Field Trips

Campaigning

2008-10-29T17:24:00.001-05:00

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Sea Fever

2008-05-17T18:39:00.009-05:00

I must go down to the seas again,
   to the lonely sea and the sky,
And all I ask is a tall ship
   and a star to steer her by,
And the wheel's kick and the wind's song
   and the white sail's shaking,
And a grey mist on the sea's face
   and a grey dawn breaking.

I must go down to the seas again,
   for the call of the running tide
Is a wild call and a clear call
   that may not be denied;
And all I ask is a windy day
   with the white clouds flying,
And the flung spray and the blown spume,
   and the sea-gulls crying.

I must go down to the seas again
   to the vagrant gypsy life,
To the gull's way and the whale's way
   where the wind's like a whetted knife;
And all I ask is a merry yarn
   from a laughing fellow rover,
And quiet sleep and a sweet dream
   when the long trick's over.

  -- John Masefield

Pinafore: Sailing 2006

2007-12-25T14:59:00.007-06:00

Sound on: Music is opening chorus of 'HMS Pinafore' by Gilbert and Sullivan.

Emergency Services a Foundation of Hope

2007-07-11T14:50:00.004-05:00

Hope is our fuel to a future. It grants our soul the opportunity to find joy in anticipation. It is an essential ingredient in adapting to life's unexpected course changes.

Within most small communities there are a few common established institutions including churches, a school, a library, a post office, fire, EMS, PD, a business presence and some sort of repository for local government.

But to truly be a community, residents must serve or participate in these institutions. It is a requirement for membership. Each institution carries out a series of tasks or activities, but bring to the community a greater or larger quality.

The school seeds fertile minds through daily learning pursuits, but for the community the schools maintain a foundation and value in knowledge. The police provide security, but also a larger community influence of peace. Libraries are pharmacies for the mind that prescribe the right information for those who yearn to expand insight but also instill wisdom to benefit the community. And the churches provide understanding, meaning and in a larger sense principle.

Most of these organizations provide opportunities to make a locale more than just a gathering of dwellings and businesses -- the purpose provided in serving define a community.

Over the past two years I've had the privilege of working with the local volunteer EMS and then the Fire and EMS combined. My contribution is limited as Information Officer, but much like the majority of my work-life it allows me to continue being an observer.

Volunteer Fire and EMS departments are unique to the institutions of small communities. They are people from a full spectrum of ages, backgrounds, careers and experience. They require a dedication that is unique. Before even starting to serve, EMTs and firefighter need well over 100 hours of training for both disciplines. And training is ongoing to stay current. In addition to the formal training, the true tests happen with real situations in the field.

Emergency services require a volunteer frame of mind outside of the typical. Unlike most other organizations, the schedule is determined by the needs of others or the situation.

It is a commitment to community where members are willing to say "we're here to help at any time - just call us." People leave their jobs, their homes and family, their projects, their beds in the middle of the night and go to help...some person - another community member or a complete stranger who is sick, injured or in danger.

The idea of being a participating community member more than simply living in a local dwelling, paying taxes, keeping your lawn mowed.

Fire and EMS people demonstrate this commitment tangibly many, many times a year.

And what do they do? In an organized manner they rapidly assemble and answer calls. Often they go to motor vehicle accidents which require delicately separating crumpled humans from crumpled metal, providing immediate medical expertise on the move to a destination of recovery. They rescue people from the depths of waterways and the heights of silos and grain bins.

At a fire scene the safety and wellbeing of others is primary, then continue to save property and possessions, often at potential personal risk of peril. Everyone knows their part, played out like a tight jazz group that improvises as they need to, yet everyone knows where the song is going. The goal is the same - to save people and then protect property.

So they do all that. They do rescue cats in trees, walk into infernos, bring back the injured or ill from the brink of a permanent farewell, mend wounds, take programs to the schools, support community causes. They head out in blizzards and ice storms to accidents when no one should have been on the road in the first place. They spend 10 hours fighting and finishing a barn fire on a day of 90+ degree heat and equal humidity. They face hazardous materials that could make your skin fall off, and attend to injury accidents that would make your skin crawl.

What is the larger element this institution brings to the foundation of a community? They deliver Hope.

There are few sounds more deafening than the silence immediately after a vehicle collision. It is the sound of despair. But then the silence is broken by the sound of sirens from an approaching EMS rig and fire engine - it is the music of hope.

Anguish during an out of control kitchen fire is interrupted by renewed hope that it won't cost the whole house when firefighters confidently step in and quell the blaze.

Helplessness, felt by new parents when their newborn, who had been running a fever, started convulsing, is stilled by hope when experienced EMTs arrive with assurances that they've seen it before, then help the child's condition to improve even before reaching the emergency room.

Hope is the first element in returning order from chaos. Hope is the tangible assurance that a community will maintain a past, feel safe in the present and be confident in a future. As long as people are willing to make this commitment to neighbors and their community...there is hope.

Best to all,

Lloyd

Johnson Creek Fire & EMS Recruiting Vid

2007-07-11T14:37:00.003-05:00

Sarah Olson, The Pentagon, and the First Amendment

2007-02-08T20:05:00.002-06:00

Sarah Olson, The Pentagon, and the First Amendment

(an excerpt by…)

Doug Ireland <http://direland.typepad.com/direland/2007/01/sarah_olson_the.html>

January 30, 2007

Last month, military prosecutors subpoenaed Sarah Olson, a 31-year-old writer and radio journalist, asking her to appear at the court-martial of Lt. Ehren Watada <http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Ehren_Watada> , the first commissioned officer to refuse deployment to Iraq. Lt. Watada said that he could not participate in the Iraq War because it was "manifestly illegal" and that his participation would make him a party to war crimes. He had spoken candidly to Olson, who had written about the case, and prosecutors have tried to conscript her into their effort to convict Lt. Watada, whose trial begins February 5. (snip)

Fieldtrips replies...

While this is indeed 'egregious' and I haven't read all the references, I'm not sure what the military is doing to try to force her to testify for the prosecution. It's simply something that the military can't do with or to a civilian.

And there are few positions safer than being a journalist with contacts in situations like this. It is not as though she is trying to keep secret a source - something that journalists can indeed be incarcerated for, but only in civilian court.

But what I don't understand is that the pleas are requested to send to the Pentagon. Screw the Pentagon. They should be flooding congress with this. There are few things Pentagon Generals fear more than congressional inquiries. And even though they aren't the Commander-in-Chief more than once I've seen or heard a member of congress say "Fix it!" and they did. So it seems like journalists and even some intelligent people ;-) are to the point where they think the military can have control over civilians.

But the big picture issue that most people do not understand and often say "Why doesn't she just testify and save the hassle?" is a matter of precedent that is very dangerous. If journalists are seen as agents of the government then there is no longer a situation that makes it impossible to have independent verifiable information. You simply can't mess with the press. And I mean the press, because broadcast news, especially FOX, is already an agent of the government or on the leash of the corporations that own them. Oh, alright I know Olson is in broadcast media.

So many times journalists have been allowed to go into hostage situations to gather information for news. The police surely were as privy to the information reporters gathered as their readers would be, but they didn't work for the police and gave them no more info than would be provided the public. In a couple of instances police impersonated journalists in hostages situations. Subsequently the officers were dismissed and in the suits that ensued the judges wisely treated them much as the law would treat someone impersonating an officer. Who could trust the press if this was accepted practice. Suddenly everyone would wonder if a journalist was an agent of the government.

In my newspapering days I was constantly told things off the record as background info for subsequent coverage. If people weren't' assured of an independent press there never would have been a Deep Throat that made public wording of the Nixon White House. We never would have heard about the massive price fixing by Cargill, and there never would have been any reporting on the effects of pollution, nor the recent backward steps to the environment. Hey people. Freedom of the press in not a right of journalists - it is your right.

In the 1920s and 30s as gangsters were getting regular headlines due to illicit or nefarious practices, the press had an 'all access' pass. The gangsters pretty much endorsed and didn't mess with the journalists. There is only one that I know of in the Chicago area who was killed due to a gangster relationship. http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GSln=Lingle&GScid=107016&GRid=2740& And I believe that was because of actions outside the realm of journalism.

So what we ultimately have in this case is a military that has sensibilities that are below those of gangsters.
# # #

Creek EMS and FD

2007-01-08T21:44:00.001-06:00

Terminate Workplace Bullies

2006-12-20T21:14:00.003-06:00

This behavior must stop.

The issue
needs to be addressed for a variety of reasons. It is something that
truly impacts the bottom line in business, with studies suggesting the
cost to business nationally ranges from $10 billion to more than $100
billion annually .

And of course it can simply destroy
individuals in the workplace. (Here is an interesting report from
Pepperdine University - "Are workplace bullies sabotaging your ability
to compete?" http://gbr.pepperdine.edu/014/print_bullies.htm .) In it
the authors write:
Because
bullies are cowards and are driven by deep-seated insecurities and
fears of inadequacy, they intentionally wage a covert war against an
organization's best employees - those who are highly-skilled,
intelligent, creative, ethical, able to work well with others, and
independent (who refuse to be subservient or controlled by others).
Bullies can act alone or in groups. Bullying behavior can exist at any
level of an organization. Bullies can be superiors, subordinates,
co-workers and colleagues.You are not protected
There
is a false sense of security in the US as most people don't realize
that EEO regulations (related to gender, disability, religion, etc) are
very narrowly defined. They will only protect one from harassment or
discrimination if one fits into those categories with specific related
infractions. So in a situation where a manager or coworker might
dislike people with brown eyes, the manager or co-worker could make a
brown eyed person's life miserable at work with complete impunity.
There are no hostile workplace laws.

Workplace bullying defined
The
Workplace Bully and Trauma Institute defines workplace bullying as:
"...repeated, health-harming mistreatment of one or more persons (the
targets) by one or more perpetrators that takes one or more of the
following forms:
- verbal abuse
- offensive conduct/behaviors (including nonverbal) which are threatening, humiliating or intimidating
- work interference -- sabotage -- which prevents work from getting done."

And
it continues: "Workplace Bullying: (a) is driven by perpetrators' need
to control the targeted individual's) , (b) is initiated by bullies who
choose targets, timing, place and methods, (c) escalates to involve
others who side with the bully, either voluntarily through coercion,
and it (d) undermines legitimate business interests when bullies'
personal agendas take precedence over work itself."

The keys are
'repeated' and 'health-harming' actions against a single target. This
does not mean a simple bad boss who makes everyone's life miserable,
nor a couple individual bad interactions. Herein is the key to a
quantifiable definition or complaint. One or several different kinds of
unpleasant experiences based on perception of tone of voice or choice
of words does not a workplace bully make.

A snake by any other name
It
is presumed that a bully has to be a loud tyrant out in the open. In
fact there are as many who work to remain undetected just as a school
age bully wishes to go undetected. Several reports show workplace
bullies are so covert that it simply adds to the stressful turmoil
where even the target is unaware of or disoriented by what is happening
- equally unaware of the source. ("The Bully at WorK" Gary and Ruth
Namie, PhDx2 - Sourcebooks, Inc. )

As examples:
- if a boss
or co-worker repeatedly pulls someone from a distribution list or
misinforms a target of meeting dates so they don't make meetings to
make them look incompetent
-if the target provides top performance
and is repeatedly passed over for recognition to the point where
co-workers notice and question it,
-if the individual is moved to a work area to separate the person from colleagues,
-if
the bully regularly plagiarizes materials created by the target taking
credit for the good work yet blaming the target publicly as his or hers
if the work is questioned
-if the bully publicly rebukes the target
for efforts inaccurate due to purposed misinformation provided by or at
the direction of the bully
-if the target is blamed for unfinished work actually assigned to others on a regular basis.
- and myriad of other potential insidious behaviors…

...it falls into the realm of behavior and treatment that can be documented and measured.

There
are also findings that many of these bullies fit the profile of or are
indeed psychopaths (per the book: "Snakes in Suits: When Psychopaths go
to Work" - Babiak and Hare - Harper)

US behind the curve
Bullying
is legal in the US workplace, yet most of the other western
industrialized countries around the world have some form of legal
recourse for what has been termed 'status-blind'
harassment/discrimination. Currently there are 13 states at various
stages in the process of writing, deliberating or enacting
anti-workplace bullying legislation. There is speculation on how new
laws would be manifest and it is only speculation. Many are saying that
there would be a deluge of frivolous lawsuits - of course that can't be
determined until a law is in place. It seems that a law wouldn't be
required if organizations wrote and adhered to solid policies against
this behavior.

Another false safety net
Often
the first response or advice for the individual is to approach a
business' HR department. Unfortunately, one study found that in more
than 50 percent of workplace bullying cases HR did nothing on the bully
target's behalf, and in more than 30 percent of the cases HR helped or
supported the bully. Consequently the majority of workplace bully
targets are pushed out of their position (per
http://bullyinginstitute.org/research/research.html ) Similar studies
indicate that those pushed out tend to be the top performers.

A 2007 Zogby study illustrates the loss to employers: "Because
40% of bullied respondents left their jobs, it is estimated that the
skills of 21+ million workers are lost to employers due to bullying."

Health-harming
Dr. Noreen Tehrani, a researcher dealing with soldiers returning from combat as well as victims of workplace bullying said:
The
symptoms displayed by people who have been in (military) conflict
situations and workplaces where bullying happens are strikingly
similar. Both groups suffer nightmares, are jumpy and seem fueled by
too much adrenaline.Tehrani
explained that the three primary signs of PTSD are hyper-arousal, a
feeling of constant anxiety and over-vigilance; avoidance of anything
to do with the traumatizing event(s); and re-experiencing, in which
subjects suffer flashbacks or obsessive thoughts concerning the trauma.
She added that this can be the result of exposure to both environments
of conflict and those where workplace bullies are allowed exist and
operate.

An additional article referred to early research on 'mobbing,' a term then used and still interchanged with 'bullying:'
Dr.
Heinz Leymann, German industrial psychologist, is credited for
identifying the syndrome in Europe, Japan and Australia where he
studied it for nearly 20 years. He lived in Sweden and estimated that
15% of the suicides in Sweden were the result of mobbing in the
workplace. It is cruelty in the extreme, a group bullying process that
can go or weeks, months, even years, until the job is done...
Current
studies indicate that work-related suicides now may be an even larger
percentage of the totals established in Leymann's original inquiries.

In
a case very close to home a person was severely bullied out of a
position after more 24 years of success working over the years from an
entry level position up to a management position in a Fortune top 10
corporation.

Often the advice given is to simply leave and seek
a position elsewhere. But if it is a person with one or two decades of
success contributing to a business' success (or any period of time) it
is wrong and against all principle. Secondly, it is easy to say one
should quit IF one doesn't have children in college, IF one has no
house payment along with the other day-to-day/month-to-month expenses.
IF one can afford to lose accumulated benefits including retirement
contributions and others that would require someone to start over. And
one could do it IF there really weren't age discrimination or IF one
really had the resources to pursue complaints. And that is also IF one
hasn't been injured by the bullying so severely that they are barely
able to contribute without some accommodation.

Bullying is
behavior that should not be tolerated and - barring a faster easier
solution in the form of a solid commitment by employers framing
policies which will be monitored, reviewed and enforced - the
government must step in and fulfill one of its functions, protecting
the citizenry.

Bullies should no more be allowed in the
workplace than an known active rapist, someone who assaults others,
someone who threatens others with weapons or otherwise has tendencies
to terrorize individuals.

Best to all,

Lloyd

Pinafore: Sailing 2006

2006-12-19T21:43:00.001-06:00

Fear has no place in this country's make-up

2006-09-12T20:44:00.000-05:00

Fear has no place in this country’s make-up.

Courage is a part of our DNA. Recent attempted terrorist acts and follow-up statements by our nation’s leaders reinforce fear as the motive for how we live our lives, travel or make political decisions. This reaction is completely outside of our collective character.

Fearless visionaries who had everything to lose maintained a principled bravery in order to bring this nation into the world.

Looking in the rear view mirror of history, we have grown as a people who wouldn’t acknowledge trepidation. It wasn’t fear that settled the early American west. It wasn’t fear that gave lift to the first flight at Kitty Hawk. Fear did not deter those who marched for civil rights. And all trepidation was set aside as we first set foot on the moon.

We have now allowed those at the helm of this vessel of freedom to set a course based on apprehension and anxiety. Yet they have demonstrated no good examples in their own, avoiding commitments to their oaths of office; the oaths in which they swear to “…preserve, protect and defend the Constitution…” But the creation of a sense of alarm has caused or allowed the ink on that document to fade. The erosion of rights must not be the collateral casualty that creates a potential for the greatest damage to a nation proud of freedom.

Their color code provides no information on the cause of a change in hue, nor does it instruct citizens how to prepare or react. It only serves cryptically to tell all what level of fear they should rise or to what depth of cowering they should sink. It also becomes a report card on the success of those intent on instilling panic and alarm.

Those responsible for acts of terrorism are indeed despicable thugs and criminals who, after facing a court, should be brought to justice under law and face severe consequences. However, those who take advantage of terrorist acts for political gain are just as despicable.

No one should be seated in an elected office by votes garnered from a campaign of fright.

Instead our leaders should infuse confident courage as an example and return us to the posture of dignity, reminding us all that no one in this ‘home of the brave’ can impose the emotion of fear without our consent.

Let our patriotism be reflected in the creation of
confidence in one another, rather than in crusades of
suspicion. - JFK

Courage is the price that Life exacts for granting peace.
- Amelia Earhart

# # #

All the best,
Lloyd

Echoes of Vietnam lessons silenced

2005-06-27T21:30:00.000-05:00

"I love the smell of Napalm in the morning." A line from the movie Apocalypse Now. The character, Col. Kilgore, was based on real-life army Col. David Hackworth - among the most decorated US soldiers ever and possibly the most decorated of the Vietnam war.

Here's a list -

Individual Decorations & Service Medals:

Distinguished Service Cross (with one Oak Leaf Cluster)
Silver Star (with nine Oak Leaf Clusters)
Legion of Merit (with three Oak Leaf Clusters)
Distinguished Flying Cross
Bronze Star Medal (with "V" Device & seven Oak Leaf Clusters)(Seven of the awards for heroism)
Purple Heart (with seven Oak Leaf Clusters) - that's eight Purple Hearts
Air Medal (with "V" Device & Numeral 34)(One for heroism and 33 for aerial achievement)
Army Commendation Medal (w/ "V" Device & 3 Oak Leaf Clusters)
Good Conduct Medal
World War II Victory Medal
Army of Occupation Medal (with Germany and Japan Clasps)
National Defense Service Medal (with one Bronze Service Star)
Korean Service Medal (with Service Stars for eight campaigns)
Armed Forces Expeditionary Medal
Vietnam Service Medal (2 Silver Service Stars = 10 campaigns)
Armed Forces Reserve Medal
Unit Awards:

Presidential Unit Citation
Valorous Unit Award (with one Oak Leaf Cluster)
Meritorious Unit Commendation
Badges & Tabs:

Combat Infantryman Badge (w/ one Star; representing 2 awards)
Master Parachutist Badge
Army General Staff Identification Badge
Foreign Awards:

United Nations Service Medal (Korea)
Republic of Vietnam Campaign Medal with Device (1960)
Vietnam Cross of Gallantry (with two Gold Stars)
Vietnam Cross of Gallantry (with two Silver Stars)
Vietnam Armed Forces Honor Medal (1st Class)
Vietnam Staff Service Medal (1st Class)
Vietnam Army Distinguished Service Order, 2d Class
Vietnam Parachutist Badge (Master Level)
Republic of Korea Presidential Unit Citation
Republic of Vietnam Presidential Unit Citation
Republic of Vietnam Gallantry Cross Unit Citation (with three Palm oak leaf clusters)
Republic of Vietnam Civil Actions Honor Medal, First Class Unit Citation (with one Palm oak leaf cluster)
World War II Merchant Marine Awards:

Pacific War Zone Bar
Victory Medal

You may not have noticed his obit in the mainstream media. He died of bladder cancer while seeking alternative treatment in Tijuana. (To the end he maintained that the cancer was the result of exposure to dioxins used in Agent Orange, the primary defoliant used in Vietnam.) Hackworth was 74. To the mainstream media it may not have been a big deal, because the announcement for the May 31 funeral in the Washington Post and elsewhere said "...top brass not expected to attend."

Hackworth was characterized as a thorn in the side of the Pentagon, most notably after his 1971 appearance on the Dick Cavett Show when he publicly threw out his military decorations and told the viewing nation the US was losing the war in Vietnam. Yep, threw them out just like John Kerry, only in a significantly more conspicuous venue.

Shortly after he was allowed to resign from the Army under honorable conditions.

Frustrated with the situation and those he called the 'perfumed princes' of the Pentagon and nation's leaders, Hackworth moved to Australia and lived there for 20 years. While there he became one of the leaders of Australia's anti-nuclear movement and in that effort received the UN Medal for International Peace. After the Pentagon agreed to return/replace his medals the retired colonel returned to the US, wrote four books and became a media consultant on military affairs. Via Liberty Post

He remained a thorn in the Pentagon's side until the end, and referred to the occupation of Iraq as "...one of the biggest military snafu's in military history."

Hackworth also made a bit of noise when he publicly pointed out that Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld was signing condolence letters to survivors of US military members killed in the war in Iraq with an automatic pen (used to sign mass mailings). Pressure was put to bear, and Rumsfeld has been signing them by hand since.

He took his job seriously, and while the war in Vietnam created a division at home and in the field, this soldier took no extra credit for the work of the people in his command. At a time when commanders were frequently at as much risk from their own subordinates as the enemy, Hackworth had a solid following.

The retired Army officer was nonpartisan in his dislike for bureaucracy and politics. He criticized the Clinton administration and those Pentagon leaders for reducing defense budgets to bring it to one: ''held together with duct tape, bailing wire and gallons of sweat."

But Hackworth had to be heard, because he put his money where his mouth was. He could talk because he knew war and knew it was something to pursue as a last case situation.

During one battle in Vietnam, Hackworth had his helicopter land directly where the wounded fell. Under fire, the colonel leaped off the copter and ran through a wall of fire multiple times to reach his men, hauling each aboard the helicopter. As the chopper lifted off beyond capacity he stood on the skids, grabbing the copter's body to make it back to base.

