.
Why give up anything? Someone
is always coming home, turning
a final corner to behold the house
that had grown huge in absence
now dull and shrunken, but the place
where he had come of age, still
dear and like no other. I have
come home from being lost,
home to a name I could accept,
a face that saw all I saw
and broke in a dark room against
a wall that heard all my secrets
and gave nothing back. Now he
is home, the one I searched for.
He is beside me as he always
was, a light spirit that brings
me luck and listens when I speak.
The day is here, and it will last
forever or until the sun fails
and the birds are once again
hidden and moaning, but for now
the lost are found. The sun
has cleared the trees, the wind
risen, and we, father and child
hand in hand, the living and
the dead, are entering the world.

Thursday, October 06, 2005

[ Story - Quad City Times, 5 Oct 2005 ]

At first glance people wouldnt care much. Davenport North is my high school of graduation. Davenport North, while I attended, and up until 2 years ago, had no swimming pool. At Davenport North, in those previous years, we never, ever, heard a complaint from the general population about not having swimming in gym.

So. The school district, the ymca, and several loud parents and swim team members pushed and bitched. A few years ago, 6.5 million dollars was coughed up by our destitute school district to dig a hole and fill it with water. Sure part of that paid for an auditorium, which, my school also lacked... but hell... we lived with a gym for 12 years that was 1/3 the size of my jr. high's. And by poor, i mean, bare bones broke, according to the school district budgeting, or how theyve issued 47 million dollars in bonds in the past few years. but i digress. they dropped in a pool which was structured that they pay the building costs, and defer any day to day payments, maintenence or staffing, for 25 years. in return, they have free use of the facility, and donate the land. ... see where this is becoming a problem?

we now have swimming classes, on our schools property, for kids that didnt want to swim. the classes are taught by gym staff, only half a pool at a time! because the ymca retains the right to allow half the use of the facility for "paying" patrons. so. the question is. when someone dies, or is injured... who pays?

this week a student, professing several times how he can not swim, drowned the first day in the pool in his mandatory "water safety course" per the school district. my thought was why the hell did that happen? the police department have deemed it accidental. really.... kids choose to drown? kids that cant swim, in 11 feet of water, with no training, choooooose to drown? no. what they should have established was the drowning was not accidental, it was foreseeable. unfortunate. unintended. but god almighty, quite forseeable. think for a second about this application of logic... is it "accidental" if a soldier dies 20 seconds on the battle field, if we revoked the 8 week boot camp, and time in theater, before hes sent out? is it "accidental" when an accountant defrauds a company, when the accountant has no certifications? is it "accidental" to loose control of an suv moving 80 miles an hour on ice covered streets, while the driver is drunk? no. in every instance, its a definite risk of entailment. not an accident. its an assumed liability. this school district took off assuming the possibility of death, and wishes it didnt happen.

while the school district is going to cling tightly to its bible of state policy, and quote the scripture stating, "we were following policy!", its not much justice to family or the situation. in presuming the only method of "water safety" was to drunk children, the school district is erroneous on several counts. first, that its not an accident that kids who cant swim will drown; two water safety can be taught from a book, or video, or other clever yet decades outdated technological marvel the schools could afford.

what am i hitting at? water safety is more than a shitty swimming lesson from an overweight frat drop out... er gym teacher. its about [drum roll] Safety, around water! for students that can swim; getting in the pool is great. but what about those that cant? id presume theyd be smart enough not to go in the water... this presumes more than the school district, which feels they should be soundly submerged. after all, its educational this way. however. maybe they will now reconsider ways of alternative education... say... for non-swimmers; how to recognize the hazards of open water, how to save a person from shore, what safety mechanisms are around you to use, cpr or rescue breathing and shock treatment, or just the generic fat ass paper on how you can die swimming. for swimmers; they could HAHA actually learn a life saving technique, cpr or rescue breathing, how to tandem save a person, how to inspect for safe swimming, how to watch for signs of non swimmers struggling, and prove proficiency in swiming. isnt that educational? more so than watching a classmate die, on his first day. which is tragic. its terrible. and its heart breaking.

