tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19081550397188678102024-02-18T23:49:21.468-08:00Terraplane: Nate Binzen's Blog<b>terreplein</b> (ter' pla-n) n. [Fr. < It. terrepieno < terrapienare, to fill with earth, terrace < terra (see TERRACE) + pienare, to fill < L. plenus, full: see PLENTY] a level platform behind a parapet, rampart, etc., where guns are mounted. <br>Reconstituted from the retired <a href="http://terraplane.blogspot.com"> terraplane.blogspot.com</a>). Also see <a href="http://keepercommunications.com"> Keeper Communications</a> & <a href="http://www.intuart.com">Intuart</a>. Natehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07069973024250553513noreply@blogger.comBlogger49125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1908155039718867810.post-88806935455775776182018-04-09T01:49:00.001-07:002018-04-09T12:16:43.346-07:00A visit to Mesenich, the original home of the Binzens<br />
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April 2, 2018: We drove from Brussels to Mesenich today. We’ve counted over
300 wind turbines in the recent 3 days of driving from the Netherlands, to
Belgium, and today into Germany. In the final hour of our drive, and entering
the valleys of the Moselle, the landscape grew dramatically beautiful – granted
that it’s early April, and it’s all just getting ready to move out of winter
brown and bare. But the riverside towns are madly picturesque, and the hills
rise steeply from the riverside, all knitted with small vineyards.</div>
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In recent days I had researched online for Binzens in the
area, and I was aware of a family in the next town upriver, Senheim, 2 km away
(also a town in which some of our direct Binzen forbears had resided). We drove
through Senheim, and I figured I’ll try to drop in on them soon, as I’d found
their address....</div>
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<i>(click on pics below to see larger)</i></div>
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Pulling off the river round into the tiny burg of Mesenich, you’re immediately into narrow little streets. It wasn’t hard to find our hotel; you’d be in and out of the place in a couple of minutes driving at a crawl. Our proprietress speaks no English, so we were challenged by that, but quickly a friendly fellow, Andreas, a regular guest, appeared and helped orient us. The hoteliers are winemakers – they’re all winemakers here. Hirschen-Schuster, since 1585. We can buy it cheaply in-house. Andreas explained that Moselle wine has been popular since Roman times, and it excels because of the soil, filled with ‘black stone’ (slate, we later observed) that absorbs the sun’s heat and holds onto it into the night, warming the wine territory in a most favorable way.<o:p></o:p></div>
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The wine <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">is</i> very good. After our first taste, we headed out for a walk. Out behind the hotel, which is the third block up from the riverside and the outer edge of town, the hillside immediately slopes steeply upward in vineyards, occasionally crossed by narrow lanes paralleling the river. The walls that run alongside some of these paths are extensively decorated with busts of notable local vintners, and other artistic curiosities. We walked up to about the fifth of those lanes, high over the valley. From there you can walk either direction, up or downstream. Both are said to be lovely walks. Tomorrow we may walk to Senheim and try to find these Binzens. When I asked our hotelier Norbert if he knew the name, he said there hadn’t been any Binzens living in Mesenich for some time, though there used to be an auto mechanic, and we grabbed the phone book and showed me the names of the several Binzens residing in Senhals.<o:p></o:p></div>
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We later had dinner in a delightful little restaurant, Bai, in a wine cellar, just down the street. And the waitress there also knew of the Binzens one town over. So it’s a small place.<o:p></o:p></div>
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And it’s a vacation destination, for sure. We’re told the summer wine festival is something marvelous. (There’s a German word for this event; there’s no translation; it’s an ancient tradition.)<o:p></o:p></div>
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April 5: Now we are driving out, after a delightful stay. We want to highly recommend the place we stayed in, Hirschen-Schuster. It’s at the high end of town, with vineyards stretching up the hill out the back – still just 3 short blocks from the river. It has apartments with kitchens, so one can save a lot on food bills.</div>
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On our second day, we kicked around town, and drove downstream as far as the sizeable holiday town of Cochem, topped by a magnificent castle on a hill, where we shopped for food. Later, Xenia and walked from our hotel to the next town upriver, Senheim, there to try to meet the Binzen family we had heard about. It was a half hour’s walk through vineyards all the way, up and over a lovely mountain pass, then plunging down into town. The church bell was ringing as we strolled down into the small streets. I in turn rang the bell of Thomas Binzen, and found a slightly portly man about my age; I explained to him what my deal was, and he understood, and then we attempted a conversation for several minutes, he in German and me in English, and I understanding almost nothing, and not having been invited in, we took our leave, with me noting for another day that I ought to learn at least a 500-word German vocabulary for moments like this! We walked back home alongside the river, and knowing that some of our Binzen forebears had lived in Senheim, I imagined how often they had surely walked these ways many times.<o:p></o:p></div>
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The next day we set off on a hike downstream to the small village of Bielstein, where I envisioned a visit to the castle ruins on the hill above followed by a lunch at the very picturesque riverside café. Manuel, Norbert’s son and the current generation’s proprietor of our hotel’s wine business, drove the short trip to Bielstein in his van to allow me to drop our car there and then bring me back. Our walk began well, in a flatter highland of vineyards, but about halfway through, the light rain intensified into a real drencher. I ran the rest of the way to get the car, while the others cut it short and headed into the village of Briedern. The latter part of the hike proved to be a dramatic single-track high up a very steep wooded mountainslope, ending at the castle, which had suffered terrible bombardments in the 18<sup>th</sup> century.<o:p></o:p></div>
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After drying off at home, we drove to Cochem, which is a pretty place full of small hotels. We walked up the steep narrow streets to visit the “castle,” which turned out to be built in the 19<sup>th</sup> century by a rich guy from Berlin, on top of the ruins of a castle that dated back to 1000 A.D. Then it was an early dinner at that café in Bielstein I’d intended earlier, where we tried for the first time the local red wine. Then back at our hotel it was a wine tasting that stretched on for more than 3 hours. The basement level of the hotel is the winemaking operations, which we toured, and all the wine business on this street, aptly named Weinbergstrasse, have rooms for these elaborate and lengthy evening social wine-tastings. They are served with sliced sausages and bread and cheese, pickled mushrooms, and such. We went through about of dozen of their varieties, most of them delightful, and featuring very little of the old-fashioned sweet German taste, which they have clearly evolved beyond in order to give the people what they want. They sell almost all their wine direct to customers.<o:p></o:p></div>