Hackworth has been recommended for the nation's highest medal, the Medal of Honor, for his actions during that event, but the Pentagon has delayed it in what they say are administrative snags.

Due to current events he spoke out frequently and questioned authorities about the lack of adequate equipment and armor for soldiers sent to Iraq and Afghanistan. Additionally, he was among the first to relate to the conflict in Iraq as a 'quagmire.'

As recently as February he wrote, ''As with Vietnam, the Iraqi tar pit was oh-so-easy to sink into, but appears to be just as tough to exit." He considered the biggest problem the administration and those in the Pentagon who ''...have never sweated it out on a battlefield."

But the funeral announcement saying 'no top brass are expected to attend' was the final insult, demonstrating the lack of spine in the Pentagon leadership. It is code when it appears in an obit in a government or military town. 'No top brass are expected to attend' can also mean "top brass won't attend if they value their commissions."

It is the purview of the the Vice President to show up for funerals of high profile and highly decorated soldiers who are to be buried at Arlington. He, of course, was a no-show.

The only dignitary of note (not to devalue the presence of the many former colleagues who were retired military officers and former members of Hackworth's command who did attend), was Senator J. Robert Kerry.

None of the full-bird colonels, one, two, three or four star generals at the Pentagon had the fortitude to attend this proven soldiers' soldier's funeral to pay their respects. Just the fear of being seen at a service dedicated to a decorated hero who has questioned and criticized the nation's leaders in managing this military conflict kept these 'perfumed princes' away.

Under the circumstances, Hackworth may have preferred it that way. But when one thinks about it, if those same members of the Pentagon leadership were in fear of retribution here in Washington during an opportunity to do the honorable thing, what does it say about the level of individual or collective backbone used when they send troops to the Middle East?
# # #

Best to all,

Lloyd

Pentagon collecting names of students

2005-06-23T17:39:00.000-05:00

Privacy appears to be dwindling. A few weeks ago congress passed a national ID law on the third attempt, by attaching it to an appropriations bill. It will have all of a person's medical, legal, insurance, library, driving, family history and more. It is a disturbing turn of events, but like many of congress' actions the Real ID system was passed as another unfunded mandate.

But another invasion of privacy comes in the form of a little known provision of the No Child Left Behind act (NCLB)that says that for schools to qualify under federal requirements in that set of unfunded mandates that all schools must provide all student data to the Department of Defense on all high school age children. Other published reports indicate that the Pentagon has been collecting all information on students as young as the age of 12.

This pretty much flies in the face of the US Privacy Act, but hey, who is following rules these days?

The fact is that the Pentagon developed a database of student information and started collecting data in 2003. This came to the fore under the Privacy Act when it hit the Federal Register in May 2005. What becomes even more disturbing is that other agencies will have access to that database including taxing agencies and law enforcement and investigative entities, according to Pentagon officials.

The data collection is not just of high school males, but females as well. And don't forget that the legislation that was in place just prior to the 2004 election, but rescinded by one house of congress, has language to draft both young men and young women if or when the draft is reinstituted and will directly impact young men and women ages 18 through 26...initially.

The DOD recruitment efforts have missed their goals for more than four months and they say that the database will give them an advantage in comparison to other opportunities presented to students when they leave school. Both the reasoning and the motives seems questionable.

Parents can have their child opt out of the system by informing the school district in which they live that they do not want data on their child/children supplied to the DOD.

A few groups have organized to make sure parents are aware of the Pentagon's less than forthright tactics and how their children can opt out including Leave My Child Alone .

There is nothing wrong with opportunities or even obligations to serve one's country in one capacity or another. But those should include alternatives that include the Peace Corps, the Department of the Interior, the University Extension system and others in addition to the military.

It is fair to characterize the DOD approach to this provision as underhanded.

Establishing this database and proceeding with the collection of student information without the knowledge of students or parents was entirely inappropriate and reflects on the motives and the trust we can put in our government leadership. Being less than forthright that there has existed basic data collection efforts already makes one suspect potential alterior motives for establishing the database when Pentagon officials have already said that data is available to other agencies.

If the opportunity arises for entire school districts to opt out of this provision they should. Then the remaining parents and students who indeed want the DOD to have all of their student data and related record should allow those students who wish to be a part of DOD database to opt in or give the records directly to the local recruiters.

Other related resources:

Catholic Peace Initiative

Just say no

CNN Report on recruitment goals

Student Rights

Military Recruiter

Who served in the military

and

From the June 23, '05 Washington Post -"The Pentagon's statements added that anyone can "opt out" of the system by providing detailed personal information that will be kept in a separate "suppression file." That file will be matched with the full database regularly to ensure that those who do not wish to be contacted are not, according to the Pentagon."

# # #

Best to all,

Lloyd

All underlined segments are links to supporting information.

We've got to change our frame of thought

2005-06-06T11:04:00.001-05:00

Something has happened lately that has exchanged the pursuit of competency for the need to win.

It seems like everything is being approached with a "Super Bowl" mentality without consideration for context, history, theory or even whether it is right.

Lately, elections have become a competition to win "...if our guy wins then we're winners." This is happening instead of putting the right person in office after studied reasoning.

Shortly after 9-11 the prez visited 'ground zero' in NYC, and someone started chanting, "USA, USA..." soon followed by a large part of the crowd, as if it was some kind of hockey tournament. To many it seemed like shouting in church.

We have gotten used to being the first in many things, but I fear that we have slipped without knowing it from the spots even near the top.

This first stood out when the latest reports on press freedom came out. It is dismaying to get word that one of the principles upon which our country is based has slipped. Within most Baby Boomers' lifetimes the US has gone from first in one of its fundamental freedoms to 29th, according to FreedomHouse research.

Yep, that puts us behind Palau (look it up - I've been there), the Marshall Islands, New Zealand, Bahamas and 25 other countries. This is not the quality of reporting we're talking about here. This is a ranking of press freedoms. "We're 29th. Rah." This can only happen if the people let it happen. Freedom of the press is not a right of the 'fourth estate,' it is the right of all of the people.

It's unfortunate too, because we need to get our act together in other areas as well - witness the list below. After a little homework it became apparent that there are things we used to think of as important that are slipping from our grasp. It is difficult to tell if we simply don't care, or if we are simply not aware of our decline in standings across so many areas.

Here are some examples:

• The United States is 49th in the world in literacy (the New York Times, Dec. 12, 2004).

• The United States ranked 28th out of 40 countries in mathematical literacy (NYT, Dec. 12, 2004).

• Twenty percent of Americans think the sun orbits the earth. Seventeen percent believe the earth revolves around the sun once a day (The Week, Jan. 7, 2005).

• "The International Adult Literacy Survey...found that Americans with less than nine years of education 'score worse than virtually all of the other countries'" (Jeremy Rifkin's superbly documented book The European Dream: How Europe's Vision of the Future Is Quietly Eclipsing the American Dream, p.78).

• Our workers lack so many basic skills that American businesses spend $30 billion a year on remedial training (NYT, Dec. 12, 2004). No wonder they relocate elsewhere!

• "The European Union leads the U.S. in...the number of science and engineering graduates; public research and development (R&D) expenditures; and new capital raised" (The European Dream, p.70).

• "Europe surpassed the United States in the mid-1990s as the largest producer of scientific literature" (The European Dream, p.70).

• Nevertheless, Congress cut funds to the National Science Foundation. The agency will issue 1,000 fewer research grants this year (NYT, Dec. 21, 2004).

• Foreign applications to U.S. grad schools declined 28 percent last year. Foreign student enrollment on all levels fell for the first time in three decades, but increased greatly in Europe and China. Last year Chinese grad-school graduates in the U.S. dropped 56 percent, Indians 51 percent, South Koreans 28 percent (NYT, Dec. 21, 2004). We're not the place to be anymore.

• The World Health Organization "ranked the countries of the world in terms of overall health performance, and the U.S. [was]...37th." In the fairness of health care, we're 54th. "The irony is that the United States spends more per capita for health care than any other nation in the world" (The European Dream, pp.79-80). Pay more, get lots, lots less.

• "The U.S. and South Africa are the only two developed countries in the world that do not provide health care for all their citizens" (The European Dream, p.80).

• Lack of health insurance coverage causes 18,000 unnecessary American deaths a year. (That's six times the number of people killed on 9/11.) (NYT, Jan. 12, 2005.)

• "U.S. childhood poverty now ranks 22nd, or second to last, among the developed nations. Only Mexico scores lower" (The European Dream, p.81).

• Twelve million American families--more than 10 percent of all U.S. households--"continue to struggle, and not always successfully, to feed themselves." Families that "had members who actually went hungry at some point last year" numbered 3.9 million (NYT, Nov. 22, 2004).
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• The United States is 41st in the world in infant mortality. Cuba scores higher (NYT, Jan. 12, 2005).

• Women are 70 percent more likely to die in childbirth in America than in Europe (NYT, Jan. 12, 2005).

• The leading cause of death of pregnant women in this country is murder (CNN, Dec. 14, 2004).

• "Of the 20 most developed countries in the world, the U.S. was dead last in the growth rate of total compensation to its workforce in the 1980s.... In the 1990s, the U.S. average compensation growth rate grew only slightly, at an annual rate of about 0.1 percent" (The European Dream, p.39). Yet Americans work longer hours per year than any other industrialized country, and get less vacation time.

• "Sixty-one of the 140 biggest companies on the Global Fortune 500 rankings are European, while only 50 are U.S. companies" (The European Dream, p.66). "In a recent survey of the world's 50 best companies, conducted by Global Finance, all but one were European" (The European Dream, p.69).

• "Fourteen of the 20 largest commercial banks in the world today are European.... In the chemical industry, the European company BASF is the world's leader, and three of the top six players are European. In engineering and construction, three of the top five companies are European.... The two others are Japanese. Not a single American engineering and construction company is included among the world's top nine competitors. In food and consumer products, Nestlé and Unilever, two European giants, rank first and second, respectively, in the world. In the food and drugstore retail trade, two European companies...are first and second, and European companies make up five of the top ten. Only four U.S. companies are on the list" (The European Dream, p.68).

• The United States has lost 1.3 million jobs to China in the last decade (CNN, Jan. 12, 2005).

• U.S. employers eliminated 1 million jobs in 2004 (The Week, Jan. 14, 2005).

• Three million six hundred thousand Americans ran out of unemployment insurance last year; 1.8 million--one in five--unemployed workers are jobless for more than six months (NYT, Jan. 9, 2005).

• Japan, China, Taiwan, and South Korea hold 40 percent of our government debt. (That's why we talk nice to them.) "By helping keep mortgage rates from rising, China has come to play an enormous and little-noticed role in sustaining the American housing boom" (NYT, Dec. 4, 2004). Read that twice. We owe our housing boom to China, because they want us to keep buying all that stuff they manufacture.

• Sometime in the next 10 years Brazil will probably pass the U.S. as the world's largest agricultural producer. Brazil is now the world's largest exporter of chickens, orange juice, sugar, coffee, and tobacco. Last year, Brazil passed the U.S. as the world's largest beef producer. As a result, while we bear record trade deficits, Brazil boasts a $30 billion trade surplus (NYT, Dec. 12, 2004).

• As of last June, the U.S. imported more food than it exported (NYT, Dec. 12, 2004).

• Bush: 62,027,582 votes. Kerry: 59,026,003 votes. Number of eligible voters who didn't show up: 79,279,000 (NYT, Dec. 26, 2004). That's more than a third. Way more. If more than a third of Iraqis don't show for their election, no country in the world will think that election legitimate.

• One-third of all U.S. children are born out of wedlock. One-half of all U.S. children will live in a one-parent house (CNN, Dec. 10, 2004).

• "Americans are now spending more money on gambling than on movies, videos, DVDs, music, and books combined" (The European Dream, p.28).

• "Nearly one out of four Americans [believe] that using violence to get what they want is acceptable" (The European Dream, p.32).

• Forty-three percent of Americans think torture is sometimes justified, according to a PEW Poll (Associated Press, Aug. 19, 2004).

• "Nearly 900,000 children were abused or neglected in 2002, the last year for which such data are available" (USA Today, Dec. 21, 2004).

• "The International Association of Chiefs of Police said that cuts by the [current] administration in federal aid to local police agencies have left the nation more vulnerable than ever" (USA Today, Nov. 17, 2004).

(After researching several areas, a compilation of much of this list surfaced in a blog written by Mike Ventura. I don't know if he's related to the former governor of Minnesota, but he is in the Twin Cities.)

We do seem to maintain the lead in fuel consumption and have apparently returned to the lead in arms spending.

What does all of this mean to you?

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Best to all,

Lloyd

Fire department organization isn't

2005-05-20T18:21:00.001-05:00

At the recent fire department annual meeting the fire board faced the volunteers and two conversations ensued.

Both conversations made sense, but not as a response to the other side.

In all honesty, the verbiage coming from the board side made more sense than anything they've spewed over the past two years. And the volunteers have been stating the same concerns for years, which appear to fall on deaf ears.

Now don't forget that a large component of this blog is commentary, but it is commentary based on a fair amount of homework and observation.

You may have heard this before

At the annual meeting the second rehash of a proposal to reorganize the community fire department was put forth. The Johnson Creek Community Fire Department is organized in a manner different from most. This story has been told several times, but often still the response is a wincing question mark, so here it is again:

The current Johnson Creek community fire department was organized in the 1960s as a corporation of sorts so that the village of Johnson Creek, could share the capitol costs with the other outlying townships it serves - Aztalan, Milford, Concord, Farmington and Watertown. At that time they set up the corporation with a board that consisted of the chair or president of each of those communities. Each fire board member is able to cast one vote.

To a certain extent the structure became somewhat of an afterthought, because the firefighters (and since then the EMS developed as well) are the ones in the field when the pagers go off. The implications are that they meant for things to go this way, because the Johnson Creek Mutual Hose Company was the vehicle for continuity as the original FD and the continuing organization of the personnel. Otherwise, why wouldn't they have disbanded the Mutual Hose Company back in the 1960s when the intergovernmental corporation was first formed?

It is almost as if the people in 1961 said, "Okay, this makes it formal so we share the cost of the gear and property, but you guys go ahead and just keep putting out those fires the same as usual."

The Mutual Hose Company, which dates back to the 19th Century, was left to run things and attend to those pesky fires and other life threatening situations while the board evolved (with a few potential refreshing exceptions) into a roly-poly group who would go to meetings twice a year to rubber-stamp the budget, unless there were proposed increases, and to make sure the Fire Station was still standing.

It was presumed that systems for accomodating emergencies -- being compliant with regulations, scheduling and providing training, filling out paperwork, maintaining equipment, accomplishing fire inspections, and a whole host of other activities that need to be done -- would fall on the people who attend to those emergencies and day-to-day tasks.

So the volunteers did just that. They made sure there was a continuity and necessary upgrades, and whenever they were alerted they reponded to the actual emergencies. When the need and opportunity to start and develop an EMS came along, the FD picked up that gauntlet. The local EMS has since evolved into a group of volunteers with standards to which others aspire and try to maintain.

Early on there were friendly understandings, because all of the communities were similar. They were either farming townships or, in the case of the village, a community that supported farming. But now the communities' complexions have changed and the board hasn't.

Now the village has a major mall and other commercial interests in addition to increased industry. The Interstate Highway System was just beginning to take shape in this nation when the Community Fire Department formed, but now it is a major traffic corridor requiring several emergency responses per year. Consequently the village pays the largest percentage of the FD budget.

For those who have gotten used to this over the past four decades, just a reminder that the majority of communities have developed their emergency services differently.

Here's how it works with most other FDs:

Some of the same townships who have board members on the Johnson Creek Community Fire Department Board need fire coverage from other departments. For example - Aztalan also needs fire protection services from Jefferson and Lake Mills fire departments. In their case, the Lake Mills and Jefferson departments simply submit a bill to Aztalan and the township pays it. They have no say on what those fire budgets will be.

But at the same time, the chairs of those townships come to the 'Creek FD Board and determine what the rest of their fire protection budget can be, possibly after the bills from the other FDs are paid.

Now, just as we learned in Sociology 101, in times of transition are the greatest potential times of turmoil.

There are likely many good things about the proposed new intergovernmental agreement, which most would agree needed an upgrade. The board will go from six members to eight, adding two more votes for the village. This makes the balance of things a bit more equitable, in view of the fact that the village pays 47 percent of the FD price tag.

Another concern has to do with accounting for equipment, issues of depreciation and so on. There has been no proportionate inventory accounting divvying up the property amongst the communities in the recorded past. In addition, tax issues related to the honoraria volunteers get for making emergency runs have to be taken care of by a central responsible party.

And so the plan, primarily authored by village attorney James Hammes has many good facets, addressing archaic issues to bring them up to date. The fact that extra attention and a proposed change came to light is a good thing in many ways. It indicates that the make-up of the board could be changing with a couple of members who realize that as times change so do upgrades to community services.

But those members realize that change can be slow - witness the decisions on location and plans for a new public safety facility, which has been a roller coaster ride of indecision on the part of the majority of the board.

But according to recent documents, the propsed plan is to follow a model agreement established by the Wisconsin Towns Association. It is a good and solid document, BUT even the framers of the model agreement likely did NOT consider that there would be a volunteer Fire Department/EMS with a six-way ownership split. Hammes and Attorney Andy Griggs feel the agreement will be solid in terms of community responsibilities.

However, Hammes, at the beginning of the recent meeting also tried to address operational issues within portions of the agreement. And this is where homework, diplomacy, history and common sense all need to work in concert even to make a decision to address the matter of operations. This entails the second conversation.

Think for a moment of the volunteers in the fire department and EMS.

Historically they were told, "Just keep doing what you do." So they do what needs to be done to set up systems, elect their leadership, establish routines, comply with regulations, be available to the community for additional tasks and basically attend to emergencies for four decades.

One could equate it to an orphan family that raised itself, established its own routines and figured out ways to take care of itself and others. And they learned to support each other - they recognize their best with their own award ceremonies, and developed a support system to address issues after facing trauma scenes head on without no questions asked.

They do this with a board that, until the most recent board, only peeked in for a couple meetings a year, giving very little feedback, no additional recognition and by all appearances forgetting that they are dealing with volunteers. Yes, they now get an hourly honorarium for the time they are pulled away from family or work. But that amounts to less than a teenager gets paid at McDonalds. While accounting and tax records suggest that the they are 'employees' for purposes of record keeping, they are still volunteers. And most of the volunteers have said that it is not about the money, and they often forget that they are to be compensated when the check arrives.

But according to personal accounts, history can't tell when the last time the community fire board collectively said - "We appreciate your service to this community." or handed them a plaque or any recognition elevating the members from a status that appears they feel is a necessary evil. Having asked about more distant history, volunteers can't remember a time the board approached the volunteers and said point blank - "You are doing a great job and want you to know what you need to keep it up?"

Yes things cost more, and yet the attitude of the board appears to be that the volunteers are the cause of those increases. The board still has latitude with this department in comparison to the non-negotiable bill the townships get from the other departments.

Does anyone realize how difficult it is to be a volunteer for anything and have to justify the needs of your services to a board or committee to allow you to provide a service? Think of it this way... you have a neighbor who asks you to help him change his second floor storm windows. Being a good neighbor you cordially agree, and suggest that Saturday morning will be a good time to help. At that point the neighbor indignantly replies, "Oh, it can't be Saturday morning, I'm very busy then." So you suggest another time, but the neighbor says, "Do you expect me to accommodate you and your schedule so that you can help me work on my house!?! And by the way, you'd better have a ladder." Kind of Salvador Dali logic, and sometimes it seems that way with the FD board.

There is nothing saying that any of the firefighters or EMS personnel have to stay members, yet they do. That's what makes them volunteers. So what makes them stay? This is a question to which board members should seek an answer, because if the volunteers begin to ask that question it may be too late.

The majority of the board does not live within earshot of the fire and EMS facility.

They do not hear the sirens on cold February mornings before sunrise when a blinding blizzard continues to cover roads with drifting snow, yet they respond to unknown emergencies in these sub-zero temperatures.

They do not hear the pagers when the dispatcher calls for them to respond to a traumatic farm accident involving a pre-school age child.

They do not see relatively fit peope huffing for air to keep up with their collectively pounding hearts as they trudge, laden with gear, across a field to put out the fourth grass fire within an eight-hour period.

Creek - FD

They do not have to face the survivors of an accident after zipping up the non-survivors in a body bag.

Creek FD GF

So going to this 'family' of volunteers to suggest changes in their routines, systems and procedures without approaching them at the very least for input is, to say the least, insensitive and can reinforce the perception that board finds their contribution is of negligible value.

In comparison, when there is news of farmers and farm families who are displaced by economic conditions or severe climate influences, we are saddened for their loss and we say "It is a way of life." and recognize that it is a part of an identity.

cfd rd

So it may be with those who respond to help their fellow man, never knowing who, when or what the circumstances. They are all pulled away from real life, to experience that which would be surreal for everyone else. They share the common experience and at the scene think in sync like members of a chamber music ensemble. As an observer, they appear as the reorganizing factor to life's moments of chaos.

It is likely that everyone wants to be on the same page when it comes to record keeping - an issue brought into discussion.

Positive changes are most often good, and the FD board primarily takes the overall good of the community as their chief motive for exploring these changes. But it must do so with sensitivity to the institutions that exist and the people who established them. They, after all, are also members of the community.

A review of the operations of both the fire department and the EMS may be warranted, but if one doesn't know what exists already how can changes be suggested? (The outcome could be that no changes are needed.) In short, it is wrong to avoid doing the leg work to at least appear to be interested enough to ask what is in place and what exists now.

As one firefighter said recently, "All they had to do was ask."

JD EMS
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Best to all,

Lloyd

Negotiation participants should be congratulated

2005-05-12T21:41:00.000-05:00

Members of the Johnson Creek School Board Personnel Committee and the negotiating team of the Johnson Creek Education Association made an incredibly bold move this year as they entered into teacher contract talks. In setting ground rules for their talks, both sides agreed to have as much as possible of the proceedings in open session.

Now, to many, this may be of little significance, especially to those who rarely read a newspaper, the ones who so often say,"How come I never heard about this?!?" at public forums... But I digress.

Because both sides of the negoatiations are maintaining a component of the process to be available for public view and press coverage, it is tantamount to both sides agreeing to bargain in good faith, and believing in the good faith facet of their talks enough to put them on display, to be so ardent about good faith bargaining that they jointly agreed to let the public, and consequently the press, in to hear the concerns of both sides, and to share the resolutions.