anyways. the sadest part of the story is. kids who cant swim, are going to be forced into the water. this is the age of "not my fucking kid!" in education; where parents can pull kids from health class for fear of boobies; yank kids out of science for fear of man and the monkey; and run screaming if we dont gratify the young, budding, homosexual in class we all profess to love--- just not that way. in this age, i can refuse vaccinations of dangerous diseases, that even Ethiopia can conquer, because my child is amish.... but. my child can not opt out of potentially deadly "water safety" education without penalty. lets mull on this. my child, is required to fullfil the course requirements, even if he feels unsafe to the point of potential injury or death to participate, or he risks academic penalty. how wrong is this? its just, according to our courts, for christian science nut jobs to not vaccinate for measles mumps and rhubella then turn them loose with our children... its just, that students can be removed from class rather than see a shitty 2D diagram of a cut away vagina... and its just, that we make sure that every gay kid will not be referred to as such that they are... but its not just for my kid to get the hell out of a dangerous situation, where HE OR SHE FEELS INCOMPETENT TO SUSTAIN THEIR OWN LIFE.

this is rediculous. and its far from "accidental" when this poor kid dies in the water because of it. he did it because otherwise hed fail gym. hed fail it. who fails gym? convicts pass pe. they have passing grades for kids with CP that will never understand they cant walk. but they would fail this kid if he wouldnt get in that water. he got in way over his head. and did the school district predict this kind of thing? with no lifeguard on this side, for the kids that cant swim, but one for the lap swimmers.... cant they see that they are missing the student who voiced concerns about not making it? not once in 30 minutes did they? not once! god dammit. isnt that the kid you want to watch the closest? isnt that the one you dont let go of as an instructor? because what if that was your kid? and accident is something dropping. a dish. a spoon. this kid couldnt swim, they put him in the water, then didnt bother to look for him in 30 minutes. thats no accident. thats a horrid truth to all of this.

so now that im standing on my alan shore soap box, i have to say. this is a travesty. this is incompatible with what we want our children to learn... teaching water safety shouldnt result in the death of a student, it shouldnt. its wrong. but it happens now. and they were following policy. policy, in this sense, became more important that seeing to the life of a student. policy said, get this kid in the water. and policy says its "accidental" if this is the result. ... where do we draw the line? automobiles are a top killer of kids in high school; but we dont require "drivers education", its not only optioned, but its expensive to deter it! if a childs' parents fear for his mind to warp around a notion of men and women having sex, he can come out of class. no harm. no foul. but put kids in a life threatening situation, even when they tell us they dont feel safe, and it a requirement. a requirement like no other they face. one that in this circumstance, wrongfully robbed a family.

i hope to hell this family sues. i hope they win. i hope it bankrupts the school district. i hope it places someone personally liable for their actions. and i hope the school implements a reasonable stance on teaching water safety... one that avoids water for those that arent safe in it. and i hope the school district and the y, have to install an underwater monitoring system, at the cost of the policy administrators of the school system. in check, cash preferred. because thats justice. thats the american way. sue the assholes and take it from their hides... because in this country, thats all that seems to have an effect when it comes to following policy.

Wednesday, October 05, 2005

for anyone who doesnt know what to get me when i turn 25 in a couple months...

THIS IS IT.
here is my petty gripe for the moment.

boston legal still isnt getting much better.

you know. i waited, and waited. and waited. then waited some more for them to produce new episodes for my periodic laughter exercise. a few mild chuckles. thats it. the story isnt that good right now. all that it has going for it is heather locklear's guesting eye candy appeal. infact... they cut monica potter out entirely. they dumped lake bell last year, and i know rhona [super freaking hot] mitra is also gone in a few short episodes. so im upset. the new characters they replaced them with are lame. now candice bergen has become a main character, which i dislike. and they are doing little with alan shore. except making him a serious medium for social complaint. they could have done all this on the Practice, and i would have loved it. but this show is was funny, and dramatically edgy. now im dramatically cranky about what its become.