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There we chatted with Andreas and his friends, and Manuel, who once interned in Sonoma and served with helpful explanations of the various varieties and growing conditions. We learned among other things that zippers are referred to as Sipples, and that there’s a popular phrase, “Es ist in die Binsen gegangen”, which means, Things are going to the dogs, up in smoke – literally, that’s going to end up in the reeds – Binsen being a sort of reed. From the internet: <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“The phrase comes from the duck hunt, when the ducks flee into the reeds (colloquially: the rushes) or struck birds fall into the reeds, they are no longer findable for the dog and thus lost.” The reeds would also account for the “broom” meaning, as they said it’s possible brooms may once have been made from these Binsen reeds. But all in all, it’s a sound-alike; these rushes aren’t really “Binzen.”<o:p></o:p></div>
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We also learned from Manuel that his sister-in-law was previously married to a Binzen, with whom all are still on good terms! And I found but was unable to contact in the area, a guy with a construction company; a plumber; and an artist - all Binzens. So the Binzens are definitely ensconced around here.<o:p></o:p></div>
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We also learned from Andreas that one can buy a house here for like 50-60,000 euros. The young folks can’t make a living here, except by making wine, which I guess is passe as a lifestyle. The Dutch have been snapping up vacation homes.<o:p></o:p></div>
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We want to come back here. We intend to. It is beautiful.<br />
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Natehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07069973024250553513noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1908155039718867810.post-32653366943482527802015-09-19T15:56:00.000-07:002015-09-19T15:56:07.969-07:00Tactics for English Language Learners <!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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Let’s suppose that I’m teaching middle school social
studies. Here’s a relevant unit: </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;">
The aim of this activity is to
allow children to understand the recurring common theme of migration through
human history. Children then, by focusing on reasons for migration, can come to
understand the particular circumstances of refugees.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
In this class, I have four English Language Learner (ELL)
students:</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Ivana is starting her first year in a US school. A native Russian
speaker, she is in stage 2, early production. She speaks only in short phrases. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Eogenia is the child of a recent immigrant family from
Guatemala. She is in stage 3, speech emergence. While her capacities to do
class assignments is limited, she luckily has more language-advance classmates
who share her background and are able to converse with her in Spanish and help
her along.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Henry is the child of Nigerian parents, and has been in the
US for several years. He is in stage 4, intermediate fluency. He is able to be
very actively involved in class discussions; his more obvious errors tend to
come in his written work. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Rand is an adopted Ethiopian. He began learning English at
age 5 and has been at it long enough that he is now at the stage of advanced
fluency (stage 5). He seems like a native speaker to me.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The good news is that I have a unit that will be really
meaningful to each of these students. No question, they will have thoughts
about it, and their thoughts will be valuable to their classmates to hear, if
they get the help they need to convey them. It’s also helpful that those who
are at the earlier stages can observe the later-stage students modelling the
achievements they’re headed for.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
In fact, it’s all good news. These students are on a journey,
and I and the others in the room are here to help them get where they’re going.
Some of them are not going to understand what’s being said, written, presented;
but their time is not being wasted. Every minute of this at times befuddling
effort is moving them forward.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
My task is to give them supports that meet them where they
are. I’ve got a lot to draw on, and this week, here’s what we’re pulling out of
the arsenal…</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
We’ve got pictures: we’ve got all sorts of news coverage out
of eastern Europe, of Syrian refugees seeking to find their paths into a new
home. These pictures stimulate discussion, and a lot of relevant words come tumbling
out. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I’m going to avoid correcting all the time them when they
say something … “wrong.” I’ve learned to say things like, “Oh, yeah, like the
immigration officer” instead of, “Not the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">police</i>
– the immigration officer.”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Some of these students have stories to tell. I’m not going
to put them on the spot, but Henry and Rand can tell the stories of their
journey to the US, and in fact they want to tell these tales to their
classmates. All these other students who grew up right here in town are
learning for the first time what it’s really like to be uprooted and
re-planted. And Ivana and Eogenia are definitely grasping the idea of what Henry
and Rand are talking about. They don’t understand it in depth, but they’re straining
to pick up all they can.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
And they’re getting a reinforcement of acceptance through
this experience. Today, we’re not talking about the immigration of Italians and
Germans in the 19<sup>th</sup> century; or ancient Israelites. But we’ll get to
that – and hopefully that’ll start to seem a little relevant to everyone in the
class too!</div>
Natehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07069973024250553513noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1908155039718867810.post-56774672458729109032015-09-11T09:02:00.000-07:002015-09-12T09:23:14.875-07:00Special Education Referrals in a Westchester School DistrictI spoke with the lead special education administrator of a school district in Westchester County, New York, Kristie. It was the first week of school and she was pressed for time, so one of the strong impressions the conversation left me with, in addition to her obvious professionalism, was how much specialized jargon was flowing off her tongue. Since it’s all new to me, I was scrambling to keep up as she gave me a quick introduction into how special education is a highly regulated, highly organized system with crucial accountabilities. <br />
<br />