Just as there is good reason - about eight acceptable reasons - for elected officials who meet in regular sessions to legitimately go into closed session (although in regular session closed meetings should be the exception not the rule); labor contract talks maintain one or more of the primary reasons to take advantage of a closed session proviso a high percentage of the time.

Chief among them is the ability to negotiate candidly with potentially proprietary information that could have an impact on the final resolution if the proceedings were public. There are many gives-and-takes in negotiations, much like negotiating the sale and purchase of a home or land. Offers and counter offers are made and a course is set to get from point a to point b, but the actual trip can take several side trips with offers, language rewrites, questions on those rewrites, with it all consisting of partially completed pieces of a whole that can float around in disarray until a semblance of order appears on a completed document's language.

So there is good reason to have portions of negotiations in closed session, but the gesture to include the public when negotiating is also a gesture of good faith toward the public. One that encourages disclosure. One that is not based on or in fear. One that says that reason is the basis for this effort and the public recognizes reason.

In regular meetings of governing bodies the ability and reasons to go into closed session have sometimes become distorted. But that is not the case here related to teacher contract negotiations.

Self disclosure is a characterisitic of a good friend, and a person who is voluntarily self disclosing gains the trust of strangers.

So it is with the participants of this year's teacher contract talks, willing to share all that will not compromise the process, yet knowing that both sides gain by sharing with the community they serve. Also knowing that disclosure and openness can provide checks and balances on both sides if logic, reason and motives go off course.

The agreed decision locally by the leadership of the teachers and the representatives of the board to allow as much of the planned talks to be in open session should be considered a model at the vanguard of a new trend and direction. It demonstrates a willingness to share with the community (breaking down the concerns of those who are inherently suspicious or even cynical). In addition, it shows a willingnes to share not only the specidfcs of local issues, but to put on display the general struggle both sides face as constraints on educational funding remain caught in an ever tightening cinch.

Overall, everyone involved is to be congratulated for taking this bold step that should act as a model and example. You have taken a brave position, and as others in surrounding communities follow your example, risk dissipates to reveal in another way the nature of everyones' motives, ultimately illustrating why the cornerstone premise of our nation's foundation is that the government operates only by the consent of the governed and that it takes an informed electorate to properly decide who will take part in that government.

Once again Johnson Creek Schools prove themselves as leaders and innovators.

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Best to all,
Lloyd

Ready to take a break

2005-04-08T10:58:00.000-05:00

The last couple weeks have been interesting. For global readers, this blog originates in Johnson Creek, Wisconsin (USA). For those in 'Creek - it's true, this blog has intermittent and regular readers from around the world. Hang on a second while I check the list... Here it is:

Canada
Singapore
United Kingdom
Philippines
Kuwait
Malaysia
United Arab Emirates
Sweden
Australia
France
Guam
Portugal
Italy
Ireland
Brazil
and even though it didn't come up on my stats software, there may be a potential reader in Kyrgystan.

Granted 90 percent of 'Fieldtrips' readers are from the USA and 70 percent of those are from Wisconsin. Almost all of the readers also read CreekNews the intermittent cyber newspaper/magazine that tries to keep up with the local news.

One of the things I like about the news field is that it is 24/7. But for the first time in a long time I feel like taking a break. Not a vacation, but a real break to step back and look at things. Not that I'd assess things differently upon return. Just a step back to look, like a sculptor who steps away from his work to take a good look, a writer who sets aside a manuscript before editing it. Like a sailor who drops all sails and throws out a drogue after an unforeseen gale slams a near upset - giving skipper and crew a chance to reassess, and for pulses to return to normal.

There are several curiousities that have accumulated of late, and they need to be considered.

As those who are in the 'Creek area know, several issues have arisen lately. THe issue of a new public safety facility for the Fire Department and EMS has ridden a rollercoaster. A site is chosen, then discarded, a design is chosen then discarded, a new site is chosen then a new design is accepted then both are discarded...

A new school issue went before the public along with a decision on school operating costs. Those two offerings were defeated at a 4 to 1 ratio.

(In one way I feel very good about Tuesday's decision: It is very unlikely that this showing at the local polls had any influence from any voting machine manufacturers. The number of people who voted clearly reflected the number of votes cast, so there is every reason to believe that - unlike the November vote in Florida and Ohio - the polls reflected the actual wishes of the people, and that is something to celebrate. But that's another blog.)

But there are some points of confusion...

You've heard those sometimes curious sets of silly questions that go, "Why does the drive-up ATM have instructions in Braille?" or "Why is a quickly avoided mid-air collision called a near miss instead of a near hit?" or "Why do people use the term 'hot water heater' instead of just 'water heater?'"

In that vein here are some questions:

Why does it appear that people don't care if the Fire Department and EMS are properly equipped until their own house is on fire or their loved one is having a heart attack?

Why do people say they value education, but really don't find that value to be worth...oh...let's say paying for?

and here's a good one...

Why won't people do their homework to get or check facts, but will spend plenty of energy, time and yes sometimes money to spew inaccurate opinions? "I'm going to wait until a loud person says what I want to hear...because I live on Fantasy Island...Boss, de plane, de plane."

Oh such silliness - as the toddler character 'Stewie' on the animated television program 'Family Guy' might say in his demonic British accent, "Eerie isn't it? Almost like seeing the future."

Well, I don't know if 'Creek needed a new school or not. I DO KNOW, based on published data, that students learn in the best possible environment. Additionally, the local information was reliable, because I am paid to observe this and other schools' operations in meetings on the behalf of the public who cannot or don't wish to attend.

I also KNOW that the operating expense need is very real, NOT because a school board is just spending everyone's money to have a good time. Hell, as a group, I can't think of any organizations or individuals MORE FRUGAL than the typical school board. But the loud people sure can get the attention of the rest of you who don't do your homework on these issues. (One could conclude that you're not in favor of supporting education because you look in the mirror and say "Heck, look how far I've got without one.")

The FACT IS the amount of money a school in Wisconsin can levy is limited to the district valuation formula and a 1.5 percent increase annually. This FACT was in place while health insurance companies decided to have a sudden increase of 25 to 35 percent (as they did six years ago, and five years ago, and four years ago...and...) with impeccable timing pushing most districts 10 to 15 percent over total budget.

That's right ladies and gentlemen, that money is collected by the schools on behalf of the health insurance companies. It doesn't even go near anything having to do with education, makes a sharp U-turn and zing! Off it goes in a premium check to the health insurance companies.

(Speculative conversation of insurance company execs in smoke filled conclave: "Hey, here's a way to collect money from EVERYBODY and put the blame on the schools."

The TRUTH is nobody has ever given a reason for the outrageous increases in those specific costs, although some I contacted gave excuses. And it is only one extreme example.

Meanwhile teachers and programs have been cut, and teachers have made concessions in health benefit coverage.

As Jefferson resident Dr. Stoner, member of the Jefferson School Board said last year, "It's as if they back an armored truck up to the school every month for the insurance premium funds."

And of course there are the normal increases in expenses. Now really, you and I are paying more at the gas pump, right? Do you think the schools have a special magic energy resource?

As this gets written the current bill for the war in Iraq is $160.4 billion.

Let us consider one billion of something...anything. Fellow blogger Cosmo McMoon who writes the Freedom File blog pointed out that one billion seconds ago it was 1959, one billion minutes ago Jesus was walking the Earth, one billion hours ago humans were pretty much begining to come into their own on the planet. BUT one billion dollars was only 8.5 hours ago for US government spending.

Do a little more homework and you'll find Wisconsin's portion of that $160.4 billion spent on the effort in Iraq if divided per capita would have provided more than 46,000 teachers in state schools for a year. (Does the state need that many teachers? Probably not, but there would have been less of a need for an operating expense decision at the polls Tuesday.) But nobody is being loud about that spending. Nobody is using fact OR loud inaccuracies to question those priorities.

Nobody wants to pay out any more of their earnings than they must for anything, but it is the nature of this nation to jointly support things that we value. Not only do EMS and Fire Department personnel volunteer to be called out at any hour in any conditions to help you and your family and your neighbors, they also pay taxes.

Yep, there is no question that a new school would be a chunk of change, and I won't try to argue the FACT that schools have a positive influence on local growth which in turn brings down taxes and increases the standard of living and makes the facility a tangible community asset - data based info, by the way. (I know some people have trouble with things like facts and truth.)

I'm not independently wealthy, especially while trying to get two college students through school and closer to pushing them out of the nest..."Okay my children, if you're reading this '...Fly, be free,graduate from college, test your wings, buy and eat out of your own refrigerator...!'" And remember that each school board member and each teacher and administrator also pays taxes (and many have children in college nearing the edge of the nest, too.)

Here's the way I see it. Somebody paid for me to have an education, many of those people at that time may have moved from a different community to the town where they paid for me to have a school and education. Since then many may have moved on, indeed many of them may not be living anymore, period. I have moved from that community, and instead of paying any compensation for the education I got in my hometown back to that hometown, I pay that compensation to the local institutions. It may be after I move on if I choose to, or maybe after I'm gone entirely, but the students who benefit from the education I help provide them with now will be responsible for making sure that the young people where they choose to live have an adequate education.

In the meantime, I know I can look eye-to-eye with myself in a mirror and say "I value education."

'Eerie, isnt it?'

Best to all,

Lloyd

WPDC works toward Saturday's Peace Walk

2005-03-17T19:28:00.000-06:00

Members of the WPDC work on signs for Saturday's Peace Walk

Members of the Watertown Peace and Democracy Coalition are staging a peace walk Saturday March 19 at noon.
The group started from a core of four members and over the past six weeks had grown to more than 50 Watertown citizens. Organizers note that usually about 25 show up at their weekly meetings.
The goal of the organization is to rally the quiet majority and raise community consciousness, according to the coalition web site.
Coalition members have narrowed their concerns from several current trends in the government. While ongoing government military policies remain a primary point the group feels the need for media reform, campaign finance and election reforms, and oversight of corporate responsibility.
“In general, we share a concern over indicators that democracy is slipping away,” said WPDC member Bill Reichertz.
According to a group spokesperson Tom Depies, the peace walk is the first in ongoing efforts to help provide related information to the public. He noted that next month the group will be hosting a presentation by George Martin, program director of Peace Action Wisconsin.
Scheduled for 6 p.m. April 23, Martin who recently returned from a visit to Iraq will speak at the Riverside Middle School large group instruction room. His presentation will be on “The Reality of Iraq.”
Saturday’s peace walk will begin at noon, and according to WPDC members they will begin gathering in the public parking lot on Water Street across from the Watertown Public Library. The walk route will be from Water Street east on Main Street to eighth street, return west on Main then heading south on Church Street to Bernard Street and returning to the Water St parking lot.
The coalition has made an abundance of signs expressing there views, and welcomes anyone with similar concerns to join them for Saturday’s walk.
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Best to all,

Lloyd

The tangible value of education.

2005-02-27T22:50:00.048-06:00

When making a monetary investment, people rarely ask about the cost first. The primary concern is more often the return on investment (ROI).

In the world of finance a few people get lucky and hit it big in a short period of time, but investment counselors agree that most people make gains by staying with their plan over the long haul.

So it is with education. It is a solid investment that is proven directly tied to economic development. It can't be considered a short term investment, nor a temporary one. But it is a good and wise investment in not only the future of your children, but also a wise investment for anyone with an interest in the economic enhancement of a community.

This is simple research-based information. One good example is from the book, "Smart Money: Education and Economic Development," by William Schweke (published by the Economic Policy Institute).

The book summarizes that education at all levels is an investment worthwhile. Writing about primary and secondary education he notes:

Research shows that a high-quality education increases the earnings of individuals and the economic health of their communities. Some believe, however, that increased public investment will not necessarily improve the quality of education offered. But recent studies show that education spending can have a direct, positive impact on the business climate and can improve the success of at-risk students, whose contributions to the economy are critical for achieving a high-value/high-wage economy in the 21st century. Such spending will have a greater chance of success if coupled with specific reforms, such as smaller class sizes, greater access to technology for at-risk students, support for teacher training and innovation, and improved accountability structures.

Schweke also attributes human and social costs to a lack of investment in education, citing areas that lack educational resources and drawing correlations to increases in crime rates, drug use, gangs and basic family stability.

Education has a direct impact on specific values in the work place, indicating a more immediate return on investment with the educational dollar. One of the most immediately visible returns is the proven increase in productivity when education is a priority within a community.

The Congressional Joint Economic Committee Study published in 2000 and titled Investment in Education: Private and Public Returns reaches one of its first conclusions in relating the impact of an investment in education on the labor force:

The most direct way that education affects the labor market experience of workers is by increasing their productivity, thus increasing their earnings. The more education individuals acquire, the better they are able to absorb new information, acquire new skills, and familiarize themselves with new technologies. By increasing their human capital, workers enhance the productivity of their labor and of the other capital they use at work. If higher levels of productivity reflect higher levels of human capital, which are in turn primarily a result of increased education, then a positive relationship should exist between educational attainment and earnings.

The report also states that education not only has a direct result on income, but also improves the quality of employment.

As it turns out, attributing numbers to the correlation between good and higher education and economic growth has become easy to realize. Other research confirmed this finding. Edward Denison undertook one of the most comprehensive studies on the effect of education on economic growth. Denison estimated that education per worker was the source of 16 percent of output growth in nonresidential business.

In another study done for the Rand Corporation, 21 percent of the growth in output from 1940-1980 was the result of an increase in average schooling levels. Estimates of the effect of human capital on economic growth in the United States mostly range from 10 to 25 percent, although some recent evidence disputes this finding. But the specific number is definitely a positive and continuing trend.

The joint congressional study states:

By improving the productivity of American workers, education increases the wealth of the United States. To illustrate the magnitude of the effect of increased educational levels on economic growth in the United States, consider the effect on gross domestic product (GDP) if educational levels had stopped rising in 1959. In real terms (chained 1992 dollars), GDP rose from $2,210.2 billion in 1959 to $7,269.8 billion in 1997. If one were to assume that increased education levels contribute 16 percent to economic growth, and that this education improvement did not occur, the result would be that in real terms 1997 GDP would be lower by approximately $1,260 billion dollars, standing at just over $6,009 billion in 1997.

But it turns out that the intangibles that follow as a return on investment in education have been known since before we were a nation. Traditional concern about the educational opportunities of the poor, as it has evolved in the American context, has resulted in the public provision of education. The public provision of education predates our independence beginning in 1647 with the passage of the Massachusetts Bay Colony's first schooling legislation. A tradition of state guidance, but local financing and control has characterized American public education for the majority of the past two centuries.

When not tapping out a blog article, I'm often doing internal marketing consulting for a portion of a large company. An ongoing struggle is convincing powers at all levels that investing in quality in process, productivity, parts, production and service is worthwhile. I'm not sure if I can take credit for the term, but people have gotten used to me saying, "Quality doesn't cost, it pays." So it is with education. It is a good deal and a worthwhile investment - it doesn't cost, it pays.

Sometimes the public loses sight of the nature of education, and is blinded to the fact that the best route away from poverty, the best route to a better standard of living, the best way to prevent crime, the best way to ensure commerce and peace - locally and globally - is to to make an earnest investment in education.

"If you think education is expensive, try ignorance." is a line often attributed to Mark Twain, and puts the matter together in a concise nutshell.

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Best to all,

Lloyd
-----------------
Lloyd Schultz

On the learning environment

2005-02-11T16:12:00.000-06:00

Informed decisions on seemingly difficult local issues often require a view that exceeds daily horizons.

We should get one thing straight from the beginning. School should be considered a verb. That is to say, the important part of school -- learning or education -- should be considered a verb. It is an action or process and not a place.

Somehow our frame of thought has gotten to where we think of school as a place, and it has gotten to that point with many educators, administrators and legislators. In the state of Wisconsin - ahead of many states in the field of education - state law doesn't require that anyone learn anything. The law simply states that students must attend so many days of school and within those days must attend classes for a set number minutes per school year.

The law pretty much leaves that actual work to the professionalism of teachers and administrators who are in the trenches in the classroom. The current law was written by people at an earlier time who realized that educators are indeed professionals concerned emphatically with the enlightenment of students.

(Subsequently elected officials evidently have found themselves to be both educated AND experts on education. With their IMMENSE bundle of expertise legislators have attempted to have students submit to standardized tests with the hopes of attaching the value of test scores to school finance, putting the concept of 'local control' of public schools into a dubious status. Possibly a topic for another blog.)

But still, a big part of the image of 'school' is one of a place. A place where often all but the most progressive institutions are as worried about students and their proximity to place at specific times as they are about students gaining knowledge, skills or competencies. The idea that clear hallways, quiet classrooms and studious looking students are an indicator that students are learning is a false one.

Cutting to the chase

In actuality, learning goes on in a variety of environments. AND if we are going to depend on a public school system with the limitations that have been imposed on educators and students by past and future unknown legislative actions, we should be willing to provide the best learning environment possible.

It was stated above that school shouldn't be a place only. But even when climbing a mountain or exploring distant lands one has a base camp. A home base. And so it is with the modern school facility. It should be a site to return and repeat experiments, a place to rehearse, a place to perform, a place conducive to learning, a central resource location, and a place to share experiences and pass on information.

The age of a building can be a relative thing. The Cathedral at Chartres and its exquisite stained glass windows can be no better. It serves the purpose it was originally intended to serve, and remains an example of the best of what a cathedral can be in artistically representing the architectural standard for a place conducive to worship. It is spiritual in nature. It is not transient. It also represents what was important to the communities it served during the decades it was under construction.

It was built to last, like the ideas it represents. And still serves that purpose and those ideas as unchanging principles.

But schools serve a dynamic group of students and teachers, where new ideas are explored daily, or hourly. And if new ideas are to be presented to an ever more sophisticated group of students, in an ever more sophisticated world, then the facilities must be able to adapt to those educational needs. Additionally, as more programs are mandated by legislative bodies, often, no matter what the enrollment numbers, facilities will need to accommodate the many changing program requirements.

In a report on the impact of inadequate school infrastructure on student performance, David Branham, Ph.D of the University of Houston Center for Public Policy (click) cites several correlations. Simply put, the report studied 226 public schools and found that poor facilities have a direct impact on student abilities.

According to the report:

Specifically, schools in need of roof repair, schools with a high percentage of temporary buildings, and schools with inadequate custodial staffs will have lower attendance rates, higher drop out rates, and lower accountability ratings than schools without such structural problems.

The report goes on to say that people initially vote for school issues based on what they perceive as their own best interests. "That being the case," Branham writes, " it makes sense to discover what those interests are. In other words, if voters can see that school infrastructure has an effect on student achievement, then they may make a more informed vote on bond initiatives that support school infrastructure."

The state of Florida implemented a constitutional amendment recognizing the impact of class size on education, and requiring that different ages and programs have space and teacher/student ratios that optimize an educational experience.

A report on the amendment rationale, which includes input from the American Institute of Architects, recognizes that school expansion has not kept pace with population expansion, and also states that there was a gap in school spending compared to other growth related areas.

A part of the report states:

According to the Florida Chamber of Commerce’s New Cornerstone Report published in 2001-2002, Florida’s population expanded rapidly in the 1990s from 13.1 million to almost 16 million in 2000, a gain of nearly 18%. In addition, the Chamber reported thatbetween
1991 and 2001, the K-12 expenditures in Florida did not keep
pace with either inflation or the rate of student growth. What has
resulted from this shrinking financial support is a construction
and maintenance backlog that has the potential to cripple Districts
as their physical plants age and they struggle to address the immediate concerns of campus overcrowding. With the Class Size Amendmentadded to the equation - which state economists estimate will require 30,000 more classrooms – there is potential for losing focus of the importance of a quality learning environment.

The Florida report also notes that there is a direct impact on teacher satisfaction related to work environment, which could have an impact on teacher contract matters.

Still another report on the funding of schools in Tennessee notes that the impact of a school environment has historical evidence.

The report, entitled "Do K-12 School Facilities Affect Education Outcomes?" states:

As far back as the 1920s, industrial research established the
relationship between environmental factors and employee
productivity and morale, but these lessons have not been applied
widely in educational settings. In recent years, however, the
importance of school facilities has been increasingly recognized.
There are now eight states where the courts have explicitly made the funding of capital facilities a part of education equalization remedies.

School facility factors such as building age and condition, quality of
maintenance, temperature, lighting, noise, color, and air quality can
affect student health, safety, sense of self, and psychological state.
Research has also shown that the quality of facilities influences
citizen perceptions of schools and can serve as a point of community pride and increased support for public education.

Wisconsin too has looked at its school facilities. A joint research paper done for the Wisconsin Education Association council (WEAC) and the Association of Wisconsin School Administrators (AWSA) surveyed state schools. The research paper found interesting information about the age and condition of schools in the Badger State

It notes that three-fourths of Wisconsin's public school buildings were built before 1970, nearly one-fourth before 1940. About two percent were built in the 19th Century. Most of the existing buildings were constructed during the 1950's and 1960's. These buildings have been the target of considerable criticism because of their relatively poor construction. A 1989 study of the nation's school buildings by the Education Writers Association concluded that buildings of this age are "wearing out quickly and have severe repair needs. . . Many construction experts say the buildings were intended to last only about 30 years. If so, their time is up" (Lewis, et. al, p. 2).

The Wisconsin research concludes:

Furthermore, in our focus on numbers and quantitative measures, we must not forget the human dimension. Ultimately, we need to keep in mind that the 172 buildings judged inadequate by the principals in Wisconsin have an enrollment of nearly 75,000 students whose lives are affected on a daily basis by substandard school facilities.

While school facility matters are dealt with across the state and nation, at the local level the faces of individual students and teachers come into focus. We are no longer dealing with statistical figures and graphs, we are dealing with your children and my children. None of us think of our children as a statistic. They are the growing future. We urge them to be the best, to pursue the most, to aim high while learning conditions may be less than optimum.

Music teachers can not expect students to learn on a mangled instrument. Ag teachers cannot demonstrate germination, photosynthesis or plant growth if seeds are planted where there is no light. So it is with students in all subject areas. It is essential to have the environment and tools that will maximize the odds for student success.

