I'm On It

There is a phenomenon that is unique to humans. I’m sure it has a scientific name or behavioral pigeonhole. I don’t know the official name but I know we see it every day… in the news, in each other. People hate to give things up. The longer an idea or tradition has been entrenched, the more people will grasp at it and claw at you to stop you from trying to change it. Such as it is with the nature of power, social position, or guns. The longer a politician, has been in their job, the harder they will fight to keep it. Often going far beyond their original charge to do so. People will fight to keep “The War on Christmas” from overtaking them, even though all of the trappings of Christmas with the exception of the manger scene are Pagan and Christmas itself was ILLEGAL in the US up until about 150 years ago. Too much Popery, not enough real Bible. So, yeah… Christmas with the founding fathers? Didn’t happen. So too, is our fascination with guns. It goes back to the image of the

Editor's note - this isn't true - not a word of it. It's just made up to annoy you. Take it as you will. As I was shopping today, I overheard a conversation between two people with whom I shared my table in the Food Court. These two gentlemen agreed with each other whole-heartedly. "A sales clerk had the nerve, the audacity to wish me "Happy Holidays." It's "Merry Christmas" you snot rag! My ancestors didn't come to this country, fight in it's wars, pay its taxes and help to build this great melting pot, only to have some mixed-race teenager, (I thought she was black at first, but I don't know... a lot of cream in that coffee, if you know what I mean), denigrate the Lord's birthday with that secular crap. We have to keep the Christ in Christmas. It's none of your business that I won't be working in a soup kitchen, or helping out at a children's hospital or tending to the poor, or any of that tree-hugging nonse

Rage. Rage against the dying of the light. It's arguable that Dylan Thomas was talking about death at long last in this poem. But, rage has moved in the modern era from the end result of provocation to the first response. This is bad for us. When one is quick to argue, quick to jump to conclusions or quick to blame, that rage snuffs out joy like two wet fingers on a candle's flame. That rage, that small, petty, I'm-better-than-you rage fills us, blocking out even the possibility for warmth or reconciliation. We must wait to "cool down" before we can even consider such a thing. It is not only our impending mortality that conjures up Fear's ugly little brother. In fact, it would seem that things with much less gravity can ignite the flame of wrath as it bubbles just beneath our surfaces. An extra few seconds- seconds!- waiting in traffic, the failure of another human in living up to our expectations or any opportunity where one of us "gets" to

If you want to sell a house, even if it’s your own house, you have to “stage” it. Any real estate agent will tell you that there are so many things you need to do to your house to make it “sellable”. You have to get all of the stuff off the kitchen counters so that the room looks bigger. It’s like the people buying the house don’t realize the massive amount of space you waste by having a fucking toaster. Oh my God! We could have had another child! But, sadly, we just didn’t have the room, what with all the space the fucking toaster takes up! You have to take the pictures down so the potential buyer can imagine the room with their pictures. They can imagine their own pictures on the wall, but they can’t if your pictures are there. It’s too much! “We can imagine a bunch of rectangles on this wall, but… oh crap. There are already rectangles there! We’re screwed! I can’t see anything now. “ Real estate agents come in and tell you to paint this, and fix that and move this, and you think, “G

It has been a stressful month. Between the people supporting the idea of “Ardor’s Bridge” and the stress of watching our contribution numbers creep too slowly toward our goal, I feel torn. I’m relieved to at least know the outcome. I’m sorry that I couldn’t drive this project home. Here is the letter that I sent out on my social media and email channels today: ~ The “Ardor’s Bridge” campaign is over. We didn’t hit our target goal. No one that pledged a contribution to our kickstarter campaign will be charged. The campaign is done. We didn’t make it. We tried to develop an idea and raise funds to see it through. We raised about 20%. To the 18 people that did contribute, and those who wanted to do so but couldn’t for a variety of reasons, I want to say “Thank You”. Thank you for taking the time to read what this project was about. Thanks for reaching into your own pocket in a time when we all feel the economic pinch. And, thanks for believing that every kid deserves to be part of the dia

With only a few days to go, I have to admit, I’m getting worried. For the past three weeks, I’ve been trying to raise money for a project. I’ve raised about 10% so far, and that’s not without a bit of spamming and shaming my friends and family. I live in a reasonably stable section of the planet. The amount I’m trying to raise shouldn’t be too big a deal. I have two meetings coming up where I’m hoping to convince some people of the importance of my ideas, but, one never knows how those things will turn out. Perhaps a little background is in order. A few months ago, the local school district where I live hosted a meeting outlining the latest ruling from the state. It was actually bigger than that. A law had been passed, outlining the steps schools had to take to ensure that bullying, discrimination and general assholery would no longer be tolerated among the students. No more shoving the geek in a locker, no more marginalizing the fat kid. The real thrust of it, though, was tolerance. K