A student may be identified for special education referral either by the parents or by school staff, and these two paths each have their own requirements. In either case, the staff takes an individualized approach to determine what sort of supports they can build appropriate for the student. <br />
<br />
Much of what happens in the referral process is mandated by state and federal law. For example, the Response to Interventions (RTI) spells out a clear process to follow, beginning with collecting data that would demonstrate initial eligibility. The RTI process will move the student into one of three tiers. But Kristie made clear to me that the state does not dictate how they intervene, such as what courses they provide. For example, the district has a special resource room for intake called Bridges, which is not based on any legal requirement, but is modelled on their own choices of best practices. <br />
<br />
And this goes some way to explaining the school administration's directive for special education. The administrators make it their business to continually analyze their continuum of services, from the least restrictive, most inclusive ways available to other approaches as needed. This is a well-resourced district with the capacity to keep an eye open for innovations they can add, in a field that seems to be in a state of ongoing development, with a steady stream of new research, assistive technologies, and piloting methodologies. <br />
<br />
If the student is “classified” as a result of the referral, s/he is then under the responsibility of the Committee on Special Education (CSE) and is given case manager. The whole process of evaluations and committee reviews ensues. If not, their case is sent back to what they call the “building level,” meaning the team of educators in the student’s school building, who manage this student along with all the others, though one presumes with a closer, more specialized level of attention. <br />
Students identified for special education are provided with a continuum of services at the elementary and secondary levels, ranging from teacher-direct interventions to out-of-district placement if necessary. The CSE team determines what’s appropriate in each case, including social-emotional developmental needs, and develops a plan to suit.<br />
<br />
Parents are deeply involved. If the referral is initiated from within the school, parents are informed early and kept aware throughout the process. Either way, once a student is classified, consultations with parents are a constant feature, with weekly conversations at a minimum between a learning specialist or psychologist and the parent, and a robust online portal providing the parent with extensive access including real-time tools. <br />
<br />
I was curious about the social-emotional component of a special education student’s predicament, whatever their particular needs may be. The philosophy overall is to take a student-centered approach, in which students take responsibility for their own learning and development to the maximum extent. They seek to enable student activity that is less directed by the teacher, more self-directed.<br />
<br />
I then spoke to two veteran high school teachers from the same district. When I asked Dean and Renee how they identify a student for special education, it became apparent that that rarely happens at the high school level – almost always, the referral will already have been made in earlier grades. So students tend to come under their supervision already under the management of the CSE. The teachers then tend to jump into an RTI process that is already well defined. <br />
<br />
As they get more involved in the case, they observe actively, and when they notice things, they bring their findings to the team meetings to talk about it as a group. They then try approaches in the classroom that they have reason to expect to be of value. They then collect data and go through several cycles of reporting and adjusting. When something isn’t working, this triggers them to try a different level of intervention, and this escalation may continue as long as necessary.<br />
<br />
The teachers know a student is struggling when they see poor reading comprehension; a student who is grades below age in reading & writing; and obvious problems with math comprehension. They most often attribute these observed qualities to slow mental processing and weak memory. They recognize that there are many causes of these conditions – neurological, hearing impairment, learning difficulties, and often physical causes. <br />
<br />
On the subject of emotional handicaps, I thought both teachers initially indicated that they tend to stay away from handling that. When I sought a further explanation, they clarified that it’s not that such cases go untouched, but rather that emotionally fragile kids are handled more as the special province of psychological staff, such as clinicians who conduct psychological testing and work directly on conditions like anxiety. They also noted that in their experiences, the attempt is made to address such conditions earlier, in middle school. <br />
<br />
I asked whether referrals ever seem to come as a surprise to the parents. Again, this is not a process these teachers handle much, but they think it rarely comes as much of a surprise to parents of student at the high school level. <br />
<br />
When I asked whether alternate methods of instruction are tried before referring the student for special education, the answer I got, which really referred to the RTI, indicated to me that at the age they’re teaching, students are pretty clearly segregated already in the minds of the teachers into those who have been classified in special education and those not. They did describe how highly individualized the RTI approach is for each student. It might involve calling the parent once a week, making a homework schedule, giving the kid more attention if s/he’s having hard time reading. Their perspectives seemed to be very much formed by the RTI process, with its weekly committee meetings examining different cases; a large reference list of different interventions depending on the student; and an iterative process of the committee recommending an intervention, the teacher and student trying it, and reporting back. <br />
<br />
Before these interviews, I had taken some time to reflect on the role of personalized learning in special education today. I found the sources I examined for that topic took an expansive view of personalized learning, as an education practice applicable to all students and all classrooms, not just an approach to handling students designated as being on the special education track. I think that in addition to the benefits a personalized learning program can deliver for all students, it can also do a lot to create a more inclusive and less judgmental context for special ed students to thrive in. <br /><br />The interviews, though, quickly took me out of the position of seeing either special education or personalized learning from a theoretical, academic overview standpoint. So while the things I have reported here may not be news to the reader, for me, not having been involved in any of this before, it was quite an education into both the formal process and the perspectives and approaches of teaching and administrative staff concerning special education. Attending to special needs has to be a significant chunk of a teacher’s time, and the collaborative accountability is quite intensive. What the teachers are doing is not just educating, but carrying out the law. I think that a teacher has to adopt a really positive attitude about his/her contribution to the student’s growth to incorporate this special attention seamlessly into his/her complete range of responsibilities. <br /><br />And this brings me back to the consideration of personalized learning. If this is always the approach to handling everything that happens in the classroom, and if it is bolstered by supportive innovations such as the flipped classroom and relevant learning technologies, then it would seem to me that the benefit is not just that the classroom environment becomes a better fit for student on the special education track, as valuable as that is. It is also that in the collaborative work of teacher teams, when the practice of individualized planning and execution that special ed kids are mandated to receive flows also to all the other students, the whole spectrum of learners are really in the same boat together. That sounds ideal to me as long as the means of teaching, learning, and asssessing build in efficiencies that provide the time necessary for the teachers to attend to students in this way.<br /><br />