It is a national concern that really comes down to common sense. Everyone needs a location where they can study, exercise, play, perform and socialize, yet we have a tendency to shoot for the lowest common denominator in educational facilities. At the same time we say that we value education. Should school be any less accommodating than the areas where we work or pursue other interests? If anything it should be superior.

Why is a 50 year old school considered old? Because it was likely built with the scope of education that was prevailing at the time of its design.

It is time to see the facilities for education the way the designers, builders and supporters of structures like the cathedrals of Europe. When education is again seen as more than finite as an ever changing and never ending endeavor, planning and building for education will appear less transient as well.
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Best to all,

Lloyd

A Little Tennyson

2005-01-07T01:53:00.000-06:00

Like certain pieces of music that stir memories and transport one back to a different time and place, poetry revisited can agitate those thoughts past and nearly put you back in an exact spot and date. As the mess in Vietnam was heading to a less than spotless final page, many of us still holding draft cards breathed a collective sigh of relief along with a world that was simply fatigued by that sad chapter.

During that time by near accident I came across a portion of Tennyson's Locksley Hall that among its trochaic couplets spoke of a hope for the future in the aftermath of a senseles protracted tragedy. It surfaced recently, again by near accident, and I share it with you readers.

Best to all,

Lloyd

from Locksley Hall

(ca. 1840)
by
Alfred Lord Tennyson
. . .

For I dipt into the future, far as human eye could see,
Saw the Vision of the world, and all the wonder that would be;

Saw the heavens fill with commerce, argosies of magic sails,
Pilots of the purple twilight dropping down with costly bales;

Heard the heavens fill with shouting, and there rain'd a ghastly dew
From the nations' airy navies grappling in the central blue;

Far along the world-wide whisper of the south-wind rushing warm,
With the standards of the peoples plunging thro' the thunder-storm;

Till the war-drum throbb'd no longer, and the battle-flags were furl'd
In the Parliament of man, the Federation of the world.

There the common sense of most shall hold a fretful realm in awe,
And the kindly earth shall slumber, lapt in universal law.

. . .

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Looking back at 2004, one week at a time...POW

2004-12-26T11:34:00.000-06:00

It's time to look back at 2004, if you wish. And I mean 'look back' at the year in pictures, one week at a time. More than once I have set aside a photo of the week for a year as a personal project related to photos in my work, and my passion for photography and photojournalism.

This time I share it with CreekNews and Fieldtrips readers. The picture of the week project (POW) becomes a challenge, not because I have to make sure that I have taken pictures every week -- there are an abundance of images from both work and my personal photo efforts -- the challenge is picking the one that stands out from the rest taken during that week. In work and in personal shooting, the equivalent of 10 to 30 rolls of film in images (both on film and digitally) are shot during an average week.

There is about a five week gap mid-year, due to a catastrophic failure of an external hard drive which stored about two years worth of all my digital images. I had let those five weeks of POW images lapse before the hard drive died, and still not sure if I will be able to reclaim the rest of the lost images - (making me revisit the digital/film debate - even though I have always maintained an affinity for film. But that is a topic for another blog.)

Many CreekNews/Fieldtrips readers may be in the POW images. You can check by clicking the link below. I'll see you there:

Lloyd's 2004 POW Project

Addendum: It appears that two images from the early part of the year have disappeared, due to either operator error (me) or some glitch in the server database. You will be able to see the images in the 'thumbnail' form until I can track down the originals and upload them once again.
Best to all,

Lloyd

Yes Virginia, there is a Santa Claus

2004-12-24T13:54:00.004-06:00

The editorial below written by Frank Church did the world a favor in 1897, by affirming the existence of Santa Claus for eight year old Virginia O'Hanlon. To her, and to untold numbers of children then and since, it confirmed that a character existed in the lives and minds of children.

But for all of the former children who have grown up during the ensuing century plus, the simple response from an editor at a newspaper that faded out of existence many years ago (although a new New York Sun started publication in 1999) illustrates the importance of keeping a child-like wonder in our lives at all ages. It is the fertile ground from which creativity stems, the anticipation of good and joy flourishes, and the potential for an example of caring can blossom for all.

The red-suited character has roots in one religion, but the characteristics elicited are supported by nearly all belief systems. And while we pursue them through differing traditions, they maintain a common thread that could be a formula for the benefit of all.

Here is the language as it was printed in the New York Sun:

IS THERE A SANTA CLAUS?

We take pleasure in answering at once and thus prominently the communication below, expressing at the same time our great gratification that its faithful author is numbered among the friends of "The Sun":

Dear Editor:
I am 8 years old.
Some of my little friends say there is no Santa Claus. Papa says "If you see it in "The Sun" it's so."
Please tell me the truth, is there a Santa Claus?

Virginia O'Hanlon
115 West 95th Street

Virginia, your little friends are wrong. They have been affected by the skepticism of a skeptical age. They do not believe except what they see. They think that nothing can be which is not comprehensible by their little minds. All minds, Virginia, whether they be men's or children's are little. In this great universe of ours man is a mere insect, an ant, in his intellect, as compared with the boundless world about him, as measured by the intelligence capable of grasping the whole of truth and knowledge.

Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus. He exists as certainly as love and generosity and devotion exist, and you know that they abound and give to your life its highest beauty and joy. Alas! how dreary would be the world if there were no Santa Claus! It would be as dreary as if there were no Virginias. There would be no childlike faith then, no poetry, no romance to make tolerable this existence. We should have no enjoyment, except in sense and sight. The eternal light with which childhood fills the world would be extinguished.

Not believe in Santa Claus! You might get your papa to hire men to watch in all the chimneys on Christmas eve to catch Santa Claus, but even if they did not see Santa Claus coming down, what would that prove? Nobody sees Santa Claus, but that is no sign that there is no Santa Claus. The most real things in the world are those that neither children nor men can see. Did you ever see fairies dancing on the lawn? Of course not, but that's no proof that they are not there. Nobody can conceive or imagine all the wonders there are unseen and unseeable in the world.

You tear apart the baby's rattle and see what makes the noise inside, but there is a veil covering the unseen world which not the strongest man, nor even the united strength of all the strongest men that ever lived, could tear apart. Only faith, fancy, poetry, love, romance, can push aside that curtain and view and picture the supernal beauty and glory beyond. Is it all real? Ah, Virginia, in all this world there is nothing else real and abiding.

No Santa Claus! Thank God he lives, and he lives forever. A thousand years from now, Virginia, nay, ten times ten thousand years from now, he will continue to make glad the heart of childhood.

F.P. Church

New York Sun, September 21, 1897

Thanks to Virginia O'Hanlon and Frank P. Church: Some background on the editorial

Fieldtrips readers can see a clipping of the original column by clicking here.

Francis P. Church’s editorial, “Yes Virginia, There is a Santa Claus” was an immediate sensation, and went on to became one of the most famous editorials ever written. It first appeared in the The New York Sun in 1897, more than one hundred years ago, and was reprinted annually until 1949 when the paper went out of business.

Thirty-six years after her letter was printed, Virginia O’Hanlon recalled the events that prompted her letter:

“Quite naturally I believed in Santa Claus, for he had never disappointed me. But when less fortunate little boys and girls said there wasn’t any Santa Claus, I was filled with doubts. I asked my father, and he was a little evasive on the subject.

“It was a habit in our family that whenever any doubts came up as to how to pronounce a word or some question of historical fact was in doubt, we wrote to the Question and Answer column in The Sun. Father would always say, ‘If you see it in the The Sun, it’s so,’ and that settled the matter.

“ ‘Well, I’m just going to write The Sun and find out the real truth,’ I said to father.

“He said, ‘Go ahead, Virginia. I’m sure The Sun will give you the right answer, as it always does.’ ”

And so Virginia sat down and wrote her parents’ favorite newspaper.

Her letter found its way into the hands of a veteran editor, Francis P. Church. Son of a Baptist minister, Church had covered the Civil War for The New York Times and had worked on the The New York Sun for 20 years, more recently as an anonymous editorial writer. Church, a sardonic man, had for his personal motto, “Endeavour to clear your mind of cant.” When controversal subjects had to be tackled on the editorial page, especially those dealing with theology, the assignments were usually given to Church.

Now, he had in his hands a little girl’s letter on a most controversial matter, and he was burdened with the responsibility of answering it.

“Is there a Santa Claus?” the childish scrawl in the letter asked. At once, Church knew that there was no avoiding the question. He must answer, and he must answer truthfully. And so he turned to his desk, and he began his reply which was to become one of the most memorable editorials in newspaper history.

Church married shortly after the editorial appeared. He died in April, 1906, leaving no children.

Virginia O’Hanlon went on to graduate from Hunter College with a Bachelor of Arts degree at age 21. The following year she received her Master’s from Columbia, and in 1912 she began teaching in the New York City school system, later becoming a principal. After 47 years, she retired as an educator. Throughout her life she received a steady stream of mail about her Santa Claus letter, and to each reply she attached an attractive printed copy of the Church editorial. Virginia O’Hanlon Douglas died on May 13, 1971, at the age of 81, in a nursing home in Valatie, N.Y.

(Background information gleaned from the "Newseum" website and other sources.)

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Best to all,

Lloyd

A Christmas Story (for Lorelei)

2004-12-09T20:58:00.003-06:00

"Hey, were you born in a barn!?!"

Often a note of lite sarcasm serving as a reminder to the last person in that they forgot to close an outside door, especially during cold weather. People who grew up in the upper Midwest are most familiar with this little rebuke .

But somehow, as I was growing, the idea of being born or living in a barn was at one time something quite appealing.

While I've seen marvelously renovated barns turned into homes, barns in their original form have always had a greater appeal. Ever since childhood they have been a place of mystery, simplicity, strength and structure. And a typical Midwestern dairy barn is a place that holds warmth in the winter and can be cool in the summer.

For me, the single most inviting sight during a Wisconsin winter is a dairy barn at milking time. So much so, that when I travel during that magic hour when the sun is hinting its morning return, about to throw back the blanket of darkness as the light turns from a cool blue to a warm gold, I will happen upon a barn illuminated from the inside and instinctively stop and grab a camera. And on those rare occasions when I am sans camera, I'll still stop across the roadway and see that an often lone farmer or herds person has just thrown a switch turning the big common yet unique structure into a lantern.

During a winter morning before first light, that golden illumination throws beams out the lower level windows, like buttresses of light that brace on the crisp surface of surrounding snow. The simplicity and contentment of bovines housed within is shared along with the heat generated, shared as they telegraph an equally simple excitement at the start of a new day. They know that food is on the way, along with the other needs provided by their human's attention. Yet they have slept soundly without worry that those daily needs will be met, because the barn represents home.

For a decade we lived on a farm west of Watertown,Wisconsin and started a commercial dairy goat operation. You may have read about my early training in music that stressed opera. As it happened the area in that field proving my favorite style turned out to be Bel Canto opera. So it seemed the name Bel Canto Farm was appropriate.

A foundation herd of registered French Alpine Dairy Goats grew to be a comfortable, if not substantial, operation providing milk to a French cheese firm that had established itself near Watertown, because of Wisconsin's dairy state reputation.

And our young family grew. First moving there with our four-year-old son, our two daughters arrived during the decade we lived on Bel Canto Farm.

It was a time of learning and excitement for everyone, and a great time to be a dad. With mom working off farm, dad had the joy of raising both two legged and four legged kids. While a Bucolic nature pervaded the experience overall, three two-legged kids and often more than 80 four-legged kids all frequently wanting to eat at the same time provided some feats of multitasking.

And like any dairy farm, the work was seven days a week year round.

It occurred to me that many farmers begin chores early, not only necessarily to be able to use the time when there is daylight to the fullest measure, but also as a built in oasis before unknown storms move across the day's landscape.

Moving to the farm after having traveled a good portion of the planet, the appeal of a lit barn returned to me. It also occurred to me that an unlit barn was a little less appealing at 4:30 a.m. on a given Wisconsin February morning, so it didn't take long for me to put the lights on a timer set to go on at 4:20 in the morning.

One could think of this time of day - rising, dressing, and heading across a farm yard before daylight - as a lonely commute. But there is a joy in heading out as routine is turned into ritual, and the excitement of the pending day is as simple as that enjoyed by your livestock.

Clad in layers, gloved and capped you pull the door shut behind you, and exhale the air acquired within the house into a great cloud of vapor as you breath hits the clear air. Your next breath is the crisp unspoiled air of a new day before anyone else has had a chance to sample it.

You look up at what will be a cloudless sky. Perseus, Orion, Ursa Major and Ursa Minor greet you in a new position as those constellations perform their annual dance around Polaris. Stepping off on your daily journey from house to barn, the only things you hear are the crunching of crisp cold snow under your boots along with the sound each time you inhale and exhale.

The illuminated barn is like a guiding star, and while family is left behind at the house, there is a singular simple warmth that draws me to the barn. Under any other circumstances one would call a job that takes a person from a warm bed out into sometimes bitter cold weather before daylight to face the mechanical, structural or veterinary unknowns that lay ahead daily a potentially miserable experience.

But as Emerson said, "I like the silent church before the service begins, better than any preaching."

In an almost monastic nature it became a daily procession to a sense of purpose by working in the foundation elements unchanged for centuries. It was a matter of facing each day as a 'shepherd' of sorts, and realizing at some point how factual the formerly symbolic language was when speaking of that line of work in Psalms, the New Testament or even Heidi. It was a situation where an entire flock or herd is faithfully dependent.

Upon arrival in a barn each morning a farmer's intuition often tells immediately if something is different. Even before seeing what it may be, I could tell if new livestock offspring had arrived during the night, or a nervous yet faithful greeting would telegraph a problem such as an illness or injury.

Settling into what grew from routine into ritual, one day during the trip 'out to the barn,' without any provocation, I started humming the old Shaker hymn "Simple Gifts". (I don't have a Shaker background, but it is a familiar tune.) Shortly the words returned to me:

'Tis the gift to be simple,
'tis the gift to be free,
'tis the gift to come down where you ought to be.
And when we find ourselves in the place just right,
't will be in the valley of love and delight.

When true simplicity is gained,
to bow and to bend we shan't be ashamed.
To turn, turn will be our delight,
'Til by turning, turning we come round right.

There is a legend in parts of the western world that says at midnight on Christmas Eve animals are given human voice, because those animals present at the birth of Jesus were briefly given this gift to praise the new hope of the world. It's a nice legend, but I suspect it may have had something early on to do with getting younger members of farm families out to do chores the night before a holiday.

One Christmas Eve on our farm - no the animals did NOT speak - was a greater than usual learning experience. But that would be after church. It was an otherwise normal holiday as we were on our way to a Christmas Eve church service. As usual the obligations that church musicians have during the season, coupled with getting three children dressed and everyone out the door on time could be a hectic trial.

Upon our return, as the car swung into the driveway we noticed that someone had left the barn lights on after the evening milking.

After getting the children into the house, to bed and to sleep with all the excitement inherent to Christmas Eve, I volunteered to head to the barn to shut off the lights and to take that ubiquitous opportunity to 'check on things' one last time.

Heading out, the glowing warm light emanating from the barn was counter to the darkness that surrounded it and seemingly the whole world. But the surrounding snow seemed to emit a bluish glow from underneath, and as only this night of the year can provide, there was anticipation in the air that made the trip out to the old structure particularly welcoming.

Crunching through the snow until I stepped into its light, I immediately knew it was one of those moments when something was 'different.' I looked over the two loafing areas and noticed a group of old herd members huddled with their attention riveted directly below a hay feeding rack.

Unlatching the gate, I went over to see what was drawing their attention. Walking past others that didn't really acknowledge me, knowing it was too early for the next milking, they stayed comfortable in their carefully arranged mounds of straw. At most, one or two turned their heads toward me, eyes still shut, then as an afterthought started chewing their cud to an easy rhythm.

Approaching the group on their feet, I noticed that it was a group of the herd's old moms who were helping to clean up a newborn kid. Its mom was in the process of delivering the newborn's twin.

The first one was soaking up the attention of the half-dozen midwives as they licked it encouraging the kid to stand on its spindly legs. I walked back across the loafing pen, through the gate and into the milking parlor. I took off my jacket and laid my suit coat over a rail - still dressed from the earlier church service - I loosened my tie and rolled up my sleeves before grabbing a couple of clean old towels and heading back into the loafing pen.

I made it back just in time to catch the second twin and get it dried off and warmed up as soon as possible.

The midwife goats tried to push me out of the way, both out of curiosity and to remind me that those ruminants had been having babies for centuries without any help from humans. Satisfied that I'd done my best to get the twin off to a good start, I moved out of the way as the old moms moved in to inspect my work and again encourage the little new life to get on its feet.

At the sound of the first diminutive bleat the new mom was on her feet, ready for maternal duties and to show off the new family members to all of the aunts. I stood back, using the second towel to wipe off my hands and arms, and smiled at the scene. We went through it nearly 100 times annually, but it was still special.

The herd members didn't talk that Christmas Eve, in fact the majority didn't even wake up. But those that were awake acknowledging a natural instinct, along with this shepherd of the group, held a simple celebration with this early surprise.

Returning to the milking parlor and on to the milkhouse, I washed up and dried off, rolled my sleeves back down and buttoned the cuffs. After putting on my suit coat and winter jacket I went back out and leaned on the gate looking out at the loafing area as things began to settle back to a sense of normalcy.

The midwives had returned to a spot to sleep, each scraping some straw into some comfortable fluff before one by one they went down on their knees and their back half following, gently landing as they let out a sigh combined with a comforting moan. In a short while their eyes closed and in an almost hypnotic manner they began chewing their cud. The new twins, dry, soft and clean had enjoyed their first meal and were sleeping in the semicircle formed as mom's body and neck stretched around them. She appeared to enjoy a satisfied but alert and well deserved sleep.

I felt particularly privileged to be a part of the celebration in this oasis of light amid the darkness. It was joy in its basic and simplest form. The event happened in the middle of the night, and it was completely unannounced. But now the crisp air filled with the combined smells of good leafy hay and the earthy smells of the barn, as it emitted light out to make absent the immediate shadows, all had a basic energy. An energy that serves as that intermittent reminder that we are all given an adventure that is called life, and during that adventure the simplest moments can be the most exciting and rewarding.

It is something I never became glib or jaded about. A new life -- a kid, a lamb, a calf -- was always something to celebrate, especially under circumstances of such simple beauty. I think it may have been at that point that it became evident the significance of the beginnings of the Christian faith.

Earlier that evening my family and I took part in a very human traditional form of Christianity's celebration of its founder's birth. During that event we sang and played music written by some of history's greatest composers. We all dressed up, and the building was decorated, even though the building is always decorated with symbols of the faith that have developed over the centuries. Icons, paintings and statues have all been the result of artists inspired by faith.

But it dawned on me on that late Christmas Eve that all of the inspired music and art in the ensuing years came in an effort by those artists to express anticipation, excitement and joy of the promise and hope that child was bringing to the world. It is so strong an expression that their talent was inspired to create music played in the largest cathedrals, and art that is preserved in the world's museums, and over the span of time still honors the event and enhances the human condition.

Yet a celebration in that simple warm light amid the darkness made more sense, in the exhilarating crisp air perfumed with the natural scents of life's foundations. It is perfectly logical that the simplicity of this environment was likely similar to the birth place of the one who promised to be the Prince of Peace, a leader destined to feed the poor and heal the sick, bringing the message "Peace on Earth and Goodwill Toward All Men." Such a new life would have to be born under these conditions. Conditions not 'like' the common people, but in humble conditions below the least of us and providing a warm unifying light for the world.

And that light is not exclusive, because the anticipation of good is the Spirit shared by believers of a multitude of faiths and traditions.

As I turned off the barn lights, and, remembering how I'd forgotten to douse them the last time I left, I said under my breath, "What? Were you born in a barn, Lloyd?"

I grinned as I headed up to the house.

There was home, where my family was sleeping briefly before that sleep which can no longer contain the excitement of Christmas morning. I sauntered to the house satisfied that I knew why a common barn illuminated at night had been so appealing all my life.

Stomping off some snow in the warmth of the old farmhouse, I took off my jackets, then walked through the house, poking my head in on each of our children. (I found that I often did this to assure myself that these young energy generators actually did sleep.) But opening the doors to their rooms and hearing their soft breathing rhythm was the end of 'Daddy Duty' for the day.

In our room, I sat on my side of the bed. A muffled whisper emerged from my wife. "Everything okay in the barn?"

"No problems - two new kids," I whispered back.

After it sank in through the veil of sleep, she mumbled back, "Oh, an early gift..."

Rolling under the blankets, sighing the last breath of the day, I quietly exhaled - "Yep...Merry Christmas."

# # #

Best to all,

Lloyd

War Prayer by Mark Twain

2004-12-04T17:06:00.000-06:00

The War Prayer
by Mark Twain

It was a time of great and exalting excitement.

The country was up in arms, the war was on, in every breast burned the holy fire of patriotism; the drums were beating, the bands playing, the toy pistols popping, the bunched firecrackers hissing and spluttering; on every hand and far down the receding and fading spread of roofs and balconies a fluttering wilderness of flags flashed in the sun; daily the young volunteers marched down the wide avenue gay and fine in their new uniforms, the proud fathers and mothers and sisters and sweethearts cheering them with voices choked with happy emotion as they swung by; nightly the packed mass meetings listened, panting, to patriot oratory which stirred the deepest deeps of their hearts, and which they interrupted at briefest intervals with cyclones of applause, the tears running down their cheeks the while; in the churches the pastors preached devotion to flag and country, and invoked the God of Battles beseeching His aid in our good cause in outpourings of fervid eloquence which moved every listener. It was indeed a glad and gracious time, and the half dozen rash spirits that ventured to disapprove of the war and cast a doubt upon its righteousness straightway got such a stern and angry warning that for their personal safety's sake they quickly shrank out of sight and offended no more in that way.

Sunday morning came -- next day the battalions would leave for the front; the church was filled; the volunteers were there, their young faces alight with martial dreams -- visions of the stern advance, the gathering momentum, the rushing charge, the flashing sabers, the flight of the foe, the tumult, the enveloping smoke, the fierce pursuit, the surrender! Then home from the war, bronzed heroes, welcomed, adored, submerged in golden seas of glory! With the volunteers sat their dear ones, proud, happy, and envied by the neighbors and friends who had no sons and brothers to send forth to the field of honor, there to win for the flag, or, failing, die the noblest of noble deaths. The service proceeded; a war chapter from the Old Testament was read; the first prayer was said; it was followed by an organ burst that shook the building, and with one impulse the house rose, with glowing eyes and beating hearts, and poured out that tremendous invocation

God the all-terrible!