About a hundred years ago, the first all black Boy Scout troop was implemented in New Jersey. While the subsequent decades saw integration in the Scouts in the Northern states, it was almost 50 years before an integrated troop could be found in the Deep South. Racism was a tough nut to crack. Many scout events or jamborees would be broken up, sometimes violently, by the Ku Klux Klan if they so much as sympathized with the idea of black scouts. Black Americans of the day were seen as morally inferior, with many people looking to the Bible to support the righteousness of that position. That was how it was. That was common thinking of the times. At the time, many could not even conceive of a day when it would be wrong to treat a segment of our society in such a way. Fast forward to today, and that time has come. It would be unthinkable for the Boy Scouts to treat a black scout or troop leader in such a way. Speaking purely hypothetically, if the Boy Scouts of America were to go back to th

TV shows always had a Dad when I was growing up, and he wasn't the bumbling knucklehead that he is on today's TV. When I was a kid, TV Dads were the rock of reason that stepped aside gracefully when their children gushed about movie stars or sports heroes. They were the final word on logic, grace under fire, and knowing the difference between right from wrong. Shows like Father Knows Best, Make Room for Daddy, and even I Love Lucy, (all of which I saw in reruns... I'm not that old that I would have seen them in their first runs), all portrayed the husband and father as the one member of the family to be convinced, consulted and satisfied. TV has always been about advertising and selling products, but somewhere along the way, Madison Avenue saw the writing on the wall. They realized that while the concept of Dad's approval of every household purchase was waning, Mom was still in the trenches, slugging it out at the grocery store, the department store and dealing w

I have kept my promise to myself. I promised myself that I would not get involved in the misinformation and juvenile politics of this school budget season. No attacking or defending of people or policies. No opinions offered unless asked. For some, I wish they had asked, for I could have helped guide them to a better path, but they didn’t, and so, I didn’t. Now that the dust has cleared, the real issue was one brought up during the budget season, but tabled in view of the politics at hand. That issue was the evolving state of education itself. Two years ago, I submitted an idea to a Scholastic contest, for changing the way kids are taught. Flip the Model was the idea, where a given lesson was learned at home via video, and the resulting homework was done in class, providing more comprehensive attention from a child’s teacher. I alerted the local school administration to this idea. It didn’t win the contest. It got no traction at the district level. This year, upon attending a se

In 2010, I posted a set of rules to fix our beloved U.S.A.. I have updated and amended some of them. Think before you reply, please. All thoughtful comments will be appreciated. Knee-jerk reactionism will cause a bat-winged demon to fly into your dreams and devour your soul. K? Rule #1 Teaching Why instead of How We are educating our kids in the worst way. We allow our children to be taught as if they are all developmentally the same. And, we allow them to be taught that the very worst thing they could ever be is wrong. In any given lesson scenario, 20% of the kids in the class get it immediately. 20 % won’t get it without extended additional help. The remaining 60% get it by varying degrees. So why is it still permissible to teach them all in the same way? (Note: I have nothing other than my own observations to corroborate these numbers) Sure, there are cognitive and developmental milestones that the state education system has identified as reasonable for a child to reach b

Never in our history has it been more important to look forward. Children that started school this year will graduate from high school in 2025. While no one can accurately predict all of the changes that will take place between then and now, there seems to be a trend that one can easily extrapolate from a growing problem to a full-blown crises of culture. We need a fundamental shift in thinking about how we teach our children. For many politicians, educators and pundits embroiled in the education debate, the whole of the issue begins and ends with testing. School districts want to lower costs? Cut teacher salaries. But how do we define where and upon whom those cuts are levied? We are told that standardized tests will evaluate a teacher's abilities to instill the curriculum into the students' heads. So, the logic goes, failing test scores mean failing teachers. Cut them. Simple, right? Not even close. Any teacher will tell you that educating a child is to "teaching

Now that the election season is beginning, (as if it ever really ends), you'll hear more and more about "money in politics", who's got the biggest donors and how endorsements of candidates transfers into big money donations pouring in. But why does it matter? Who cares how much money a candidate can raise? Why should that translate into that candidate being able to buy his way into the presidency? Sure, they have to pay staff members, managers and rent on campaign headquarters in battleground states. They have to pay for plane tickets and hotels so that they can stay in those states while they campaign, and that all takes money. But, the bulk of their finances, the lion's share of their donations pool goes to... TV ads. Why are TV ads so important? Because Americans are so influenced by television that they will forget who a candidate actually is, and replace them in their minds with the guy the TV says he is. If we didn't allow the ads or the shil