<br />Natehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07069973024250553513noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1908155039718867810.post-56222844340621149172015-09-04T18:40:00.000-07:002015-09-11T10:35:10.680-07:00Beacon City School District Demographic and Achievement PerformanceHere's a little look at how Beacon's young students stat up:<br /><br /><iframe frameborder="0" height="7071" scrolling="no" src="https://magic.piktochart.com/embed/7676801-beacon-city-school-district-new-york" style="overflow-y: hidden;" width="550"></iframe>Natehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07069973024250553513noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1908155039718867810.post-68652057081154768832015-08-30T06:27:00.000-07:002015-09-11T10:35:10.697-07:00What is "Innovative Teaching and Learning"?"Innovative Teaching and Learning" is a buzzword set of practices in education these days, backed by Microsoft research and advocacy. Here's an infographic giving a brief overview of what it's about:<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhib8RAI4_DuG7e2puZQoIyxr2fqsY_6q86SoNYm04BGnehCnMcAVjxMoFmVa5iQc-NYj_cdN2q70Qd5OK32yp9TPQuY-5lgo4eh6-KLDI8hqxkDQxQaeus07t9N78CJhT1Jx0Pa13QXjg/s1600/Innovative+Teaching+and+Learning.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="Innovative Teaching and Learning Infographic" border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhib8RAI4_DuG7e2puZQoIyxr2fqsY_6q86SoNYm04BGnehCnMcAVjxMoFmVa5iQc-NYj_cdN2q70Qd5OK32yp9TPQuY-5lgo4eh6-KLDI8hqxkDQxQaeus07t9N78CJhT1Jx0Pa13QXjg/s640/Innovative+Teaching+and+Learning.jpg" title="Innovative Teaching and Learning Infographic" width="418" /></a></div><br /><br /><br />One important finding backing up this approach is that the quality of an educator’s assignment strongly predicts the quality of the work that a student does in response. Greater than 90% of variation in student work scores was accounted for by differences across assignments, not by differences across students for the same assignment.Natehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07069973024250553513noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1908155039718867810.post-18011494775033058642015-08-30T06:19:00.000-07:002015-09-11T10:35:10.713-07:00Brief History of US Education Law Pertaining to Student TestingHow have federal education laws acted to move us to today’s testing/assessment regime?<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe width="320" height="266" class="YOUTUBE-iframe-video" data-thumbnail-src="https://i.ytimg.com/vi/g5IzDsha1pI/0.jpg" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/g5IzDsha1pI?feature=player_embedded" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe></div><span id="goog_1899153665"></span><span id="goog_1899153666"></span><br />Here I look at four laws:<br /><ul><li>Elementary and Secondary Education Act, 1965 (ESEA)</li><li>Goals 2000: Educate America Act, 1994</li><li>The No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 (NCLB)</li><li>American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA)</li></ul>... and you'll see how since the 1980s, the direction towards more testing with the purpose of enhancing school accountability has been continuous throughout different presidential administrations.<br /><br /><br />Natehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07069973024250553513noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1908155039718867810.post-15385325415519638452015-08-28T13:31:00.000-07:002015-09-11T10:35:10.743-07:00Why are the Common Core Standards So Closely Linked with High-Stakes Testing that Many Parents Find Onerous and Odious?<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <o:OfficeDocumentSettings> <o:RelyOnVML/> <o:AllowPNG/> </o:OfficeDocumentSettings></xml><![endif]--><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"></span><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:WordDocument> <w:View>Normal</w:View> <w:Zoom>0</w:Zoom> 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Locked="false" Priority="51" Name="List Table 6 Colorful Accent 3"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52" Name="List Table 7 Colorful Accent 3"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46" Name="List Table 1 Light Accent 4"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="List Table 2 Accent 4"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="List Table 3 Accent 4"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="List Table 4 Accent 4"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="List Table 5 Dark Accent 4"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51" Name="List Table 6 Colorful Accent 4"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52" Name="List Table 7 Colorful Accent 4"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46" Name="List Table 1 Light Accent 5"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="List Table 2 Accent 5"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="List Table 3 Accent 5"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="List Table 4 Accent 5"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="List Table 5 Dark Accent 5"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51" Name="List Table 6 Colorful Accent 5"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52" Name="List Table 7 Colorful Accent 5"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46" Name="List Table 1 Light Accent 6"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="List Table 2 Accent 6"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="List Table 3 Accent 6"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="List Table 4 Accent 6"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="List Table 5 Dark Accent 6"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51" Name="List Table 6 Colorful Accent 6"/> <w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52" Name="List Table 7 Colorful Accent 6"/> </w:LatentStyles></xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 10]><style> /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin-top:0in; mso-para-margin-right:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:8.0pt; mso-para-margin-left:0in; line-height:107%; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;} </style><![endif]--><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;">I<span class="post-text">t seems to me that the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) are tightly fused in the public’s mind with increased and more stringent standardized testing, and that this close association with testing has created a lot of resistance to Common Core. Here in New York that's certainly the case, with this year (2014-15, the first year common-core-oriented tests have been introduced) 20% of students/parents opting out of the testing.