Thou who ordainest!

Thunder thy clarion

and lightning thy sword!

Then came the "long" prayer. None could remember the like of it for passionate pleading and moving and beautiful language. The burden of its supplication was, that an ever-merciful and benignant Father of us all would watch over our noble young soldiers, and aid, comfort, and encourage them in their patriotic work; bless them, shield them in the day of battle and the hour of peril, bear them in His mighty hand, make them strong and confident, invincible in the bloody onset; help them to crush the foe, grant to them and to their flag and country imperishable honor and glory --

An aged stranger entered and moved with slow and noiseless step up the main aisle, his eyes fixed upon the minister, his long body clothed in a robe that reached to his feet, his head bare, his white hair descending in a frothy cataract to his shoulders, his seamy face unnaturally pale, pale even to ghastliness. With all eyes following him and wondering, he made his silent way; without pausing, he ascended to the preacher's side and stood there waiting. With shut lids the preacher, unconscious of his presence, continued with his moving prayer, and at last finished it with the words, uttered in fervent appeal, "Bless our arms, grant us the victory, O Lord our God, Father and Protector of our land and flag!"

The stranger touched his arm, motioned him to step aside -- which the startled minister did -- and took his place. During some moments he surveyed the spellbound audience with solemn eyes, in which burned an uncanny light; then in a deep voice he said:

"I come from the Throne -- bearing a message from Almighty God!" The words smote the house with a shock; if the stranger perceived it he gave no attention. "He has heard the prayer of His servant your shepherd, and will grant it if such shall be your desire after I, His messenger, shall have explained to you its import -- that is to say, its full import. For it is like unto many of the prayers of men, in that it asks for more than he who utters it is aware of -- except he pause and think.

"God's servant and yours has prayed his prayer. Has he paused and taken thought? Is it one prayer? No, it is two -- one uttered, the other not. Both have reached the ear of Him Who heareth all supplications, the spoken and the unspoken. Ponder this -- keep it in mind. If you would beseech a blessing upon yourself, beware! lest without intent you invoke a curse upon a neighbor at the same time. If you pray for the blessing of rain upon your crop which needs it, by that act you are possibly praying for a curse upon some neighbor's crop which may not need rain and can be injured by it.

"You have heard your servant's prayer -- the uttered part of it. I am commissioned of God to put into words the other part of it -- that part which the pastor -- and also you in your hearts -- fervently prayed silently. And ignorantly and unthinkingly? God grant that it was so! You heard these words: 'Grant us the victory, O Lord our God!' That is sufficient. the whole of the uttered prayer is compact into those pregnant words. Elaborations were not necessary. When you have prayed for victory you have prayed for many unmentioned results which follow victory -- must follow it, cannot help but follow it. Upon the listening spirit of God fell also the unspoken part of the prayer. He commandeth me to put it into words. Listen!

"O Lord our Father, our young patriots, idols of our hearts, go forth to battle -- be Thou near them! With them -- in spirit -- we also go forth from the sweet peace of our beloved firesides to smite the foe.

O Lord our God,

Help us to tear their soldiers to bloody shreds with our shells;

Help us to cover their smiling fields with the pale forms of their patriot dead;

Help us to drown the thunder of the guns with the shrieks of their wounded, writhing in pain;

Help us to lay waste their humble homes with a hurricane of fire;

Help us to wring the hearts of their unoffending widows with unavailing grief;

Help us to turn them out roofless with little children to wander unfriended the wastes of their desolated land in rags and hunger and thirst,

Sports of the sun flames of summer and the icy winds of winter,

Broken in spirit,

Worn with travail,

Imploring Thee for the refuge of the grave and denied it –

For our sakes who adore Thee, Lord,

Blast their hopes,

Blight their lives,

Protract their bitter pilgrimage,

Make heavy their steps,

Water their way with their tears,

Stain the white snow with the blood of their wounded feet!

We ask it, in the spirit of love,

Of Him Who is the Source of Love, and Who is the ever-faithful refuge and friend of all that are sore beset and seek His aid with humble and contrite hearts.

Amen."

[After a pause.]

"Ye have prayed it; if ye still desire it, speak! -- The messenger of the Most High waits!"

It was believed afterward that the man was a lunatic, because there was no sense in what he said.

___________________________________________________________________
Historical note:
"To Dan Beard, who dropped in to see him, Clemens read the 'War Prayer,' stating that he had read it to his daughter Jean, and others, who had told him he must not print it, for it would be regarded as sacrilege.

'Still, you are going to publish it, are you not?'

Clemens, pacing up and down the room in his dressing-gown and slippers, shook his head.

'No,' he said, 'I have told the whole truth in that, and only dead mean can tell the truth in this world. It can be published after I am dead.'"

Albert Bigelow Paine, Mark Twain, A Biography (Harper & Brothers, 1912).

"War Prayer" and quotation from Paine's biography are from Mark Twain, The War Prayer (Harper & Row, 1971).

Editors brief note

2004-11-29T18:04:00.000-06:00

Note: Often readers send email messages to the editor which include comments that could be beneficial to all of the Fieldtrip readers. All comments are welcome, and input is appreciated. Fieldtrips also features a reader comment opportunity at the end of each 'blog' message. You are welcome to leave a message there as well. One aspect of the end-of-blog comment section is the ability to leave a comment anonymously. When that option is chosen, even the editor is prevented from knowing the identity of the comment author. Readers are encouraged to use any of these options.

Regards,
Lloyd

Giving thanks IS good for you

2004-11-29T15:42:00.008-06:00

"Happiness cannot be traveled to, owned, earned, worn or consumed. Happiness is the spiritual experience of living every minute with love, grace and gratitude." --Denis Waitley

A growing number of studies indicate that saying 'thank you' or expressing gratitude otherwise is good for your health.

Almost every foreign language class offered has a common thread beyond declension and verb forms, and that common thread is courtesy. Traveling around the world, in almost every locale basic please and thank you is nearly a second nature practice.

But for some reason this is less likely the case when we learn our own language. And even though there is a national holiday dedicated to the idea of giving thanks, it often ends up being a study in the glory of gluttony, a day of feast and football.

Gratitude: It's good for you

As it turns out, if actually taken as the Thanksgiving Day holiday's name implies, it can be a matter of public health. It could almost be part of a campaign, "Stop smoking, eat healthy foods, exercise and say thank you."

More and more studies are backing this up with evidence that expressing gratitude is good for your health and well being.

In an article Rx for life: Gratitude (click) Greg Easterbrook delineates:

* People who describe themselves as feeling grateful to others and either to God or to creation in general tend to have higher vitality and more optimism, suffer less stress, and experience fewer episodes of clinical depression than the population as a whole. These results hold even when researchers factor out such things as age, health, and income, equalizing for the fact that the young, the well-to-do, or the hale and hearty might have "more to be grateful for."

* Grateful people tend to be less materialistic than the population as a whole and to suffer less anxiety about status or the accumulation of possessions. Partly because of this, they are more likely to describe themselves as happy or satisfied in life.

* In an experiment with college students, those who kept a "gratitude journal," a weekly record of things they should feel grateful for, achieved better physical health, were more optimistic, exercised more regularly, and described themselves as happier than a control group of students who kept no journals but had the same overall measures of health, optimism, and exercise when the experiment began. (Researchers use frequency of exercise as a barometer for general well-being because it is an objective measure that links to subjective qualities; people who exercise three or more times per week tend to have better indicators of well-being, even when health conditions that affect the ability to exercise are factored out.)

* Grateful people are more spiritually aware and more likely to appreciate the interconnectedness of all life, regardless of whether they belong to specific religions.

It is becoming a major area of the study of psychology and the contributing factors to mental health.

In another article the at the American Communications Project, Gratitude Theory is discussed:

The results of the study indicated that daily gratitude exercises resulted in higher reported levels of alertness, enthusiasm, determination, optimism and energy. Additionally, the gratitude group experienced less depression and stress, was more likely to help others, exercised more regularly and made more progress toward personal goals. According to the findings, people who feel grateful are also more likely to feel loved. McCollough and Emmons also noted that gratitude encouraged a positive cycle of reciprocal kindness among people since one act of gratitude encourages another.

It is interesting to note that psychology really doesn't focus on peoples' problems until it is in a clinical setting. The rest of the field is analytical and studies what is in human behavior -- that people generally are designed to know satisfaction and to be happy.

A key to happiness

Being thankful is a key to happiness, another area of expanded psychological study. A UC Davis study by Robert Emmons cites evidence that gratitude contributes to both a higher level of happiness, but also a greater sense of physical well being.

The study itemizes characteristics of people who incorporate a sense of gratitude into their lives:

* Well-Being: Grateful people report higher levels of positive emotions, life satisfaction, vitality, optimism and lower levels of depression and stress. The disposition toward gratitude appears to enhance pleasant feeling states more than it diminishes unpleasant emotions. Grateful people do not deny or ignore the negative aspects of life.

* Prosociality: People with a strong disposition toward gratitude have the capacity to be empathic and to take the perspective of others. They are rated as more generous and more helpful by people in their social networks (McCullough, Emmons, & Tsang, 2002).

* Spirituality: Those who regularly attend religious services and engage in religious activities such as prayer reading religious material score are more likely to be grateful. Grateful people are more likely to acknowledge a belief in the interconnectedness of all life and a commitment to and responsibility to others (McCullough et. al., 2002).

* Materialism: Grateful individuals place less importance on material goods; they are less likely to judge their own and others success in terms of possessions accumulated; they are less envious of wealthy persons; and are more likely to share their possessions with others relative to less grateful pesrons.

Many of the techniques used by researchers and psychologists include keeping a gratitude journal, which one speculates is just a way of getting people in the habit of having this frame of mind. One may be able to regain the habit of gratitude in a variety of ways.

Benefit to all

An interesting factor in expressing gratitude is that it is mutually beneficial. The idea of expressing anything implies that one is giving something away, and that can be a concept adverse to many. But in this case a commodity is given or shared where both members of the transaction benefit.

Seems like a good deal.

Thanks to all,

Lloyd

FFA follow-up

2004-11-16T14:54:00.000-06:00

Ah, when constabulary duty's to be done, to be done,
A policeman's lot is not a n'appy one, n'appy one.
-From Pirates of Penzance
by Gilbert and Sullivan

There are times when these lines from the G&S comic operetta could very well have been written about writers or journalists.

Something like:

When journalistic duty's to be done, to be done,
A reporter's lot is not a n'appy one, n'appy one.

The vast majority of writing and shooting photos for readers is satisfiying, but every once in a while a straw is thrown on the payload that just snaps ones camel.

For those of you just getting here, back up one blog to
Wisconsin State FFA officers minus three (click)
This one refers to that one.

Seemingly, this was a straight forward piece of news. Having started in Wisconsin as an ag journalist, previous contacts in ag publications were a consideration in what was possibly significant news. Likewise, it was of interest to local mainstream news, because it involved local individuals.

News people develop a thick skin about many matters. One day we are doing a feature about a thimble collection, but on that same day may have to cover a fatal traffic accident, and be on the scene for both. No matter, because with some warning one can adjust a frame of thought to be prepared for both.

We strive for objectivity, but are still human. So reporters strive for complete objectivity, while balance can indeed be maintained. Still, would we want a fourth estate that was not human? Otherwise there would be little concern over the poignant efforts of the human condition, nor would journalists still in the field care about sharing inhumane conditions in various parts of the world.

News writers are merely the messenger, but it appears that simplistic thought has started to return to the "kill the messenger" mentality.

The piece referring to a shakeup in the Wisconsin FFA state officer team was written weeks after the situation emerged. Journalistic integrity put a hold on anything being written about the matter until there was a final outcome. Aware of the developing situation, the filter "is it news?" made it an easy bit of information to step away from.

When the final outcome surfaced the answer to the filtering question became an easy and explicit "Yes."

You may see journalists at meetings or public events and note that they are working, but most forget that gathering the data is about one-third of the work. After everyone else has left, people in the media are charged with doing follow-up homework and turning hours of talk into 500, 800, 1000 or more words. This is usually done under the thumb of a deadline.

It is easy to become impervious to comments or corrections, or even having a piece tossed out or torn up - and that can just be an editor's reaction. Commentary, correction and criticism of one's work is not a problem, because it must pass quality assessments that any product is subject to.

But, like any other position, personal attacks because one doesn't like the product are the journalistic equivalent of hitting below the belt in pugilistic terms

People should be encouraged to comment on issues with a printed piece, especially if there are legitimate inaccuracies. This is a luxury of community news - those who gather and report the news will be available in the future and have an accountability incentive to their subjects and their readers.

But there really is no excuse or reason for attacking a reporter personally because he/she wrote something an individual considers bad news.

Simply put:

The reporter can't help it if you simply don't like the news!

And such is the case with the recent news of the FFA state officer team.

There are times when it is better to get something out in a timely manner with fresh information before time can dilute a story. And of course if news sits, it really is no longer news. Note that the time stamp on the piece is shortly after 4 a.m.

After completing the piece, various news outlets were notified of the information on a 'take-it-or-leave-it' basis. All expressed their gratitude for the info, but said it is likely they'd make their own story, using this blog as an original source.

Monday a DPI representative sent an email that attacked the reporter and made a judgement on the motives for writing the piece. It was again, one of those times when the attack was on the person and not the work. Such actions can be hurtful and leave an impression that is slow to depart.

Email from DPI (click)

The response speaks for itself:

Response to DPI letter (click)

The next morning the official press release came attached to a subsequent empty email:

Offical press release

The well written press release created a sense of bewilderment, because the original article said essentially the same thing as the press release.

Speculation remains over where the article is inaccurate enough to be considered a seditious act against the FFA.

One possibility is a reference in the article that Robert's Rules were not followed. It was hard to believe as it was written because the organization as a whole excels in procedure. But four sources present at the event and an independent concurred that according to Robert's, to deny the rights of a member, or to dismiss someone in a "Trial of a Society Member," a two-thirds vote is required. Not to further pick nits, but this also almost requires the presiding officer to divulge the vote count. So the initial conflict to question was that Robert's would be used, BUT majority would determine.

Another point that may deserve clarification is the difference between resignation and dismissal. This was a point of mutual confusion, but in a situation where a governing body determines if you should or will resign, is it not tantamount to a dismissal? Additionally, the FFA policy specifically uses the word dismissal.

A possible area of more speculation has since emerged. In addition to admirably arguing on behalf of his colleagues, the third officer to resign first stated that he too had committed an infraction that warranted dismissal. None of my sources divulged specific information beyond the fact that he had resigned.

Reiterating a support for FFA, writing the article was a difficult task where absolute diligence was used to neither favor nor detract.

Instead of complaining about any specific discrepancies in the article, the letter sought decidedly to figuratively hit below the belt. Among the personally demeaning statements used by a person of authority in this situation was the explicit inference that there was a motive to see the demise of an important and fine organization. Nothing could be further from the truth, thereby multiplying the insult.

# # #
Lloyd

Wisconsin state FFA officers minus three

2004-11-11T04:07:00.000-06:00

The Wisconsin state FFA officer team is without a treasurer, a sentinel and a vice president after a special closed session meeting of the state FFA executive board in Mauston Wednesday. The board dismissed two of the state officers, and a third resigned.

During a special closed session, the state FFA executive board dismissed sentinel Jake Cramer of Johnson Creek and vice president Kristian Schmalzer of Mazomanie from the team of officers. The state FFA executive board consists of the officers, their home advisors along with ex-officio members Cheryl Zimmerman, executive director of the FFA center in Spencer, and Dean Gagnon ag education consultant with the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction.

Immediately after the meeting treasurer Josh Duley of Merrill resigned.

The state FFA officer team is made up of FFA members, most of whom are sophomores and juniors in college, who often take off a year from school to serve at the state level. They are duly elected by members of their section, one of the ten geographical divisions in the Wisconsin FFA organization. The organization has more than 16,000 members statwide.

The special meeting was called after Cramer and Schmalzer were accused of drinking at a private function near the University of Wisconsin River Falls in mid October. State officers are required to sign acknowledgement of a policy for state officers that disallows alcohol use during their year as state officers.

The policy signed by each state officer lists reasons for dismissal. One of them states:

Any use of alcohol, and/or supply of alcohol to members or others. State FFA officerswill forego all alcohol while involved in official or unofficial FFA activities from the day the officer is elected until he/she installs a new state officer. This means 24 hours a day,
7 days a week for 365 days. This means anywhere within the United States and any International travel.

The policy does not differentiate between 'unofficial FFA activities' and non-FFA activities.

Later in October, the afternoon before the Wisconsin FFA officer team was to travel to the national FFA convention in Lousiville, KY, Zimmerman called Cramer and Schmalzer to inform them she had learned of the infraction. Zimmerman notified the two that they were on suspension, preventing them from accompanying their fellow officers to the convention. She also instructed Cramer and Schmalzer to email a letter explaining why they weren't a part of the trip, and gave them explicit instructions not to send the message to their colleagues. The FFA officer team was notified of the reason for their absence after their arrival in Louisville.

Shortly after their letters arrived Gagnon supported the decisions of the two officers in question by communicating via a return email and concluding:

I am very pleased that you admitted your misjudgment and did not attempt to deny your actions. That is a sign of a strong character.

After returning from the convention Zimmerman communicated with Cramer and Schmalzer informing them she had made appointments for them each to meet separately with Gagnon at the DPI office on November 4.

Zimmerman did not notify the officers of the nature of the appointment. She too was present at the meetings. Upon their arrival on November 4, Cramer and Schmalzer were asked to sign pre-written resignations.

Both Cramer and Schmalzer refused to sign the resignations, and their decisions were supported by their home advisors Ed Bielinski, FFA advisor and ag instructor at Johnson Creek Schools, and Kim Houser, FFA Advisor and ag instructor at Wisconsin Heights High School.

Cramer cited lack of due process as his reason for refusing to sign. Additionally, both Cramer and Schmalzer noted that they were caught off-guard by the resignation requests. Neither of them, however denied the policy infraction, and remained apologetic for the lapse in judgment.

Looking into the state officer policy, directly after the behavior stipulations the language states:

If any of the above violations occur, the state officer or officers will be asked to appear before the entireState FFA Executive Board to give a complete explanation of the incident which occurred. The StateFFA Executive Board will then rule on a dismissal of the officer or officers involved.

While allowed to restate their admission, Cramer and Schmalzer were not allowed to hear or be part of debate on the matter.

"We were told to stay out in the hallway," Cramer said, explaining that it was all in closed session and that they were excluded.

A communique setting the time for the special executive board meeting noted that Roberts Rules would be the parliamentary authority, but many attending maintain that the rules weren't adhered to. Again, members of the team were instructed not to communicate with each other about the matter, even though administrative personnel maintained communication.

Bielinski noted procedure barely followed a form of order pointing out more than one discrepency. The Johnson Creek Agriculture instuctor has coached parliamentary procedure teams, many to the state level competition. He stated that advisors who couldn't attend the special meeting were called and asked to vote even though they weren't present for debate. Additionally the vote count was not disclosed to those in attendance except to reveal that the two members had been dimissed.

Discouraged with the outcome, and previously supportive of his colleagues, Josh Duley of Merrill resigned his office.

In an earlier communication Duley made a several pleas on behalf of Cramer and Schmalzer.

"You likened your choice to not let them attend the National Convention off of the WIAA sports book. When an athlete breaks the code of conduct they are asked to miss the next game," he wrote to Zimmerman and Gagnon. "I urge you to look at Jake and Kristi's passion and and dedication to the organization."

Duley noted that it should be a time to celebrate, because the National FFA President is from Wisconsin.

"Firing two FFA state officers will definitely not add to the positive image of the FFA," Duley added.

Currently, plans are for the remaining eight officers to finish the year. The state FFA geographically divides the state of Wisconsin into 10 sections, with each officer representing their section and holding state office. The president is elected from the previous year's team of officers. Each officer is elected through an interview process, then elected by FFA members from their section.

Advisors from each officer's home chapter host and arrange for section workshops and training sessions. Their responsibilities in light of the current situation is not defined.

According to Zimmerman, in the 70 plus year history of the state FFA organization, this is the first time state officers have been caught or admitted to this level offense.
# # #

(NOTE:Contacts - feel free to verify.)

Dean Gagnon - DPI - 608.267.9255

Cheryl Zimmerman - FFA Center - 715.659.4807

Ed Bielinski -
FFA advisor Johnson Creek Schools - 920.699.3481school

Kim Houser -FFA advisor Wisconsin Heights High School -608.767.2586

Jake Cramer - cell 920.219.1272

Kristian Schmalzer - 608.795.9869

Losing sight of the basics

2004-11-03T17:46:00.000-06:00

Is our government a three legged
or one legged stool?

In the ferver of a political campaign one can become blind to the basics. In fact there were times during the most recent political contests, on both sides, when a pervading need to win superseded the need for studious reasoning to back up a vote.

That kind of thought is acceptable during the Super Bowl game, but when you are one of the electorate populace deciding the future of the nation, and possibly the planet, voting one way without studied reflection is like taking a side based on the color of the uniform.

It is not difficult to accept the outcome of an election. In many ways, no matter what the outcome it is a reason to celebrate. Still the outcome of the most recent elections should be of concern to everyone, not necessarily because of a difference in political ideology, but because it runs against proven models of success found in social, business, scientific and environmental settings.

In nature it is essential that a variety of animals and organisms exist to give a base to the environment. Adding too many of one species or removing too many of another makes the system unstable. Conditions such as these may be the cause for the predominance of Chronic Wasting Disease among the deer population, as an example.

Communities must also be diverse to remain dynamic and viable. A community with nothing but dwellings is little more than modern day ghost town, and doesn't promote the social or economic needs of a healthy municipality anymore than a city that is made up of a variety of factories, two homes and nothing else. That mix or lack of mix would more than likely be called an industrial park.

In business and finance, among the basic tenants is the need to remain diverse in order to stay flexible and to keep options open, so that all ones' eggs do not end up in the same basket.

Recently philanthropist George Soros gave a talk at the National Press Club. He said:

An open society such as ours is based on the recognition that an understanding of reality is inherently imperfect.

Nobody is in possession of the ultimate truth.