Monday, October 03, 2005

alot of times i get into a discussion about politics and movers and shakers. generally, i keep my mouth shut about what a course of action ought to be, and instead, deal in the realm of what is. take iraq. while i probably set the standard of fence post sitting, i never was 100% comitted to the action we see today. i sure as hell wasnt against it. my answer always was, if the evidence leads us there, and the situations are what they truely are; some course of drastic action has to occur. months later, were sitting in the sandbox we bought. some say with blood, some with trust, all of us say with money. but im not bitter. im not angry. i dont picket. i dont carry signs, or set up rediculous millitant camps for peace. i dont write my congressmen each day begging us to blow a bigger hole in the sand.

but. today i am quite bitter. i am very upset in the president's choice in a supreme court justice. miers is not the choice to have made. im not anti woman. im not anti issue of any kind, for the purposes of this, im anti this selection process. was this a case of, pick who sits next to me? you cant convince me, that no stonger candidate exists than a woman who is the president's personal attorney, for one year; to be one of the 9 most important judicial figures in the world. i had hopes for another woman, to be honest. i had some hopes for person of storied, yet staunch decisions based upon judical merit. i hoped for a name that would be seen as a weathered rock, from which we could root the system of justice upon, for the sake of this nation. what we got was a pebble, magnified by a drop of rain.

there is no telling what this person thinks, what this person feels. but we can tell that loyalty is a strong component of her character. to me, however unpopular i might be, find loyalty to any person to be a disaster when appointing them to the highest court of the land. even if shed turn out to be my exact ideologe, i loathe this choice. this is wrong. purely wrong. id much rather see Hillary Clinton produced as a choice of nomination before the senate. i stomached john roberts. but this is not how this is all supposed to work. with hundreds of qualified members of the court already sitting; with thousands of intelliglble scholars and jurists to pick from, like a field of wheat before him. he reaches for the chaff on his sleeve.

whats wrong about this, is whats wrong about welfare, its whats wrong about "diversity", its whats wrong about the war on terror.... its never about solving the problem. its not about putting forward the best, most logical solution for success. its about gratifying the easy choice. its about dodging a difficult question. with welfare we set up an entire socio-economic contingent of people to fail, we throw them money. we give them. we give. no one earns. - with diversity its about holding out a watering can over the desert. its a way to show you a flower and say the sands are fertile, while everything around you rots and decays. its about deciding to put a black man ahead of 3 white men, 2 asians, and a jew, based on the free points earned from the color of his skin, because we didnt meet a quota any other way. - when we fight terrorists, were invading and nation building. were banishing governments that have power to fight, and were alienating the people that are charmed and lead to back terror as a way to make us flee. we bomb the houses of the holy, to supp on the praise of what we did. we created a system of poor people that hate us more than ever. .... ..... .....

in every sense, we failed to put forward the effort to make hard work pay off. we havent instituted wpa projects to skill new labor, we havent funded education and future initiatives to make the young black man a success on his own, and we havent killed any more terrorists than weve created. we havent picked a supreme court justice to proud of. we havent selected from the finest minds of jurisprudence, we havent looked into the ranks of the qualified standing ready. we havent rewarded the faith of the legal system actors with this nomination. we took an easy road once again. we didnt look to find the best lawyer, the most prudent judge, the most pontific decisionist, nor the most reliable thinker. we grabbed who was handy, and its a disgrace.
whats it like having a job?

*smacks head*

its really going to be hard when i do get hired. ive not had to stand around, doing nothing for months. i havent had to sit and look busy for hours in weeks. and i cant remember the last time i had to have a discreet disagreement with an employee. all those valuable workplace skills have atrophied.