</span></span><br /><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span class="post-text"> </span> </span><br /><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span class="post-text">I've been holding a minimally informed view that the standards are a reasonably good idea undermined in the public perception by being saddled with contentious assessments that may be serving other purposes entirely. I wanted to take a closer look. How real is that linkage between CCSS and onerous assessment? What caused that perception to arise? And how are the major educational organizations responding to it? I looked at the websites of some of the major US educational organizations to find out.</span><span style="font-size: 12.0pt;"> </span></span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">I began with the <a href="http://www.corestandards.org/" target="_blank"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Common Core State Standards Initiative</b></a>, because it gives the appearance of being the central online advocacy force on behalf Common Core. So I was surprised to find it did not have a lot to say about the assessment side of the coin. They emphasize that data collection is not required, but up to each state individually. Perhaps they are reluctant to wade into the controversy, but if so, my casual observation of P.R. strategy tells me they’re dropping the ball, because the perception “out there” is so strong that Common Core is all about the testing and “teaching to the test.” And that’s ironic because, by the definition of Common Core’s learning objectives, one would expect the methods for assessing achievement to be quite different from and more meaningful than the customary, rote-questions, fill-in-the-bubble methods. They need to address the controversy if they want to make a stronger case for CCSS and help get it through this difficult roll-out.</span></span><br /><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">Before going any further, it’s worth quoting this concise statement by the <a href="http://www.aft.org/issues/" target="_blank"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">American Federation of Teachers</b></a> (AFT) as to what Common Core is basically about:</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br /></span></div><div style="margin-left: .5in;"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;">The Common Core State Standards have the potential to transform teaching and learning and provide all children with the problem-solving, critical-thinking and teamwork skills they need to compete in today’s changing world. This approach to learning moves away from rote memorization and endless test-taking and toward deeper learning.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">The AFT is very supportive of Common Core. But they strongly assert that there is a need to extensively field-test the assessments before rolling them out. They make the comparison with how businesses methodically field- and market-test their products before introducing them, to prevent commercial failures. The implication is, why would education administrators handle such a large and important “product roll-out” any differently, and risk blowing the necessary positive impression and goodwill? They suggest a moratorium on the testing, asserting that it is too rushed, and they also argue against jumping into <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">using</i> test result to determine such things as student advancement or penalties or rewards for school performance.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">I’m sure I’m not the first one to make this comparison, but this “botched roll-out” thing reminds me of the drastic effect the failed opening days of the Obamacare online exchanges had. It just gives the whole project a bad image, painting program elements that are totally unrelated to the testing problem and otherwise potentially easily accepted with the same discolored broad brush. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">The <a href="http://www.nea.org/home/IssuesAndAction.html" target="_blank"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">National Education Association</b></a> (NEA) stakes out a position close to identical to the AFT’s. They are very opposed to high-stakes testing, and one gets the sense they are representing a group of teachers who are weary not only of having to teach with these test in mind but also of being associated by default with standardized testing, as if it was somehow their idea. They propose delaying any testing until the teaching side is rolled out smoothly. Indeed, they published an <a href="http://neatoday.org/2012/12/11/beyond-the-bubble-schools-get-ready-for-common-core-assessments-2/" target="_blank">article</a> back in 2012 expressing concern that when the tests arrived, they could undermine the effort to establish Common Core.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">All these organizations point supportively to the “next generation of assessments”<b></b>being produced by <a href="http://www.smarterbalanced.org/k-12-education/common-core-state-standards-tools-resources/" target="_blank"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium</b></a> (SBAC) for some states and the <a href="http://www.parcconline.org/" target="_blank"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Partnership for the Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers</b></a>(PARCC) for others. I did not find either the SBAC or PARCC website particularly informative on the subject of the timing of initial testing and what effect is was having on public support for the Common Core, but at least PARCC was direct and explicit in stating that their assessment project is all about supporting implementation of Common Core. </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">So at least they are not abashed about it, and I get the sense that they are earnest, research-based, and creative about getting the assessments right. But they do not seem to address the issue of timing or argue that allowing more time to pass would be a good thing. I imagine that, like the Obamacare administrators, they have been under tremendous pressure to get it done and out yesterday, to (theoretically) lend credibility to the whole project and generate an evidence base. But that pressure is probably also coming from political interests wanting to use results to “incentivize” schools and teachers, long before the linkage between test results and appropriate consequences can be demonstrated.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">PARCC has an interesting description of how the two major evidence-based principles on which the standards are based are <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">focus</i> and <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">coherence<span style="mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">.</span></i> It is not my topic here and I don’t have time to discuss it, but they do a careful and effective job of explaining how this is a rational and testable basis to do assessment better than it has been done in the past.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It lends confidence about the project in the long term, but will they get there before the political winds change, weighed down with negative impressions?