As the philosopher Karl Popper has shown, 'The ultimate truth is not attainable even in science. All theories are subject to testing and the process of replacing old theories with new ones never ends.'

Faith plays an important role in an open society. Exactly because our understanding is imperfect, we can't base our decisions on knowledge alone. We need to rely on belief - religious or otherwise - to help us make a decision.

But we must remain open to the possibility that we may be wrong so that we can correct our mistakes. Otherwise we are bound to be wrong.

The outcome of the recent election concentrated on the presidency. While the choice was satisfactory to some and unacceptable to others a larger concern exists.

We now have a national government in the control of one party - the legislative, the executive and the judiciary - all three branches (albeit the judiciary is supposed to be impartial). It doesn't matter which party it is, this is a situation that by all models is unstable. This is a situation that is very dangerous, because, like the models in nature, sociology and finance, it lacks diversity. It is an imbalance that lacks stability like a one legged milking stool. It is one that will be less likely to promote discourse and render creative solutions.

This leaves us, their collective boss, to remain vigilant. To insist on open debate, and above board decision making. We need to make sure that they do not get too comfortable, and we need to remind them constantly that their work should result in a collective wisdom and NOT the lowest common denominator.

Even debating among colleagues from the same party '... they must remain open to the possibility that they may be wrong, so they can correct their mistakes. Otherwise, they are bound to be wrong.' And we must be vocal and immediate in pointing out those possibilities.

Best to all,

Lloyd

Don't mess with this piece of real estate

2004-10-27T22:52:00.000-05:00

Truman leaves a voting booth
the day of the 1948 elections.

Once a government is committed to the principle of silencing the voice of opposition, it has only one way to go, and that is down the path of increasingly repressive measures, until it becomes a source of terror to all its citizens and creates a country where everyone lives in fear.
--Harry S Truman, August 8, 1950

The 33rd President of the United States also said that the voting booth is the most valuable piece of real estate in the nation, and that if it is sold then likely the nation will cease to exist.

It is unfortunate that underhanded events have happened in several of the nation's campaigns over time. Even if it yielded a win for the perpetrators, the behavior of an administration during a term would demonstrate whether they would win a subsequent election.

For most parts of the nation this has been the safety net, because the citizens and politicians have given the voting booth, the polling place and the a ballot box a near sacred status.

Throughout history candidates have simply encouraged people to vote, even without telling followers to vote specifically for them, knowing that the secret ballot with one vote per person has been the single most important right of a US citizen. In many ways it is what defines a US citizen as different from being a member of any other country.

During the 2000 national elections questions arose over which candidate won. As it turned out, even the side that won admits that the number of popular votes went to the opposition. But from the supreme court, wherein no one in the majority decision would put their name to a majority opinion, came a faceless decision in a 5 to 4 vote. (The dissenters, however had no fear of writing an opinion.)

While we have questioned the Electoral College many times as the process for deciding presidential elections during the past couple centuries, in 2000 we accepted the results of the vote as a matter of faith. This faith was held with the assumption and assumed knowledge that in four years we'd have another chance to cast our ballots.

We knew that in four years, as in every other election cycle, that if there were problems or if there was an opportunity to change the management of this nation for the better, we the electorate would be able to cast our ballots as we always have and know that the wisdom of a majority would be respected as each ballot would be given equal weight, equal importance and respected as a revered right.

In this nation we don't tamper with the US Mail, because it is a "Federal Offence" an important common knowledge that is a combination of mutual respect and security. Similarly, there is not a preponderance of counterfeiting of currency - even though today's design and printing technology would make attempts much easier.

So it has been with voting and the ballot box. Neighbors have respected each other when they knew a difference in political leanings, and if they wished to keep that difference confidential it was another form of mutual respect maintained by the voting booth and the secret ballot.

As this country has grown, history has corrected election improprieties in various regions. In most areas they serve as reminders that systems in this democracy work.

Following the flame of principle established by the nation's founding documents state, "...all men are created equal," the Voting Rights Act of 1965 with its subsequent revisions recognized that the last single descriptor of being a citizen -- the thing that makes one whole, to make all citizens whole -- was the unalienable right to vote without being impeded and with no differentiating qualification.

It was as if to say, "even if we can't help everyone's economic plight, even if we can't correct all social injustice, even if opportunities are not always equal, the single most important thing we can do is assure the right to vote to all, and protect that right by making the result of the plebiscite elective self expression so important that it is untouchable, and to do otherwise unthinkable."

I see in the near future a crisis approaching that unnerves me and causes me to tremble for the safety of my country. . . . Corporations have been enthroned, an era of corruption in high places will follow, and the money-power of the country will endeavor to prolong its reign by working upon the prejudices of the people until the wealth is aggregated in a few hands and the Republic is destroyed
------Abraham Lincoln

With days remaining before the next election, verified reports are emerging of tampering with voter registrations, ballots, the disposition of absentee ballots and challenging individual electors using or manufacturing false information about them.

THIS IS NOT A PARTISAN RANT! These are actions that should be abhorred equally by both sides, for the devaluation of one vote diminishes the rights of all, and threatens subsequent elections. While it is becoming apparent that one side is perpetrating these acts against fellow citizens, one would think the questions that arose over the last election would have current leaders being extra diligent at avoiding even the appearance of impropriety.

With current actions showing a blatant disregard for the rights of fellow American citizens, the basic principles of logic confirm the likelihood that the discrepancies in question during the last election were purposely executed. Now we have come to believe that all find the act of voting, and the handling of ballots as near sacred, while those who don't are taking advantage and manipulating the outcome.

Here are some examples:

- With voting underway in Florida, eyes turn that way as a list of felons developed to disallow voters was not being released. During the 2000 election, a similar list was developed and included thousands of names of people who had no prison or police record, preventing those named on the list from their right to vote.

Click: The Herald Tribune

- A campaign headquarters document in Florida outlines a plan to disrupt voting in certain districts.

Click: BBC News: Florida vote scandal feared

- Not all concerns are taking place in the south. In an effort to limit the number of newly registered voters from actually casting ballots, Milwaukee County official refused to print the estimated 260,000 ballots requested by city officials.

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

- This initial glitch was resolved after the Mayor, the Governor and the attorney general joined the debate, and Milwaukee County will now print the extra ballots required.

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

The latest hassle facing voters in the area include absentee ballots which come with a stamped self addressed envelope. But by accident one of the remote voters had the post office check to see if there was enough postage. Most voters will assume that the 37 cent stamp supplied is adequate to get their vote to their home polls. After checking, it turns out the return ballot need additional postage to bring the amount up to 60 cents for the USPS to deliver the ballot to where they can be counted.

-Journal Sentinel - Wrong postage is latest absentee ballot concern

- In Nevada, an organization promoted registration of voters, but subsequently discarded all the registrations affiliated with one of the parties keeping people who thought they had registered from being allowed to vote.

Constitution Center

- Back to Florida, where today, 58,000 absentee ballots were misplaced in transit to Tallahassee

Local Channel 10

- And Ohio has started with a variety of voter concerns, perpetuated by officials who are to serve all of the electorate.

Columbus Free Press

- Along with blatant devaluation of ballots, redistricting and simple but purposed changing of voting locations, votes are being accepted and denied randomly along with provisional ballots that allow people to be pacified but confused until the judiciary in one sweep destroys all pertinent ballots (as they have done in several areas) rendering thousands of ballots invalid, and sweeping away the common thread that makes all of those individuals citizens.

AP - The wrong polling place

And there are more being reported daily.

Although these reports deal predominantly with the workings of one political party over another, voters in both parties should be concerned. The parties ostensibly could be reversed, but it appears that the 2000 election behavior was just a rehearsal for more nefarious dealings by the current administration's party election worker's in 2004.

But everyone, no matter what their affiliation should be infuriated by those who would use a single ill-gotten vote to their advantage, let alone hundreds of thousands.

With friends in both political parties, I know no one who in good conscience would condone such behavior. Members of both parties whom I know believe in decency and a sense of fair play. They know and believe that even if they disagree with the opposition's plans that their vote is just as important as everyone else's, and respect an honestly represented true majority. They also know that after an interval of time they will have the opportunity again to cast votes in a scenario that celebrates the differences, debate, discourse and trusts

They understand that the ballot box and the voting booth is one of the freedoms that people through our nation's history have fought, sacrificed and died for, insuring that this little experiment in self government succeeds to be enhanced by the next generation.

Until recently we looked with some condescension on other countries that required independent international observers in order to insure a fair election. When watching reports about those countries, we thought of ourselves as being beyond that with systems that worked and a society that was civil and conducted fair elections. But now it would be as if we were looking in a mirror.

Best to all,

Lloyd
.

When a student learns it can be like...sailing

2004-10-15T16:12:00.000-05:00

File photo: Lloyd

There have been many opportunities to act as a teacher over the years. As a music/theatre major I later took on private students who were studying/playing 'cello and a few voice students. While several were a bit of a struggle - and the struggle was theirs - many were successes and they were kind enough to share their success; a source of great thrill for most teachers making up for the energies expended on the struggles.

Most recently I had the opportunity to be a teacher in an interesting environment. The story below could be called "What I did on my Summer Vacation." But it is more about how everyone gains when skills and knowledge are shared.

The majority of the summer of 2004 was filled with one of two activities.

First, I have to say that I was in the weird position of having to take vacation from my regular work in order to finish contract work on a couple of specific projects. Read that again: I had to take vacation time in order to get my work done. A situation that could have have been depressing if it weren't for my other distraction, sailing.

Saying farewell to sailing early in my marriage was an easy tradeoff considering the number of things my sweetheart has put up with over the past three decades. But the urge to harness the wind and slide across the water returned in earnest a few years ago.

It all came down to the fact that my wife was not a water person, and instead of it being a source of sporting stimulation, water activities were a source of terror. Of course, if I'd known that, I'd likely have made her first sailing experience all those years back, a little less exciting.

A series of guilt-laden ploys over a period of time a few years back finally yielded the "thumbs up" on acquiring a sailing vessel, and returning to the life on water that I had left when Gerald Ford was president.

Not wanting to push the issue, I pursued a clunky looking boat that looked safe with an appearance that likely put its designer to sleep. Shortly after starting the hunt, I came home from a Chicago area marina with a 22 foot South Coast cruiser that had been pulled out of its slip in Lake Michigan. It fit the formula perfectly, a clunky looking sloop on which everything was present and intact, with a hull color that screamed 1971 as if the Brady Bunch itself was expected to swim across her bow. With the vessel a study in irony, it seemed only appropriate to Christen her "Pinafore" after the Gilbert and Sullivan comic operetta featuring a ship of the same name with a crew whose exploits should never be taken seriously.

In an effort to be concise I take license to time-travel to early spring 2004 when the stars aligned and a good friend made some contacts so Pinafore could be parked in Rock Lake near Lake Mills, affording me the opportunity to hit the water and hoist the sails within ten minutes after leaving my home.

But another opportunity presented itself with the boat's close proximity. My wife, one of my children (at first) and two of my friends showed a special interest in learning to sail, giving me the delightful challenge and opportunity of teaching them how to safely sail, show them some of the nuances and introduce those four to the enticements of sail. A built-in plus included the odds that shortly I'd have a crew member at any given time to help out when winds became brisk and efforts to 'single hand' Pinafore required that I be in more than one place on the boat simultaneously.

Just like students learning a new musical instrument, talents developed at varying speeds.

But one of the crew trainees displayed a particular enthusiasm, and became a part of the Pinafore crew almost by accident. On our way back from a shoot, a person whom I often hire to assist with freelance commercial photo work was with me at the end of the day when I mentioned that the boat was tied off not far from the route home. She insisted that she wanted to see the old cruiser. It never takes much arm twisting to get me to talk sailing.

I kept playing down the dated watercraft, but even after seeing the 'retro' cruiser she continued to ask substantial questions about the old boat and things nautical in general. Enthusiasm at this level is hard to surpress, so I offered to take the boat out and motor about for a short excursion.

Well we didn't even hoist the sails that trip and the good questions kept coming, so much so that I finally said, "Here, you take the helm," explaining that as the term for position of the person who steers the vessel - also giving her something to do before I ran out of answers. I mentioned that I would be training members as crew and that she (for the purposes of this blog she'll be known as CR as she often is in real life) was invited to join the group. I noted that the group was going to meet a in a few days and that she should plan on coming out, but I also mentioned that it wasn't just a matter of going out, setting sails and catching 'rays.' It was a matter of learning many safety aspects to protect the boat and other crew, it was a matter of learning terminology, rules, regulations, history, theory. It was also a matter of learning about the weather, learning the characteristics of this specific water craft. And finally a matter of having all the mechanical factors of harnessing the wind and getting the craft where you wanted to go become a natural series of readings and reactions.

While we planned to meet as a group a few days later, CR called the next day and said she had a conflict. Thinking that her apparent enthusiasm had waned, I said that she was certainly not obligated in any way. But she stopped me short and asked if the boat would be going out anytime before the group was to meet. Well, of course it was - that afterall is why I had the boat in water so close to home.

So we met the next day after I made the return trip from Chicago, having met with a client in the morning. Like air filling sails, sailing itself always gives me a second wind of energy. We spent some time at the pier where I explained the difference between standing rigging and running rigging. We talked over which lines did what, what needed to be accomplished while getting under way and generally what made a sailing craft...go.

As a little quiz, I asked if she could remember some of the specific parts of the boat. She did, and continued on impressively and correctly with more terms after I finished the little quiz. CR was like a horse at the starting gate, and I recognized that it was time as a teacher to get out of this student's way.

We motored out beyond keel depth, and as I was getting ready to hobble up on deck to hoist the sails she passed me up and asked if she could yank the halyards to raise the two expanses of Dacron (the canvas of today). I sat back down at the tiller and said, "hoist away." A brisk day gusting to 15 knots I stayed at the helm, but pointed out all of the factors to consider at every point of sail, giving assurance that cruisers this size with 700 to 1000 pounds of steel or lead in its keel are extremely difficult to capsize, even though the wind made the Pinafore heel over to near 20 degrees during the course of the session. While 20 degrees isn't much off of perpendicular, with racing yachts spending a brisk day at 30+/- degrees to the point where skipper and crew are basically leaning on the deck while standing on its edge, even 20 degrees can seem like more when a green sailor is along and the skipper seems to be daring Mother Nature to incline your craft much more.

After about two hours, I turned the boat in toward our pier to the dismay of the new student. Again CR volunteered to douse the sails. After explaining the procedure she litely jumped to the top of the cabin trunk as if she had a set of natural sea legs, where my hiking on deck in brisk weather has been characterized as more of a "lumbering" action. I turned Pinafore upwind and both the jib and mainsail began to luff. As the boat bit into the oncoming chops, CR cut loose the jib halyard and stood solidly on the foredeck as she gathered up the foresail. Returning to the mast she set the main halyard loose, I let go of the tiller and began to to flake and lash the mainsail. CR started lashing it from the other end. "Are you sure you haven't been sailing before?" I asked. She assured me that her life until then was one of a full blown land lubber.

The summer continued with planned trips including the group and various sub-sets, but regularly CR would have arranged her own schedule to get some extra time under sail. She remained enthusiastic, but it seemed that with everything she absorbed in the learning process, she also gained a greater respect for the sport. After several trips out as a crew member it became obvious that it was time for her to act as skipper and take the helm, and let me be the crew, telling me what adjustments out of her reach need to be made.

Suggesting it was a good time for her to take the tiller and take the boat through its paces with me as the crew, CR hesitated. She paused, and said she really should just continue as a crew member. With that, under full sail, I stood up and headed to the cabin, hinting that someone should take the tiller (at that time CR didn't know that sails sheeted tightly will generally pull the vessel around into the weather, bring the boat to a stop and drop the air out of the sail to the point where they'll simply flap around). She veritably dove for the tiller and brought Pinafore back on course, frantically asking what I was thinking. To which I answered "I think it is time you took the helm."

Again it is an exciting moment when a teacher gets the opportunity to get out of a student's way, and it was clear that this student was ready to move on faster than the rest of the crew trainees.

CR stiffly took the boat through several maneuvers and points of sail, before I suggested we head in.

After that CR would take the helm regularly under varying sorts of weather, learning to adjust to get the optimum set on the sails. At first it was a matter of adjusting after conditions changed blatantly, but the adjustment to any settings were always correct. Many sailors never get beyond this point.

Just as every student who is learning a new language works at it until "things just click," sailing fell into place for CR.

The difference between inland sailing and off shore ocean sailing is the quality and consistency of the wind. Most often in blue water sailing, the wind stays the same, is rarely gusty and usually changes at a pace that allows sailors to adjust as the changes are happening. I like to call off-shore mariners set-and-forget sailors. Inland wind is subject to more change due to winds coming off of land formations, a range of varying other factors and generally one accepts that there will be gusts, even at points 30 miles off-shore on Lake Michigan.

One day we were out after CR had become quite used to the routine and was familiar with almost all activities on the boat. So much so that I began to wonder if learning had hit a plateau, or if I had any more to offer this student.

The weather that day called for 7 to 10 knot winds, but predicted mid afternoon an increase of winds that would be 10 to 15 knots. On a comfortable set of tacks against a southwest wind we were heading across the narrowest point of the lake, an area notorious for providing conditions almost opposite the day's prevailing winds. I went into the cabin to grab binoculars, then stood up in the companion way, which allowed me to lean on the cabin roof and keep my head under the boom.

Going from a port tack to a starboard tack, I aimlessly looked through the glass. More than a mile away, on a cloudless day I could see that the water was turning dark, and the ink-like hue was advancing to our location rapidly. Immediately I knew that the dark shade was riffling on the current waves, taking away their glimmer and that the predicted wind change was coming across with a substantial introductory gust. I looked back at CR who was studying the set in the sails, and then bit my lip in an effort to not be too directive and continue to let the learning experiences happen. I did, however, work at being nonchalant and started ever so slightly to lean windward.

I took one more glance over my right shoulder, then let it go, looking toward the bow. About ten seconds later the wind picked up whistling through the shrouds. I prepared to jump through the hatch and cut loose a jib sheet, but knew that the old cruiser could heel beyond 90 degrees before thinking about capsizing, so I decided the best thing a teacher could do was nothing but wait.

Bracing myself as the wind hit, I felt Pinafore nudge slightly, but then settle into an increased speed. I relaxed as the boat locked into a comfortable beat, and we sailed on to the south end of the lake.

After we came about I stepped back out into the cockpit and sat on the weather side. After sitting and simply enjoying the sail for another ten minutes, I looked back at CR and said "Uh, did you notice the wind pick up before you came about?" She replied with a glib "Uh-huh."

I mentioned that we didn't really heel over too much. She replied, "Well I just flattened the main, and headed up wind a bit, then reclaimed the course as I let out the main sheet."

" And you did it well," I replied.

It occurred to me then that, like one who is learning a new language, things had 'clicked' for this student. I also realized that the role of a teacher is always changing. Sometimes it is a matter of literally spelling out every action, and sometimes it is just a matter of turning on a light so a student can see the path. The most difficult thing is recognizing which degree of need, so that a student is neither overwhelmed nor held back when ready to move on. But when a student finds success and feels accomplishiment, as a teacher I feel the thrill of a skydiver.

The training provided to new crew has been like a rank system that yacht trainers use on their way to a level of maritime certification. The next step for CR was to 'single hand' or solo sail, and she absolutely had the skills. However, like the first time she took the helm, I had to practically trick her into the solo sail. Every time I mentioned that it would be a good day for a solo run, she decided that her schedule was full, though I could hear that she wanted to be on the water under sail.

One day, I suggested we go out, and with the wind level up we'd likely have to 'reef' in the main (bring in some sail to have a smaller surface area), and I would need a decent crew to go out. After heading out I came around and brought the Pinafore in to a public pier. We were on approach before she asked why. Grabbing a cleat on the pier and stepping off the gun'l I threw a camera around my neck and turned back to tell her why... "...so you can solo."

She grabbed the pier and protested. "Lloyd, I'm not ready for this!"

I gently said that I thought she was.

"No, I'm really not. Now come on back. I'm not ready to solo."

Her hand slipped from the pier for a moment, and I took advantage of it by shoving Pinafore off. "Prove to me that you're not ready!," I said adding that it was near sunset and the weather was changing.

Shortly, the old cruiser was more than its own length beyond the pier. CR gave me a resigned look and asked what the assigned route was. I told her to head out on a certain heading south, bring it to the east on a broad reach go to within a safe distance of the east shoreline and come about to tack out the same distance to the south, then cut back west -southwest beating close to the wind then head west across the point of the pier, continue on then jybe north back to a point even with the pier and bring it on in.

I saw waypoints click in her head as if I were a choreographer dishing out steps to a dancer. She yanked the starter on the long shaft outboard, snapped it into reverse, pulled the stern around, changed gears again and headed out. It was the first time I had been this directive with this student.

The list of tasks to remember can be exceptional: After motoring out, killing the motor, lifting the motor, CR winches down the keel (a 700 lb five foot fin of steel on 2 tons of boat) , she hoists the sails, goes through the route making all the correct adjustments, then douses the sails, lashes the main, winches up the keel and motors back. She also made a correct decision in leaving the main reefed (note the main is almost the same size as the working jib), then she qeued up in a holding pattern with a boat that unexpectedly arrived to be hauled out. Then she brought Pinafore back to the pier.

She was elated and I was proud as punch. She also admitted that she was stalling about doing the solo over a period of weeks.

We were losing daylight, so shutter speeds on my camera were slow making it hard to hold steady, but if you click on the picture below, you will see CR on her solo sail. Clicking on the picture, you will be taken to another page. Click that new picture and you will see a 20 second compressed slide show of the 25 minute solo sail. Realize that it symbolizes a student success, a demonstration of determination to take on something completely new and the culmination of an effort to acquire new skills, pounding the individual skills into a complete talent.

Solo sail for a former land lubber - click here then click on pic
at that site.

While acting as the teacher in this situation, as usual I'm sure I am the one who learned and gained the most.

Best to all,

Lloyd

Block Schedule: Will it crumble?

2004-10-14T20:38:00.000-05:00

This blog spends a lot of it's time on school matters. This happens for many reasons including the fact that there is a lot going on within the district, a learning environment is an exciting and interesting environment, and the energy of youth is generally contagious.

