O|I Twitter for Summer 2018

I see now that politics in 2018 has descended to another previous-unplumbed depth: denial of service in restaurants to members of the administration. Please don't get me wrong: I find myself against nearly everything this administration does. America will be better off the moment Donald Trump is no longer president, and every day he serves in that role makes greater the damage that will have to be accounted for when this sorry episode in our nation's history is over. 

But I don't like the idea of refusing service to an individual based on their employment in a given official's administration. I don't think it's very effective . . . one doesn't get into a p****ing contest with a skunk . . . but philosophically it just seems so un-American. 

Had I been at that restaurant, I wish I would've had the presence of mind to offer great service, then write the following letter to said public official, and publicize it via social media: 

Dear __________: Thank you for your patronage at our restaurant. I hope you found your meal and service to be exceptional. We also thank you for the generosity you showed in tipping your server $______. We have chosen to donate that gratuity, as well as the proceeds from the night you dined with us to ___________________, an agency that is providing aid to families who have found themselves separated as a result of the administration's policies. Those policies concern us greatly, and we hope you, your colleagues, and your leaders can arrive at practices that are more humane and more effective responses to the plight of refugees seeking a home in this great country. 

A friend and I exchanged a few texts over this restaurant kerfuffle, and we disagreed as to whether or not this was the time to leave social media, lest we see the nation's debate descend even further into point-scoring and jersey-waving. He thought it was just getting good. I thought it was time to leave. 

In previous summers I've maintained a news blackout for a week to get back to normal. I won't do that this summer. The pressing issues in the news are too pressing to ignore. But Twitter? That I might just need to turn off for the summer. And maybe I can avoid starting the day with news, but instead with a good book, and turn to the op-eds after I've had a chance to see other good ways to start a day. 

The Current Administration

Simply put , the actions of this White House are . . .

unkind

unChristian

unAmerican

Period.

Rejection

News item: Colleges are rejecting kids in record numbers!

I dread the week-and-a-half pocket of time in which my students get their "Dear John" letters. I work with a lot of neat individuals. Intelligent. Talented. Humorous. They're not perfect, but I know I'm fortunate to work with kids the caliber that I see in my school.

And nearly all of them will get rejected by at least one college.

Perhaps the most perverse of perverse incentives: It's in the selective colleges' interests to get many student to apply. Then, they accept the number they were going to accept anyway, which means the percent of applicants to whom they say "yes" falls and they become even more "selective." Gheesh.

One student who I hold in high regard told me of how she had been a victim of "yield protection." Revolting. These are children, not bonds.

I've often counseled my students to not let this system turn them into a number, which is what the college admissions process does. I guess that number isn't necessarily the kids' GPA (modified, weighted, or not), class rank, or SAT score. It's the number they become when they become one of the 90-some percent who get told no.

Surely the madness will be done in 2024 when it's Sam's turn to go through this process, right?

Right?

One Month On

In the midst of what was, for me at least, a bewilderingly busy winter the Eagles won a championship. Still somewhat hard to believe. Sherry took a photo of me just seconds after time expired. In it I'm standing still, with my right arm folded underneath my left, with my left hand scratching my chin. It's not a pose of jubilation, but of calm disbelief.

There are other pictures from the party we attended that night. The look of joy is pretty obvious on them.

For those of you reading this who don't live in the Philadelphia area, it might be hard to convey the feeling Eagles fans felt upon winning that Super Bowl. The best I can convey the feeling, though, is to suggest that you consider the film Rocky, a Philadelphia story if ever there was one. What me and my fellow fans experienced was akin to watching Rocky for, I don't know, the 30th time.



But this time, Rocky wins.

The particular scene from that film I can't shake comes in round 14, when Rocky is knocked down, rises, goads Apollo to resume the fight, and Apollo just looks to the canvas in disgust.

Thoughout this year, I kept remarking to my friends that this Eagles team won games that Eagles teams don't normally win. It was a season characterized by wins that didn't follow to this team's historical form. It was a season that reminded me of the joys of being a fan. It was a season that reminded me of the thrill in watching inspired leadership and unlikely heroes rising to the occasion.

There will not be another sports victory that I watch that will be as stunning as that one.

Humility

When I first came into teaching, my district had a staff developer named Jackie who preached humility to us as educators. Teachers, she said, cannot guarantee results. Our job is about making outcomes more likely.

(and that's true of other professions too)

Any discussion of school safety leads to promises individuals can't keep. Teaching isn't an exact science, nor is school safety. The grownups at schools follow a bewildering number of protocols to ensure the safety of students, and those grownups get it right more than 99% of the time.

The Columbine tragedy took place near the end of my first year of teaching. Every year of my career has been marked by effots to make schools safer. We have turned them into virtual fortresses.

And, still, tragedy occurs.

So now the gun-rights zealots, in an attempt to impose their own Sharia law of gun-toting citizenship, want teachers to be armed. It's such a senseless, insenstive, and deadly idea, I don't know how to respond to it thoughtfully. I'll simply point out that it won't guarantee that there will never be another school shooting, it won't guarantee another death due to firearms in the schoolhouse.

The Columbine tragedy occurred 19 years ago this spring. Schools have changed many protocols. A whole generation of students have moved through the K-12 pipeline learning how to perform a variety of drills. But the broader community has lacked the will to do anything that will make it less likely there are victims of gun violence at schools.

Like pass a law . . . one law . . . to make it harder for a bad guy to get a gun.

Fatigue

She's* right, we are clustering around the president and the chaos he sews like pee-wee soccer players. I've had enough of him.

I guess I'm tired of all the winning.

*Ruth Marcus, Washington Post columnist whose weekly essay I've come to look forward to every Saturday.

They don't always tell you when it's time

Ernie tries to get comfortable in the one area of the house he could never get permission to use: atop Caroline's bed. 

It's been said that pets tell you when it's time for them to die. I don't know if that was true of Ernie's passing. We decided to euthanize him yesterday. His heart and lungs were giving out, though that wasn't obvious to us. Something didn't seem right, though, and that sense prompted a visit to the vet that brought far sadder news than we were expecting.

Up until his final day with us he still sought affection from us. Rather than hiding he would look for chance after chance to get some petting from us. In hindsight, I think the affection from us was his ony way to escape the discomfort he was experiencing with every breath. He didn't seem to be able to sleep well or even for very long. His appetite was starting to abate. There was obviousness weakness in his steps. So he sought us out for comfort.

Affectionate. That's the quality he had his whole life. We adopted him in large part because of the warm purr he gave when Sherry first petted him through the cage. Ironically, it took a half a year or so for him to warm up to us once we got him home. But he grew out of the skittishness to become the most affectionate pet I've known. It's funny to think that he was described as somewhat feral when we adopted him in 2002. Looking back, it would seem he was just really scared. I'm glad he came to no longer fear us.

It took more courage to be merciful to him than I expected, and I appreciate what Sherry did this last week in caring for him and arranging for his peaceful death.

Sam has dealt with his death better than I expected, and for that I'm very grateful. He shared with me, though, that he, too, dreaded waking up this morning, the first morning in a decade we wouldn't hear Ernie calling for us or see him awaiting our arrival to the day. His death hit Sherry and I with greater force than I expected. And there's an emptiness to the house today that aches.

When one welcomes a pet into a household, one knows that a day like yesterday will come. We'll welcome another one, I'm sure. I'm conscious, though, that the pet that died yesterday might be the pet I'll always remember as the one I loved the most, and who loved us the most.

He didn't really like being picked up. But in the last year or so, he didn't fight it too much. 

On his birthday, 2017.