</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">I presume PARCC and SBAC are predominantly researchers into effective educational methods and assessment design, rather than interest groups pushing for testing in the ways it is sometimes used to reward and punish schools and teachers. It’s not clear whether or not they are supportive of the immediate requirement of using the tests in the initial implementation of Common Core standards. </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">So who is? I’m guessing it’s political leaders more than anyone else, but to finish my roundup, I took a look at the <a href="http://www.ccsso.org/Resources/Programs/Interstate_Teacher_Assessment_Consortium_%28InTASC%29.html" target="_blank"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Council of Chief State School Officers</b></a> (CCSSO). A section of their website titled</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> “Standards, Assessment & Accountability” ties these subjects more closely together than any other source I examined. By “Accountability,” they mean consequences for professional educators and institutions for their results. So I’m guessing they have a strong interest in seeing to it that these three aspects are very tightly knitted together. They do come across as a group of technocratic believers, particularly in their statement about accountability, which seems to be their culminating, unifying concern – and which likely plays best with the political class. No mention of a testing moratorium there.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Citations:</span></b></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Tim Walker. (October 16, 2013). 10 Things You Should Know About the Common Core. Retrieved from <span class="MsoHyperlink"><br /></span><a href="http://neatoday.org/2013/10/16/10-things-you-should-know-about-the-common-core/">http://neatoday.org/2013/10/16/10-things-you-should-know-about-the-common-core/</a></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">Tim Walker. (December 11, 2012). Beyond the Bubble: Schools Get Ready for Common Core Assessments. Retrieved from <span class="MsoHyperlink"><br /></span><a href="http://neatoday.org/2012/12/11/beyond-the-bubble-schools-get-ready-for-common-core-assessments-2/">http://neatoday.org/2012/12/11/beyond-the-bubble-schools-get-ready-for-common-core-assessments-2/</a></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Common Core State Standards Tools & Resources. (2015). Retrieved from <a href="http://www.smarterbalanced.org/k-12-education/common-core-state-standards-tools-resources/">http://www.smarterbalanced.org/k-12-education/common-core-state-standards-tools-resources/</a></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">FAQs about the Common Core State Standards. (2015). Retrieved from </span><span style="font-size: 12.0pt;"><a href="http://www.aft.org/education/common-core/frequently-asked-questions">http://www.aft.org/education/common-core/frequently-asked-questions</a></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Glossary of Terms. (2015). Retrieved from <a href="http://www.parcconline.org/resources/parent-resources/glossary-of-terms">http://www.parcconline.org/resources/parent-resources/glossary-of-terms</a></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">Myths vs. Facts. (2015). Retrieved from <a href="http://www.corestandards.org/about-the-standards/myths-vs-facts/">http://www.corestandards.org/about-the-standards/myths-vs-facts/</a></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Principles Regarding the Common Core State Standards for Mathematics. (2105). Retrieved from <a href="http://www.parcconline.org/resources/educator-resources/model-content-frameworks/mathematics-model-content-framework/principles-regarding-the-common-core-state-standards-for-mathematics">http://www.parcconline.org/resources/educator-resources/model-content-frameworks/mathematics-model-content-framework/principles-regarding-the-common-core-state-standards-for-mathematics</a></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Standards, Assessment & Accountability. (2015). Retrieved from </span><span style="font-size: 12.0pt;"><a href="http://www.ccsso.org/What_We_Do/Standards_Assessment_and_Accountability.html">http://www.ccsso.org/What_We_Do/Standards_Assessment_and_Accountability.html</a></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">Testing. (2015). Retrieved from <a href="http://www.nea.org/home/59488.htm">http://www.nea.org/home/59488.htm</a></span></span></div>Natehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07069973024250553513noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1908155039718867810.post-22102930693581607722012-11-15T20:36:00.000-08:002015-09-11T10:35:10.767-07:00Recently overheard at the annual softball game, United States Embassy, Beijing, China<!--StartFragment--><span style="font-family: Calibri, Verdana, Helvetica, Arial;"><span style="font-size: 11pt;"><i>“Xi Jinping replaced Hu Jintao as head of the Chinese Communist Party...” - Bloomberg News, Nov 15, 2012<br /></i><br />Recently overheard at the annual softball game, United States Embassy, Beijing, China:<br /><br />“Hu is on first.”<br />“Who?”<br />“Hu.”<br />“That’s what I’m asking.”<br />“I’ve just told you.”<br />“Who?”<br />“Right, Hu is on first.”<br />“That’s what I’m asking you!”<br />“Oh, forget about it. Xi is on third.”<br />“That’s a <i>guy</i> on third.”<br />“Right, Xi is on third.”<br />“No, <i>he</i> is on third.”<br />“Right, he is. Xi.”<br />“Who’s she?”<br />“Xi, the new president.”<br />“The new president’s a she?”<br />“Yeah, that’s right.”<br />“Then who’s on third?”<br />“No, Xi is!”<br />“What are you talking about? <i>He </i>is on third.”<br />“That’s right.”<br />“Then why did you say <i>she</i> is?”<br />“Look, you’re making me crazy. The old president’s on first, the new president’s on third.”<br />“Who’s the old president on first?”<br />“Yeah, Hu.”<br />“That’s what I’ve been asking you!”<br />“Hu is, you dunce. Xi is the new president, on third.”<br />“You mean <i>he</i> is.”<br />“Yeah. <i><cough, cough> </i>Here, gimme your inhaler.”<br />“Okay, just don’t put your lips on it. So <i>who</i> is the new president?”<br />“No, Xi is!”<br />“Who?”<br />“Not Hu, Xi!”<br />“Who is she?!”<br />“What are you talking about?! Hu is Hu!”<br />“Who is <i>she</i>?”<br />“Look, get it through your head. Xi is the <i>new</i> president.”<br />“<i>Who</i> is she?”<br />“What have you been smoking? ‘Hu is Xi.’ That makes no sense!”<br />“You keep talking about her. I don’t know who she is.”<br />“Wow, whatever you’ve got, I want some of it. Xi is a guy.”<br />“They do that here? In the party leadership?”<br />“Do what?”<br />“A she who’s a he?”<br />“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”<br />“I don’t know’s on second.”<br />“At least we’ve got that straight.”<br /></span></span><!--EndFragment--> Natehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07069973024250553513noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1908155039718867810.post-50446659850368199812011-11-01T20:01:00.000-07:002015-09-11T10:35:10.786-07:00<div><b>The stars grind slow</b></div><div><br /></div><div><div>The stars grind slow.</div><div>Father. Daughter.</div><div>Father, the mountain laurel blooms</div><div>call me, home.</div><div>Daughter, walking, the sippy cup</div><div>is yours now.