There are so many good things that can and do happen in public schools that one can feel the need to give change a little scrutiny, yet one of the exciting things that occur in schools IS change. But change can be an exciting trial for the future, and often times change takes a fork in the road under the guise of advancement which is in reality a step backward.

This blog has already gone on record commenting on returning to the use of bells to signal class changes, and sees it as a step backwards. There has since been another blog (see "Echoing bells") citing information about schools that don't use bells between classes, just as a reference point. It isn't as impassioned as the original bell blog "Hells, Bells".

But this time our interest lies with what may have enabled Johnson Creek schools to dispense with bells in the first place - block scheduling. That alone is a good reason to use block scheduling, a system set up to have fewer longer classes (typically four) per day and have the same classes daily for at least a semester.

On the upside of block scheduling, longer projects can be completed in science classes, shop classes, math classes... lets face it in all subject areas. Generally schools appear more relaxed, classes are closer to the length of classes in post-secondary institutions AND they likely counter the short attention span fostered years earlier by the likes of Sesame Street.

Education World has a tendency to agree with the latter. They say

When students attend as many as eight relatively short classes in different subjects every day, instruction can become fragmented; longer class periods give students more time to think and engage in active learning.
A schedule with one relatively short period after another can create a hectic, assembly-line environment;
A schedule that releases hundreds or thousands of adolescents into hallways six, seven, or eight times each school day for four or five minutes of noise and chaotic movement can exacerbate discipline problems.
Teachers benefit from more useable instructional time each day because less time is lost with beginning and ending classes.

I give block scheduling several 'charm factors' for providing an environment conducive to learning AND teaching, but there are admittedly times when charm factors aren't worth the paper they're written on, just as many educational mandates make requirements in programs without taking into consideration funding or practicality, or space, or equipment, or...!?!

During the course of a four year experience in high school, students still attend sequentially difficult classes in a variety of subject matter. With block scheduling, it is possible that a freshman taking an advanced math class requiring a prerequisite may take the prerequisite one fall semester, but due to a schedule only allowing four class periods per day over a semester, the advance math class may not be available until that student's junior year. A similar scenario can play out in foreign language classes, with an introductory class one semester, but the school or the student schedule not allowing high level coursework in that language until more than a year later - making it potentially difficult to retain information from the first class.

It is difficult for humans and computers alike to schedule students satisfactorily under these situations.

The initial reaction is to return to the eight period day, which is in effect suggesting that block scheduling was just a fad, and that may be the case. However, it is up to administrators and boards to determine what characteristics in curriculum development are more important, a solid learning environment conducive to learning or a schedule and curriculum tantamount to a checklist so that we can report, "yep, we touched on this subject, this subject, this subject and this subject..." without a chance to savor or go into depth at any one point.

How many of us grown-up type people actually do eight different things in a day? All of us are busy, and while I am writing and doing research for this blog and have written two other articles on separate subjects today, it often comes down to listening, reading, taking notes and writing. Different topics, but the same work. Yes, I may run to the grocery store, and have the tires rotated on my car, but adding those two things to the one thing I do ends up sounding like an incredibly busy day.

I think the "out-of-school" equivalent of an eight period day could go something like:

1. Go to work where you bake muffins and plan a menu before your boss has you

2.Go to your church or synagogue and translate a few pages of scripture from original languages prior to

3.Running to a lumber yard to finish blueprints that you picked up from the building inspector after proving geometrically that the structure is sound according to the codes and principles of engineering which needed to be done before you.

4. Write a legal brief using historical context with proven research sources and then it is time when the company requires the arts so you

5 Haul your instrument to the local chamber music society to practice with an ensemble for the inter-corporate competition, after which you play

6 Play a mandatory game of dodgeball to test a new product - but your job description says it's your day to

7. Collect water samples from bodies of water to check for contaminants and record that day's weather observations, but before that you are expected at the company conference room to

8 Solve some advanced algebraic equations just because they are there, and everybody else does.

At that point you just can't wait to go home and zone out mindlessly in front of the television...

Granted most of us grew up with an eight hour set of classes, but one begins to wonder if the increased incidence of ADD/ADHD is not induced when requiring some to approach new concepts and consider the meaning of a Shakespeare play during a portion of one hour, then switch to plotting solutions to problems in multidimensional differential Calculus (which isn't related to anything tangible) during a portion of the next hour.

It is a tough choice, because schools are charged with providing so many hours of core curricular classes in a sequentially advancing curriculum. BUT there is nothing in Wisconsin State Laws that say students MUST learn anything. It requires an amount of school time to be offered or attended and curricular areas to be approached. Individual districts decide on what constitutes a credit, and how many credits are required to graduate. (Current standardized basic knowledge tests aren't intended to test students, but to evaluate schools and attach that to public funding, BUT that is a subject for another blog.)

So it isn't a clear choice, block scheduling offers many optimum learning situations. One wonders if absolute sequential courses could be offered ONLY in paired up schedules e.g. "If you take Greek I first semester YOU WILL take Greek II second semester." essentially making it a one year class.

The eight period day allows for a schedule where one can say 'we met the spec and touched on everything required.'

In an effort to find materials on both sides of the issue, it appears that there are a variety of issues involving many variables. Read through the research and you will find favorable and unfavorable findings. One reason for this lies with the fact that not all block schedules are the same. Several studies in individual schools in Iowa say that grades decreased with block scheduling along with ACT and SAT scores, while Minnesota and Wisconsin finds the opposite to be true.

If local indicators are that it works, then it would behoove administrators and officials to stay with it using education as the primary rationale. If grades and any other school characteristic are declining then it may be time to consider something else. But it may not be an all or nothing situation.

Then it is time to simply find what works,and do what works and not lock into an inflexible model that will prevent the best education for everyone.

1. What characteristics are positive about block scheduling according to teachers, students, administrators and statistics and studies?

2. What characteristics of the traditional schedule are positive or beneficial according to teachers, students, administrators, studies and statistics?

Find the commonalities and expand on those commonalities to fit the needs of the students and the district.

Echoing bells

2004-09-27T10:04:00.000-05:00

At the risk of a repeated topic becoming annoying like the tintinnabulation of bells between classes, you are encouraged to read on with additional, possibly interesting information regarding bells in schools. If you haven't read the first blog on this topic, click here:

http://fieldtrips.blogspot.com/2004/09/hells-bells-sometimes-less-really-is.html

The first blog discussed the addition of bells between classes at Johnson Creek's upper school took about 15 minutes to write and questioned the value of bells in today's educational setting. It also suggested that the previous lack of bells was a non-monetary asset, a characterisitic to which many of the nation's leading schools aspire. Ironically, many reviews say that it is one of the characteristics that schools will want to replicate.

Since then a minor amount of additional research has yielded more information, if only to see how the matter fits in context. As it turns out it is usually a factor or a descriptor that people use to tell, write or brag about their school. It is a situation which adds to a school's percieved and educational value.

In the last bell blog one school was used as an example of what many schools are aspiring to. It referred to New Tech High School near Napa, California, using their lack of class change signals as an initial bragging point.

Find more about that school here:

http://www.scholastic.com/administrator/novdec03/articles.asp?article=spotlightschool

A School Design Planning site called Learning By Design again has the assumption that school can exist without class change signals, especially in the small school environment.

In an essay entitled Smaller, Saner Schools it talks about

"...
a rural school board (that) agreed to authorize what has become one of the nation's most noted secondary schools: Minnesota New Country School (MNCS). This secondary charter school enrolls about 125 students in grades seven through 12. It is run as a co-op, with faculty members "owning" the school, setting their own salaries and working conditions.

Each school year starts with a family/student/advisor conference. The conferences help students develop a plan for how they will make progress toward graduation, which is based entirely on demonstration of skill and knowledge.

There are no grades or bells. Each student has a workstation with a computer. Students work individually or in small groups on projects that help them achieve the required mastery. Teachers see themselves as facilitators and coaches, moving from student to student throughout the day. Every six weeks the school has a presentation night, during which students share information they've learned. Each student makes a presentation at least three times per year. The presentations often include computer graphics and PowerPoint. Students have become so sophisticated that some of them have been hired by local businesses to create Web sites."

This site can be found here: http://www.asbj.com/lbd/2002/inprint/smaller.html

In another article, Kathleen Cushman writes:

It's all too easy to bury oneself in the details of the schedule and forget the kids themselves. If we think hard about how they learn best, we must confront some uncomfortable truths. The clock does not direct or control learning, nor do the artificial cycles of terms and tests and report cards. In fact, sometimes those things-all integral to the very idea of a school schedule-often interrupt and impede the way kids learn.

"The simpler a high school schedule is, the better," asserts Ted Sizer. "Just because it's so complex, it must be solved as a matter between particular teachers and particular kids. Why not create a few long blocks, then keep all decisions about the 'bells and whistles' as close to the kids as possible? If I'm teaching history and some students need to go to band, I would just keeping on doing something special in class with the kids who don't go."

To create such conditions, schools might have to undergo a fundamental attitude shift. A learner's individual needs would matter more than the orderly processing of groups. The emotional investment of students in their work would matter more than what time they start and stop it, or where they carried it out. We would think of learning as continuous and connected, not delineated by bells, course boundaries, or exam dates. And everyone in a school community would be doing it all the time.

By the way, this site touches on many educational issues about scheduling. Read it here:

http://www.essentialschools.org/cs/resources/view/ces_res/15

In St. Louis' Carr Lane Middle School is known as the 'school without bells' and it's mission statement describes the school "...where students are viewed as valued present and future citizens of a global society."

It's unfortunate that we take for granted one of several characteristics that the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (yes, that Bill Gates) is pushing for in funding the establishment of new small schools. They began the initiative after studies indicate that large urban schools, and schools which have a higher enrollment as a result of excessive consolidation, have higher dropout rates and that there is a direct link to poverty and a lack of achievement as a high school enrollment becomes excessive. But it isn't the school population alone which has this impact - it is the infrastructure and the non-educational aspects that can have a negative effect on education.

In the web site "Students Learning in Small Schools" a report indicates that many of these new schools are pushing to have what already exists in many Wisconsin rural schools, or is readily available without any cash outlay. It says:

More than personalization and the absence of bells

What first catches the eye when one enters a small school is the personalization it affords. Both the needs of individual students and the passions of individual teachers seem to find uncustomary breathing room. A first-time visitor might also be struck by what appears to be less structure than larger high schools employ: students and adults may mix more freely; no bells may mark the start and end of classes; courses may break from curricular conventions or may not even exist at all. Repeat visitors learn that in most small schools a complex infrastructure actually puts order in these freedoms.

This site has fascinating information about findings regarding the assets of small schools. Read more about it here:

http://www.whatkidscando.org/portfoliosmallschools/portfoliohome.html

Alright, you are already at your computer reading this blog so all you have to do is click on the links provided to read about one characteristic of what the leading schools are including to enhance the educational environment (or print it out and take it with you to read later). Additionally, there is information there on many of the other characterisitics of these schools, many of which Johnson Creek already has in place. But are they at risk, too?

Just as education never ends, neither does homework. If nothing else, read the info, and just be aware of factors that can have an impact on education. It's exciting to see what is happening as these new schools develop - it's just as exciting as the educational efforts put forth locally. Let us do nothing to limit those local efforts.

Best to all,

Lloyd
27SEP04

Why Lloyd doesn't cover sports

2004-09-21T21:13:00.000-05:00

Often, when sauntering amongst the communities that make up my news beats, people ask why I don’t do sports.

Of course at that point they have answered their own question – I don’t do sports. Report on it, that is.

First and most importantly in becoming a sports reporter one must know something – specifically the game.

Actually, I have done a fair amount of sports photography, but in my oft dual capacity of being a pictures and words guy, I am seriously lacking in sports words.

The reason I don’t know the games, or haven’t taken the time to learn are unknown. I must qualify this, too. What I have never learned are the chief games that hit the front pages of local papers. So if it’s football, baseball, tennis, volleyball, softball, basketball and a myriad of other mainstream sports, one at times would do just as well to put teams of dancing zombies on the field or floor and strap to my head a loudspeaker connected to the Chicago Transit Authority for 90 minutes for the sense I make of it.

Yet I find things interesting when I do attend, and those things are the ones I would center my sports news article on.

To illustrate this I have written a mock sports story on a fictitious game between the Marshall High School Cardinals and the Lake Mills L-Cats - two non fictitious teams. The names I use will indeed be fictitious, but any names that do exist on either of these two teams will be complete and utter coincidence. Here goes:

LAKE MILLS – With a cool faint breeze coming out of the north, the Marshall Cardinals flew in to touch down on the grid-iron of the Lake Mills L-Cats. The question looming over the field was whether the L-Cats would devour those red birds from western Dane County.

Having done research with those whom are evidently not fans of the Marshall team, it was originally thought that the school colors – red and white – were symbolic of our patriotic history with red standing for blood and white for bandages. Still another apparent non-Cardinal fan suggested that the name was based on a layer of the hierarchy of the Roman Catholic Church. While this suggestion was summarily dismissed, the nagging fact remained that Nashotah Seminary’s team is the known as the Black Monks.

Two and two quickly became four as their logo with the crested red bird of the north made it safely evident that they weren’t a group of young ornithologists – in addition to the logos, there simply was not a pair of binoculars in the bunch.

From the other side of the field the Lake Mills L-Cats crawled ready to pounce. After previous research on this team, the origins of their mascot name dating from WW II is well known. The reigning question about their name: Why do they keep it?

Really. Even they must be tiring of explaining what an L-Cat is. And half of them don’t know, making up such rubbish as “it’s a polite way to say ‘Hell-Cat,’” or “it stands for the L of Lake Mills.” Come on. Then they’d be called the LM-Cats, wouldn’t they? Even during the depression budgetary constraints didn’t get bad enough that letters had to be cut from team mascot names.

So the rival between these two moderate sized school teams - scientific names Cardinalis cardinalis v. Felis "L" catus -began as the Cardinals’ red and white set out to clash with the L-Cats’ blue and gold.

And what a clash – just the sight of red, white, blue and gold together on that field of green was enough to make an interior decorator nauseous.

At that point conjecture sets in as to the advantage of each teams color scheme on the psyche of the opposing team.

Apparently overpaid, and wanting to flaunt it, an official pulled a silver dollar out of his pocket and offered a coin toss to determine who would be kicking off.

Without first inspecting the coin, the captains of each team yelled out their preferred coin face as it was in mid-air. Lake Mills won the toss and elected to kick.

The kicker’s impact sent the oblong ball, euphemistically called ‘the pigskin’ deep into Marshall’s half of the field.

As if pre-determined Marshall’s Einer Tingvold caught the ball and dropped to one knee as if incapacitated, leading one to believe more than ever before that the two battling teams should very seriously reconsider their uniform color schemes.

But it turned out that Tingvold was okay, and there was evidently no animosity over his fake injury.

After the initial play both teams went into a huddle. It is never entirely possible to understand what is discussed in the huddle. One of the last bastions of closed meetings in public, despite the fact we live in a Democracy and that the rule applies even in teams of institutions like public schools and universities, it continues to be overlooked by legislators and members of the country’s free press.

Returning from the huddle it was apparent that the young players used the time to make decisions without letting the general public in on the outcome. But it was equally unknown to each team and the spectators, providing some sort of equity to the huddle situation.

Lake Mills lined up flanking the ball as center John Behling leaned into to the oblong orb and QB Oscar Stanke moved in to a rather colloquial position behind Behling - a refreshing departure from the all to large effort to remain politically correct in public behavior.

Barking out what is evidently his locker combination, Behling apparently became annoyed with Stanke, snapping the ball into Stanke’s hands. Stanke moved back but was shortly bowled over by the Card’s junior Orin Sorenson.

Moving ahead less than a couple yards, Lake Mills tried this again, with Behling equally annoyed by Stanke spewing another locker combination. Again Sorenson moved in to take down Stanke.

Evidence of a grudge-match ensued as the scene repeated itself, demonstrating Stanke’s uncanny ability to memorize locker combinations.

With unimaginative choreography taking place under the lights on the field, another bit of sports related news seemed to be developing over at the concession stand.

It seems that the local boosters had introduced an entirely new menu. While including the usual popcorn and bagged savory snacks, along with a variety of soft drinks, this year they offered pizza, hot dogs, brats and natchos.

A surplus in the booster budget evidently allowed for the purchase of a couple small pizza ovens.

The menu indicated that the offerings included pepperoni, sausage and a vegetarian pizza. However concessions director and parent Marian Tomlinson said to this point in the season the vegetarian pizza was a rare sale, leading her to believe that the menu would be geared entirely toward the carnivores in the crowd next season.

Even though this crowd made it hard to discuss the matter with bouts of yelling, cheers and jeers overpowering customer orders at the food stand, Mrs. Tomlinson was able to point out a little recipe secret with the natcho sauce.

Letting the “L-Cat” out of the bag, she noted that the usual #10 can of commercial natcho sauce was the base, but then she pointed out that the special zing in the sauce’s flavor was due to the addition of whole capers and several drops of Tobasco sauce, “…just enough to warm up the cool fall air,” Tomlinson said.

Of course, along with the regular fare, there are home baked desserts, that booster members bring to donate to the concession stand.

The mother of new student and football team member Bobby Behrends, Mrs. Becky Behrends, introduced a new flavor to the mix.

While Rice Crispy bars are a perennial favorite, Behrends tried to explain the simple but tasteful ingredient, at first difficult to understand as the fans kept coming to their feet and howling at the field.

But with perseverance, the secret ingredient was revealed as a touch of pumpkin pie spice, giving the old standby treat an added dimension.

"It's okay I suppose, if you like that sort of thing," Mrs. Tomlinson said of Behrends' treat, indicating it may be an acquired taste for some.

Kudos and bravos continued to go to the deserving concessionaires as these new items along with the former snacks sold consitently, albeit difficult for anyone to give or take orders with all of the noise near the field.

Fortunately it all came to a crescendo right near the end, followed by a welcomed silence on a crisp autumn evening as the stands emptied, the stadium lights extinguished, leaving only the echoes of athletic exuberance and the faint smell of popcorn and bratwurst in the air.

(Editor’s note: The final score of last Friday’s game: Lake Mills 24, Marshall 26 sending the Cardinals to the state finals.)

Alright, that may be a bit of an exaggeration. It has been my honor to cover a variety of events over the years.The news bug bit me while living on the island of Guam. Prior to that I had been a music major with an emphasis on opera - needless to say there were limited operatic opportunities on Guam or the Commonwealth of the Mariannas, leaving me with the choice of pursuing a career in music elsewhere for a period of two or more years, or staying with my high school sweetheart and wife (who has at this point put up with me for 31 years) who was at the time assigned to Andersen AFB, Guam as a member of the USAF.

It was my intent to be a photojournalist, which is what I tell people I am to this day. But during every editorial relationship someone has found out that I can write a complete sentence, roping me into the additional role of reporter/writer. It has allowed me to cover happenings in the Pacific, and over the past 20 plus years I have covered communities and individuals at their best and coversely, sometimes tragically, at their worst.

After returning to Wisconsin, touching on agricultural journalism seemed to go hand in hand with the decade we owned a farm and started a family.

The journey continues with mainstream magazine and newspaper work making every assignment an adventure. The nature of this journey doesn’t allow me to always report happy news or to share pleasant photographs. But it has allowed me to share facts about fascinating individuals and events with untold numbers of readers.

It can be difficult when we, my colleagues and I, must report unpopular truths. But having lived places where the press is not independent of the current rule, it becomes obvious that it is much easier to deliver unpopular truths and have readers feel they can trust the source, than to modify information and toss every ounce of that commodity of credibility and public trust out the window.

And if we are wrong, we want to hear about it. I’m merely a journalist, and the newspaper work I do is usually related to events or people in the area's small communities. But community news is “where it’s at” precisely because of this.

If Sam Donaldson gets something wrong in his large market reporting, the only person he’s accountable to is his producer or the person who signs his paycheck. If my colleagues and I need to clarify something, there is a great likelihood that we will see the subject of our stories in the near future in the same or only slightly different venue, providing an accountability directly to the readership.

“The Media” is and are something too broad to make general statements about, but it is important to remember that ‘freedom of the press’ is not a freedom set aside for those in the forth estate. It is a freedom set aside for everyone, with journalists and publications only the tools to help you enjoy that right. If you don’t insist on it, it could disappear.

It goes without saying that freedom of the press, when it comes to sports reporting, is generally better off if I stay in the realm of general news and the variety it offers. If I had leaned that way, it would probably have been in the style of the late Howard Cosell, but even he would likely have missed out on the secret ingredient in the Rice Crispy bars.

Best to all,
Lloyd
# # #
21SEP04 LS

2004-09-04T01:37:00.000-05:00

Lloyd

2004-09-02T11:02:00.001-05:00

Hells, Bells
---Sometimes less really is more...
(Commentary/Editorial)

Today was the first day of the 2004-05 school year. The time when teachers and students gather for the first time since departing on the unknown adventures that summer would hold.

The last moments before the first class are a time of anticipation and excitement triggered by the smell of freshly waxed floors, newly painted areas and the aroma of the ink wafting from new textbooks, almost as if the information and ideas within had vapors of their own making the air heady with ideas for potential treks of the new learning experiences that lay ahead.

But that special time of anticipation before launching into a new year was shattered at the Johnson Creek upper school by an annoyance, a new bell system signaling the beginning of classes. After asking about it, hoping that it was some sort of mistake, it was most dissappointing to hear that a noise had been implemented to signal class times.

If I haven't written about it, I know that I have talked about an unquantifiable yet very tangible characteristic of institutions like Johnson Creek Schools, one I call the "Charm Factor."

The charm factors at Johnson Creek Schools include the fact that grades K through 12 are on the same campus, which has promoted the use of upper class mentors and student aides at the lower grade levels. It has minimized class rank issues and streamlined the students' vision in understanding the route through the grades.

Johnson Creek school charm factors include situations held unique where a student can be a successful athlete, musician, thespian and maintain an interest in agrarian roots by belonging to and being successful in FFA.

Another is a built in support system, where everyone knows everyone in the school, with an enrollment of fewer than 600. That support system includes parents knowing parents and students knowing all the district families and realizing that a lapse in behavior will be addressed by all levels of peers and families in addition to school staff. This has kept the need for pre-emptive excessive rule making to a minimum. It is also the type of built in support system that held the school together a few years ago when a student perished in an auto accident, where in a larger institution the loss may have gone unnoticed by the majority.

And of course the small student to teacher ratio is what education experts dream of and dream for getting closer to the goal of individualized education (although with ongoing budget constraints this becomes more difficult to maintain as the old solution of consolidating schools becomes more like herding cattle to go through the motions of providing an education...).

Last year I remained silent as "security cameras" were installed in the hallways of the upper school. Reports indicate they did catch perpetrators of ongoing vandalism, as they record images from those hallways for days at a time. However one wonders if the cameras have deterred any acts vandalism or misbehavior. I sighed at their installation as they had the potential to undermine the charm factors that reinforce what the school stands for. But one also wonders how many events may have occurred in an attempt to outsmart the intrusive cameras, easily construed as a general vote of no confidence.

Today, disappointment killed the excitement of the first day of school when the evidence of the school schedule bell system became apparent, knocking the legs out from under the charm the school once held.

Across the nation, new schools are striving for characteristics like the ability to have class changes with no bells. The Scholastic Administrator website-

http://www.scholastic.com/administrator/novdec03/articles.asp?article=spotlightschool

-describes a new school in the Napa Valley, California as having "an open school culture" and a "celebrated model for replication."

The first part of a description of the New California school says it is,

"...AN OASIS OF LEARNING
Walk through the doors of New Tech High's low-key building and you'll find a welcoming environment. With no bells to signal transitions between class periods, the hallways are peaceful and unhurried."

And they are replicating what we used to have. These are characteristics leading schools are striving to have, and we are letting those characteristics dwindle.

Flexibility has been a key to the success of the Johnson Creek school district. In every instance where one has compared the local schools to a larger district, I have been able to counter with a plus directly related to the intimacy and adaptability of the district.

The class size coupled with a block schedule, allowing four 90 minute classes during a day with time for lunch and co-hort or homeroom activities, while having some bugs has the advantages first of being a relaxed atmosphere more conducive to learning. It allows for entire cooking projects to be completed, impromptu field trips to collect samples for science classes, time for lecture and lab work and precious time for rehearsals. There are some shorter classes creating a modified block schedule, but as a whole as reported in previous school board meetings, grades have gone up and the number of people on honor roll have increased while using this system. It has allowed students to concentrate on four areas of study at a time instead of the typical eight in a fragmented schedule of bits and pieces.

Up to this time, everyone has presumed that students and teachers could tell time. And when it was time for classes to change, students changed classes BUT it was done after a teacher completed a thought or an assignment, or a group returned from an impromptu outside lecture or fieldtrip.

These are among the things we are teaching students to understand: When they get to college there are no bells, they must figure out how to be where and when on their continued journey through education and life or they miss out. There are no bells out there. Yes there are deadlines, the trains, planes and busses leave on a schedule, taxes are due April 15 and the curtain goes up after the overture. And some people miss out...

Are the class bells an effort to have fewer tardiness reports? I hope not, because tardiness exists, has existed and will exist everywhere in this nation's schools. It isn't something that can be stopped with bells. Go to any school and it will be a concern of a few people, but an accepted fact by most educators. This is not to say that chronic tardiness is acceptable in schools if for the only fact that it disrupts classes and staggers the momentum of all of the students.

One of the chief factors, a charm factor if you will, that I used to brag about regarding Johnson Creek Schools was that there WERE NO BELLS signaling class changes. It was as though they were making the effort to raise the students' level up to accepting and understanding schedules, leading by example instead of forcing through a mold. In fact I used tell people that the only thing resembling a bell or signal, when it worked, was a large grandfather clock in one of the upper school hallways.

Now we have another vote of no confidence tossed at students, students who are becoming more sophisticated every year.

Why must we head for the lowest common denominator? Sure all area schools may have bells. But hasn't Johnson Creek maintained a standard that says we don't need them? The ongoing the assumption that the majority of students will do the right thing at the right time is the reason tour companies, transportation firms and hotels have written to the schools regularly to compliment the school and the students for their exceptional behavior compared to student groups from other schools when on trips and performing tours.

It is dismaying that the importance of students' timeliness has begun to supersede what they do after they arrive, because only a fraction of learning happens within the set time frame of the classroom. Students follow good teachers out on their own time to test the thermo-dynamics of shelters they built as part of a science project. They make the extra effort to attend rehearsals of musicals nightly, taking the energy of pros as teachers provide examples, often not realizing where the time has gone. They work between classes to gather resources for international humanitarian efforts. Students clammor to see Shakespeare performed in a setting realistic to the Bard's lifetime. They represent the young people of potential career choices who take part in competitions across the state and nation with the extra time and guidance from teachers. It is continued proof that school is and should be a verb - not just a place, or a building where one goes for a specific period of time.

The class bells will have a limiting effect, and have already diminished what remains of the district charm factors. They are the factors in a school system that can make people invest in a home and relocate a family -as our family did. It could have an impact in the future growth of the schools as other families make decisions on moving...or maybe not.

Once a gem is covered or lost no one knows it was there.

There are times when people familiar with what exists don't recognize the glowing and positive facets as assets until they are gone, and that is a shame.

-Lloyd Schultz
2SEP04

2004-03-28T18:23:00.001-06:00

Nine characteristics of a good school board

Buckminster Fuller once stated that human beings are the one species that could disappear tomorrow without causing a negative impact on the planet or its future. In micro-community terms, one might say the same thing about school boards and their impact on schools.

Mark Twain put it a bit more tersely tongue in cheek when he wrote, and undoubtedly said, "In the first place, God made idiots. That was for practice. Then he made school boards."

(At this writing my wife is on a school board, so I'm sure she will convey to me the collective wrath of other school board members who read the comments above, however they illustrate that school boards have indeed been the source of community debate for some time.)

Evidence points to the possibility that school boards have been a source of frustration for students, parents, teachers, administrators and other school board members since the idea came on the scene. They have certainly provided ink to news articles, commentary and letters to the editor columns over the time they have existed, as well.

But it seems that even with the whims of the voting electorate there are school boards that tend to work in ensemble over periods of years. And even with hitches or bubbles in the flow of the individual tasks, they ultimately keep things on a big-picture course. It is not an easy thing to sit on a school board, and those who think it will be should not throw their hat into the ring when an election arrives.

Media publish or report on school boards in several areas within a region. Even within that region, the effectiveness and general quality of board work and accomplishments can cover a broad spectrum. Yet there seem to be common characteristics among effective boards that are dynamic and harmoniously provide for a proper and equally effective learning environment for the schools in their community.

School boards, even in relatively close proximity to each other, operate in a variety of styles. In covering them for the media there are plenty of opportunities to observe the many differing operational characteristics. Here are observations of some characteristics that good and effective school boards seem to have in common:

Plans - The least number of hitches in school efforts amongst staff and administrators, and subsequently within the community itself, happen where school boards have established a strategic long-range plan for their district. The plans are not etched in stone but revisited frequently. They continue on even when school board personnel change.

The board acts as one - This is NOT to say that every vote will be or should be unanimous. This IS to say that board decisions are of the board as a whole. Good school boards seldom have members whose individual motives and agendas come before the needs of the district as a whole.

Primary purpose in word and action is 'education' - Good school boards use education as their prime rationale, and coincidentally appear to usually have a very efficient district. In districts where the price tag is always the primary decision making factor, the educational process AND district management is often inefficient.

Thrive on change - Boards that anticipate, adapt, address and initiate genuinely new ideas seem to be less likely to be denial oriented organizations. They also encourage this manner of thinking in their faculty, staff and with hope the students. They are the boards who don't show fear when the government imposes new budgetary or other restrictions, but allow more creative input into providing a quality education.

Open with information and intentions - Like many publicly elected bodies, school boards are holders of public trust. Ideas are exchanged in open forums, and members of good school boards are not afraid to cite sources. School boards who are regularly open in their day to day workings, will be seen and trusted as accountable when and if a controversy arises.

Reflect the kind of school they have/wish to have - Good school boards are like good schools. They celebrate learning, encourage creativity and each other. To paraphrase a more important work - when others are asking 'why,' good school boards are asking 'why not?'

Realize their place in the community and school - While asked to alot resources for school systems, the better school boards and board members do not see themselves as being bestowed with directorial powers to call the shots in a school district. Instead, the better, more secure boards and members tend to act as if they are being elevated to a deeper level of service to the community and school district.

Rely on experts - Good school boards seek, listen thoughtfully to, heed and respect experts in their field. They respect the people they depend on as the professionals they have hired or sought out, and assume that the motives of the professionals or experts are as genuine as their own. They let the people they have hired on behalf of the school district as experts in their field do the work for which they were hired. School boards which do not treat as professional, the people they hired to be professionals, waste the energy of both the board and the professionals. Boards which presume the staff, faculty and administrators are professionals and treat all as such, tend to have more harmonious interactions, and are more credible when real concerns arise.

DO THEIR HOMEWORK - Good school boards are made up of people who study. The work of the school board is not just one related to one meeting per month. Effective school boards are made up of members who take time to read and question materials from faculty and administrators, organizations and the media. When they are tasked with a specific committee or area of concern, the study should not stop. Members call experts at institutions of higher learning, stay aware of education trends reported in the media, and seek out training and development opportunities for themselves. Armed with the comfort of absolute preparation, good school boards are fearless in providing their districts with the resources required for excellence in education - they provide those resources, then stay out of the way. For under those circumstances true quality education is unstoppable.

These characteristics are a compilation of much observation. Often school board quality is cyclical, but at the ends of the bell curve are those which are consistently dysfunctional, and at the other end those few which are consistently providing resources and encouragement to provide a quality institution of learning.

CreekNews encourages and supports school boards that have or are working toward the above characteristics.
(copyright 2004 Lloyd Schultz)
# # #

2004-02-03T17:48:00.000-06:00

Education is a living thing

"Education is not the filling of a pail,
but the lighting of a fire."
- W. B. Yeats

If you have read through this edition of CreekNews, you will have seen that the majority of the pages have to do with school news. And while there is always news throughout the area, the schools grabbed much of the CreekNews' collective attention during the course of the week.

This is not an apology, for we try to cover active events and the schools and education demonstrate a perpetual activity. We can be thankful that, even though some will try as they might to make it otherwise, education is a very dynamic process.

Many wax nostalgic about the "Three R's" - reading, (w)riting and (a)rithmetic - evidently not realizing their education wasn't adequate enough to teach them that there is only one R in that aural alliteration.
In fact, education has never striven for just the Three R's. Educational models from England and Germany always sought more for their students. In the middle of the 19th Century Margarithe Schurz championed the idea of Kindergarten, with the first such in the US located in Watertown, Wisconsin. Starting in the first half of the 20th Century country schools in Wisconsin were linked by WHA radio. The public radio "School of the Air" included elementary and high school level classes ranging from nature studies to music. It was the first distance learning system using the audio visual technology of the day.

There was never a time when good educators would put the Three R's over an opportunity for students to better understand the world around them. Nor was there a time when teachers would prevent students from excelling in an area of interest in order to stick to R-R-R.

Accounts of 19th century teachers convey delight when the board of a one room school district could afford for the school to have a globe to reinforce geography classes. Other teachers of the time often wrote of the wish that classes would allow for them to give more individualized instruction to each student - a dream that teachers often hope for to this day.

It is unfortunate that many people think of school as a place, when it should first be considered a verb. While the hours of the institution have a beginning and an end during the day, learning should never stop. It doesn't stop with graduation from high school or college either - a concept that may be as important to learn as any skillset acquired in school.

So often schools are judged by the apparent order and decorum observed by former students. But that order is no proof that learning is happening.

Schools that encourage learning in a variety of ways are inherently alive. There is joy in the hallways, creative clutter in the classroom and there are teachers who listen as much as they lecture. In dynamic schools, desks are not always in rows, and often the greatest amount of learning happens when the classroom is empty and the Socratic tradition is maintained by refusing the limitations of four walls.

CreekNews looks forward to its coverage of the school experience, and invites readers to continue or return to learning first by celebrating the many ways that learning is manifested by the local school system.
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2004-01-24T20:01:00.000-06:00

Symbols and substance

"I prefer a man who will burn the flag and
then wrap himself in the Constitution to a
man who will burn the Constitution and
then wrap himself in the flag."

- Craig Washington, quoted in Molly
Ivins' syndicated newspaper column,
June 30, 1997

While not recommending the desecration of either, it is important to remember the difference between the symbol and the substance of this nation's existence. People have gone to war and died for the flag, acts for which we should remain eternally grateful. The flag is so important to Americans, because of the ideas and principles for which it stands.

It is a great symbol, a symbol for laws and ideas of such substance that the symbol itself is and should be revered.

And yet it cannot supersede what it stands for - a nation built on the principles written in the Declaration of Independence, The Constitution of the United States, and the Bill of Rights.

The principles outlined in these founding documents guide our government, and are the standard by which laws are interpreted and enforced more than 200 years after they were written.

While much attention is given to events where the flag is desecrated, if not seen as the symbol or defender of the ideas put forth in those documents, even the flag will be devalued.

They are the foundations of the nation. We are not simply a nation of people on a chunk of land that stretches between the two major oceans reaching to our non-contiguous states.

We could be a small piece of land and a much smaller population, but it would not lessen the importance of this nation that puts principle before wealth, people before government and the law over tyranny. Yet even if we were a small patch of land at some remote outpost, the flag would still be the beacon leading to the place where we say "this is what we stand for." In fact, more than 200 years ago we were that small piece of land.

People around the world will continue to try to get attention by desecrating the flag - many of them may not even deserve our attention. But the foundation principles upon which we have built this nation should be watched carefully and defended in a manner more vigilant than ever. These principles are as delicate and unique as the aged parchment upon which they were originally written. They must be observed, maintained, fostered and defended.

From the President, to congress, the cabinet on to the lowest ranking members of the military, the oath of office or service is essentially the same - they swear to "protect and defend the Constitution of the United States." The oaths say nothing about protecting land, property and individuals. Those oaths assume that if the foundation ideas are protected, those elected to serve will heed their call to "...establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty."

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2003-12-08T23:10:00.000-06:00

Gratitude contributes to happiness, good health

It seems that it isn't until one has to be
away from the USA in one capacity or another that the veil, created by taking
for granted our many freedoms, is lifted. It is an especially abrupt
awakening if one travels to visit or work in a portion of the world where
people are oppressed or exploited or ignored.

One of my wife's cousins worked with an agricultural agency that helped to
re-establish private farms in Latvia. He fell in love with an agency
secretary who was a native of Latvia. They decided to get married, and
ended up having a ceremony there and one here. He, his wife and her mother
returned a couple weeks prior to the US wedding to be held at his family's church,
a country church near Concord (WI) not far from the family farm.

Shortly after they arrived, he drove his wife and her
mother into Watertown (WI)just to pick up groceries and some other sundries.
They ended up at the Pick N'Save store. He dropped them off and said he was
going to run to Shopko, across the parking lot, to pick up something, noting
that they should just pick up anything they would like to be eating or
snacking on, and he would return in 15 or 20 minutes to finish shopping, pay
and they'd all head back to the farm.

In about 20 minutes he returned, and the two Latvian women had only one
thing in their cart - something on the order of a dozen eggs, or a loaf of
bread. Up until this point, my wife's cousin, Matt, had told his new wife
that the supply system was very different in the USA. He hadn't so much
complained about the unpredictable staples at the stores in Latvia while he
was there, but did point out that it was very different, and that Latvia
could do better, and would do better some day.

At first the two women thought Pick N'Save was a propaganda front, and that
possibly only one of each item had been pushed to the front of the shelves.

When Matt returned to the store, expecting visitors for a celebration, and
having come from a moderately large family, he grabbed two shopping carts
and promptly started doing some "real" shopping. But the two women didn't
know what to think as he threw in four loaves of bread, 20 pounds of
potatoes, two cut-up broiler chickens, bunches of celery, bags of apples,
bags of onions, rice, cheese, crackers, breakfast cereals, beef roasts, pork
roasts and on...one can only imagine how either extravagant or vulgar this
appeared to people who had arrived from an Eastern Block country days
before.

But the kicker to this experience was when they checked out of the store.
Matt wrote a check for the food and said he would drive the car to the front
door of the store so it wouldn't be so far to wheel the groceries out. He
told them just to keep an eye out for him and the car. Shortly, he was in
the drive at the front of the store, yet the women didn't bring the
groceries out. He could see them from the car, so lightly tapped the horn
to get their attention, and they still remained in the store.

Matt pulled over, and got out of the car to see what was up, or to see if
they needed help (of course he planned to help transfer the packages anyway,
but was trying to multi-task). As it turned out, the two Latvian women
were afraid to leave with the groceries because he hadn't used currency to
pay for them, they had no idea what a check was and they were afraid the
police would arrive and arrest them for stealing these "mountains" of food.
He had to persuade them that he had paid, that is what the register tape
receipt proved, and that checks were used here frequently like cash.

So, within a matter of 48 hours after their arrival,they had been
exposed to this vast supply that we all take for granted, as well as the variety of payment options.

Even when my wife and I were in the Pacific, there was no sweeter sound than
that first skid of rubber from our plane touching down, ending a return trip
after two years away from the US.

It is unfortunate that people aren't or have trouble being grateful for what they have.
It is especially so during this time of year when it seems that the race is really toward
acquiring things in search of either happiness, peace or both.
Granted, not having enough for shelter, clothing, food, etc. is clearly an
unhappy state, but so many who have those basics plus the resources to
continue in the pursuit of happiness seem to be searching to no avail.

More and more, studies are finding that gratitude and forgiveness are very healthy states, and that being grateful for what one already has can lead to a consistent state of happiness.

I strive to be satisfied, and am thrilled with moments of happiness. But my satisfaction is less about things, than the state of things. At one time I would have liked to have perfect performances in music. And now, I would like my written work to always be perfect. But I now strive for that, still, and find ways to be satisfied with moments of perfection and find satisfaction with the moments of happiness that brings. It seems realistic, and yet doesn't let me veer from attempting or striving to that end.

Yet I don't find myself an unhappy person.

The latest studies indicate that the happiest people are those who can express gratitude to others, and can be grateful for what they have or their current station. In fact it is considered to be an attitutde which may help prolong life. It seems hard, though, just to get people to say thank you to a waitress for bringing a glass of water, let alone express thanks as an ongoing awareness of our good fortune.

It sounds like it could have been said today, but in 1774 Rousseau wrote:
"Many people find being deprived of material items more cruel than
possessing them is sweet, and are unhappy to lose them without being happy
to possess them."
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2003-12-04T08:52:00.000-06:00

It has occurred to me that the reason I really dislike WIsconsin winter has nothing to do with the weather...directly.

As a child I loved playing in snow, and while I had bouts with asthma, it didn't keep me from disliking the season. In fact it was adventurous, and having since lived in climes where there are no changes in seasons, it at the very least gives one something with which to look forward.

It really wasn't until my second child was in preschool and the third was an infant that the reason occurred to me. We were preparing to head out to one of her two half days at Teddy Bear Nursery School in Lake Mills (WI), and I realized on that mid-winter day that I had found five right mittens and not a single left.

The benefit of mittens is the ability to flip them over and wear them on the opposite hand, but it was at that point that the thing I really detest most about Wisconsin winters is the task of keeping track of, or otherwise finding mittens, boots hats, jackets, jacket liners.

...then after I find mine, I'd have to search for the kids' winter wear. LS

2003-11-29T23:10:00.000-06:00

To those of us who even fear being left behind as the world sleeps and we are in the "brain-race" head noise that keeps us from the peace that sleep may bring. Keats understood this...

To Sleep

O soft embalmer of the still midnight,
Shutting, with careful fingers and benign,
Our gloom-pleas'd eyes, embower'd from the light,
Enshaded in forgetfulness divine:
O soothest Sleep! if so it please thee, close
In midst of this thine hymn my willing eyes,
Or wait the "Amen," ere thy poppy throws
Around my bed its lulling charities.
Then save me, or the passed day will shine
Upon my pillow, breeding many woes,--
Save me from curious Conscience, that still lords
Its strength for darkness, burrowing like a mole;
Turn the key deftly in the oiled wards,
And seal the hushed Casket of my Soul.

-John Keats

2003-11-29T19:58:00.000-06:00

Democracy is not always pleasant

There have been times in our history when unrest pervaded the landscape. Dumping crates of tea into Boston Harbor would probably be seen as little more than vandalism in the scope of this nation’s history of discourse. But under the circumstances, it was a rather daring and defiant (and creative) way to make a point and get the attention of those imposing a burden in the form of taxes on a minority of the people who had no voice in their government’s decision making process.

The nation formed subsequent to that demonstration was one based on laws, ideas and principles. And one of the tenets built-in as a precept within the nation’s structure was the idea that in a democracy, discourse and debate are encouraged.

But now in the 21st Century, when most Americans are relatively comfortable, debate and discourse – or even the act of questioning the status quo – is often considered a potential source of “unpleasantness.” While we see a certain amount of this in the legislature and congress, forms of government closer to home have established this artificial wall over its decision making process.

Why are we afraid to speak our minds in fear of offending individuals with opposing ideas? And to the other side, one might ask, ‘Why are you offended when it is the right and obligation of people living in a democracy to enter into debate openly?”

In fact, it has become a popular technique of people who wish not to answer “uncomfortable” questions to make it known that any type of controversy would be unpleasant, and that being unpleasant (in this context) is wrong. This syndrome allows some factions to get away with avoiding the discussion of matters that can impact an entire constituency.

Their grand premise is that “It is better to be pleasant than it is to be correct.” This is a recipe that will yield the lowest common denominator as the result of every issue.

John F. Kennedy said, “We are not afraid to entrust the American people with unpleasant facts, foreign ideas, alien philosophies and competitive values. For a nation that is afraid to let its people judge the truth and falsehood in an open market is a nation that is afraid of its people.”

From national actions down to local events, the best decisions for the majority historically were hammered out of molten debate. And the rules for debate are what keep individuals civil, so that the discourse and arguments are over the matter at hand, instead of time wasted hurling ad hominem commentary back and forth.

Both sides of an issue should know that they have served their constituency well, no matter the outcome, if they have entered into debate casting aside fear of the vain notion that it is unpleasant to pursue what is right.

-copyright LS 2003

2003-11-26T01:50:00.000-06:00

To sleep. What a concept. But the work is not conducive to sleep. Another day fending off the slings and arrows. L8R...