</div><div>The year past, <i>annus mirabilis</i></div><div>for me. Father, you died</div><div>at ninety-two. In twenty-eleven</div><div>a quick spell brought you down</div><div>too soon, but I, at forty-two</div><div>arrived. The photograph, you</div><div>holding my six-month baby girl</div><div>by the shed, morning glories,</div><div>your sweater under her hand.</div><div>Firstborn, you smiled through it all</div><div>pierced my spine with sunshine,</div><div>everything for me a flower opening</div><div>and old certainties diminished</div><div>for good. And this arrival</div><div>co-created by you both, and me, and</div><div>a pleroma unknown. At loss,</div><div>sadness, tempered by a calming</div><div>of unsettled spirits. Completion</div><div>is a new view to the horizon</div><div>and valleys shadowed deep between</div><div>folded so immersive as to contain us</div><div>in our descent for years,</div><div>decades.</div></div><div> <!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <o:officedocumentsettings> <o:allowpng/> </o:OfficeDocumentSettings> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:worddocument> <w:zoom>0</w:Zoom> <w:trackmoves>false</w:TrackMoves> <w:trackformatting/> <w:punctuationkerning/> <w:drawinggridhorizontalspacing>18 pt</w:DrawingGridHorizontalSpacing> <w:drawinggridverticalspacing>18 pt</w:DrawingGridVerticalSpacing> <w:displayhorizontaldrawinggridevery>0</w:DisplayHorizontalDrawingGridEvery> <w:displayverticaldrawinggridevery>0</w:DisplayVerticalDrawingGridEvery> <w:validateagainstschemas/> <w:saveifxmlinvalid>false</w:SaveIfXMLInvalid> <w:ignoremixedcontent>false</w:IgnoreMixedContent> <w:alwaysshowplaceholdertext>false</w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText> <w:compatibility> <w:breakwrappedtables/> <w:dontgrowautofit/> <w:dontautofitconstrainedtables/> <w:dontvertalignintxbx/> </w:Compatibility> </w:WordDocument> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:latentstyles deflockedstate="false" latentstylecount="276"> </w:LatentStyles> </xml><![endif]--> <!--[if gte mso 10]> <style> /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:12.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-ascii-font-family:Cambria; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family:Cambria; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;} </style> <![endif]--> <!--StartFragment--> <p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p> <!--EndFragment--></div>Natehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07069973024250553513noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1908155039718867810.post-26357037085236915882011-09-11T14:36:00.000-07:002015-09-11T10:35:10.801-07:00In this season of 9/11 remembrance<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <o:officedocumentsettings> <o:allowpng/> </o:OfficeDocumentSettings> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:worddocument> <w:zoom>0</w:Zoom> <w:trackmoves>false</w:TrackMoves> <w:trackformatting/> <w:punctuationkerning/> <w:drawinggridhorizontalspacing>18 pt</w:DrawingGridHorizontalSpacing> <w:drawinggridverticalspacing>18 pt</w:DrawingGridVerticalSpacing> <w:displayhorizontaldrawinggridevery>0</w:DisplayHorizontalDrawingGridEvery> <w:displayverticaldrawinggridevery>0</w:DisplayVerticalDrawingGridEvery> <w:validateagainstschemas/> <w:saveifxmlinvalid>false</w:SaveIfXMLInvalid> <w:ignoremixedcontent>false</w:IgnoreMixedContent> <w:alwaysshowplaceholdertext>false</w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText> <w:compatibility> <w:breakwrappedtables/> <w:dontgrowautofit/> <w:dontautofitconstrainedtables/> <w:dontvertalignintxbx/> </w:Compatibility> </w:WordDocument> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:latentstyles deflockedstate="false" latentstylecount="276"> </w:LatentStyles> </xml><![endif]--> <!--[if gte mso 10]> <style> /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:12.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-ascii-font-family:Cambria; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family:Cambria; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;} </style> <![endif]--> <!--StartFragment--> <br /><div class="MsoNormal"><b>In this season of 9/11 remembrance</b></div><div class="MsoNormal">In this season of 9/11 remembrance, I’ve been reluctant to get into it, because I’ve always felt the national response was somewhat <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">off</i>. Out of respect – who wants to hear that? – I thought I’d steer clear. But this morning I was able to feel for myself that the emotions that conflagration provoked and continues to evoke are an epic force not to be lightly passed by.</div><div class="MsoNormal">I’ve skipped the media coverage, only because my standard for worthwhile news is that I ought to learn something I didn’t already know, and I have high confidence I’d learn nothing new from all this. But I happened to begin the day with Weekend Edition on the radio, and they began by playing ten-year-old street-level audio of the impact and horrified witness reaction as the second tower was hit. I quickly changed the station, not wanting to immerse my 15-month old daughter in that soundscape. We arrived at WFUV, a New York music station that spent the morning playing music about or evocative of 9/11. Here, from a bastion of generally folkie/leftie vibes, I heard a lot of good music that New Yorkers wanted to hear, generally holding to the themes of strange loss, heroism, a need for shared experience, often connecting to the day in a subtle way very personal to the songwriters. Nothing bombastic, nor political or critical. I felt the shared emotion and the need for individuals to mark their immersion in the events of that day.</div><div class="MsoNormal">So who am I to step on that? I would not wish to. But in just as personal a vein, I could tell you about a different response, my own, which is marked by distance. Physically, I was living in California on 9/11, and I was woken that morning by a call from my mother in Connecticut to tell me what was going on, around the time the second tower fell. I had no TV; I spent the whole day at home, listening to the radio. Oddly, I wasn’t around TVs at all during that time. For many months afterward, I never once saw a video clip of the planes crashing or the buildings falling. I remember the first time I did, in a bar perhaps six months later. Before that, I had only seen still photos. This exclusion was more by happenstance than intention, though I believe I felt happier going without.</div><div class="MsoNormal">It was obvious from the first that this was a national trauma of the order of the Kennedy assassination. It’s not that I didn’t want to participate in all of that, and of course I did take part – we all did. But I also felt that the hundredsfold repetition of the traumatic videos was a kind of strange baptism in terror, an immersion in fear, even if largely unintentionally so on the parts of both broadcasters and viewers, that would forever color the character of Americans, and would help to change our destiny. That is the power of the moving images. When I did first watch a plane ram into a tower, that night in a bar so much later, I too was very powerfully and immediately shaken by what I was seeing. This is the power of media – to take and own your mindspace. I felt better off with some distance.</div><div class="MsoNormal">I guess that gap put me in mind to go my own way. From the early hours, it was obvious to me that Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld et al – already figures of great suspicion in my eyes – would take license to undertake what would in short order become the genuine replacement for the Cold War, a new organizing force for another couple generations of military procurement, war powers, and patriotic citizen-control. I locked into that vision of the consequences at the outset and have never doubted it since. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>On September 12, 2001, I wrote:</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;">Discussing security strategy, tactics and response misses the main point that yesterday showed: ultimately, there is no way of keeping an event such as this from happening except by making the people of the world love us more. I know it sounds absurd. But in the end, there is no other prevention…. We are unable to understand the deeper motivations of the perpetrators… What comes foremost to my mind is that we need to be sweet and highly generous – to a fault. Not to these perpetrators, obviously, but generally to the world at large…. Prior to this event, I've joked that if you take a poverty-wracked enemy of the United States like, say North Korea or Cuba (now add Afghanistan), we'd be better off strategically and financially if we paid every citizen there a personal check for $5,000 from the US taxpayers, rather than spending our money on the perpetual war machine. We'd save so much effort, stress and cash if we just bought the friendship of the populace! Obviously, I was being facetious. But ask yourself – what did we spend yesterday? What will it cost us to remain so long aloof and oblivious to the wretched of the world outside? Trillions?</div><div class="MsoNormal">At the time I wrote that, I consciously chose “trillions” to illustrate the unimaginable scale of what I was anticipating. It was then an exceedingly outrageous number to put forward. Remember, a year later Bush’s team was telling America that the Iraq War would cost just a few tens of billions. But I thought right away, what did the Cold War cost us? Bush is going to take us there. Today we can see I was right: by Joseph Steiglitz’s estimation, the war in Iraq (unjustified, unnecessary, unhelpful) has cost us $4.4 trillion. And look at us now, credit downgraded. Unbelievable decade, huh?</div><div class="MsoNormal">As I write, with my turn to these matters of consequence, I hear my own voice growing cynical, dark, basically unpleasant to hear – and that’s without trying on any conspiracy theories! I have always kept up with the left-wing critique, another news junkie seeking endless confirmation of what I already believe, and in retrospect I guess just a quarter-dose of it would have done me more good. Of course I would tune out any rah-rah patriotic 9/11 music, but I heard in today’s songs on the airwaves of New York, from some of my kind of people, a reaching for solace and shared experience.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The people who were there that day want to share their sympathy and affirm our togetherness, and maybe also a little bit to display their scars. Where I tend to go artlessly in my thoughts and writings, the songwriters, audience and deejays, they’re not going there. I’ve tended to turn to the political story and the story of our national interest. I don’t have much personal connection to the day –I know somebody who lost a spouse in it, I took a look at Ground Zero that December, a friend tells the story of walking back to Brooklyn on foot… but these are things that came to me much later. I have not ever had much desire to hear the personal stories as reported in the media. The local heroism, the firefighters, the rescue and cleanup workers, the stories of loss, as true as they all are, and as deserving of memorialization, they also – and even to say this is to play a role some may find either uncaring or unpatriotic – when played through a media filter, work to reinforce the patriotic narrative that keeps us distanced and baffled from the world outside, and actually unable to come to grips with it. Just to fight and hold ourselves apart. How can I shut up when I believe that we are, in so doing, only repeating our mistakes? That it keeps us pouring out our national treasure into war debt, fruitlessly?</div><div class="MsoNormal">I remember the night the Iraq War was set to start. Bush would unleash the bombs within hours. My brother and I looked out over the San Francisco Bay as the gloaming set in, and I had a feeling of immense impending loss – a sickness for the country I so deeply love. [When I speak about Iraq in this essay and elsewhere, it is always as an accordion that opens up into so much more. The Iraq War is something akin to what the partition of Berlin and the Korean War were to the Cold War – a concrete fact on the ground that made a generations-long conflict emerge as something real. The Iraq War is different because it was unjustifiable and built on lies, and it ushered in, more than 9/11 and the subsequent Afghanistan intervention did (assuming that Afghanistan could have gone better if not for Iraq), a Cold War equivalent that really did not have to be what it is, and which, unlike the Cold War, is tangibly wrecking American power.]</div><div class="MsoNormal">How much these ten years of stories have changed us Americans, ever reinforcing the Great Conflation, that those who criticize our warlike ways do not support our troops and are deficient in their love of our country. In my hometown paper this week, a writer tells our wayward mayor, “Our military fights for that blanket of security that you have the right to enjoy and that allows you to go out and protest against them. I prefer you to just thank them for what rights and freedoms you have.” Can those who hold this view ever understand how a person like me can cherish the military service of my father and other forebears, can love the Iraq War veteran, can love our country so deeply, and at the same time believe our sacrifice in Iraq, and our entire War on Terror construction, has mostly served to hurt us in ways immeasurable? Ten years into the 9/11 era, the answer seems to be: as little as ever.</div><!--EndFragment-->Natehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07069973024250553513noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1908155039718867810.post-35459171385600093622011-06-05T19:04:00.000-07:002015-09-11T10:35:10.820-07:00<div><b>Memorial Day, 2011</b></div><div><br /></div><div>Memorial Day, twenty-eleven</div><div>the army airman, fighter pilot</div><div>and later race-car driver,</div><div>later still creator of the Fitch sports car,</div><div>to this day owner of the single prototype</div><div>curve-graced Italian open two-seater,</div><div>arrived at the parade</div><div>to pick up his compatriot,</div><div>fifteenth air force b-seventeen</div><div>bomber pilot out of Foggia</div><div>who until last year had always insisted on walking,</div><div>only to learn</div><div>from the man’s wife he had died</div><div>six months before.</div><div>The airman hadn’t known – he’d been away.</div><div>He grew quiet,</div><div>stared off into space.</div><div>He didn’t drive the car,</div><div>the widow and bomber’s daughter-in-law</div><div>told their son</div><div>over breakfast some days later.</div><div>She told me about it a couple days ago,</div><div>she said. Probably didn’t want</div><div>you guys weighed down by it.</div><div>Unusual to miss the parade,</div><div>but they’d been in Toronto…</div><div>Niagara in fact, that day, swept up</div><div>as one should be</div><div>by the great, life-giving waters.</div>Natehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07069973024250553513noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1908155039718867810.post-7531747834381769312011-06-04T13:37:00.000-07:002015-09-11T10:35:10.837-07:00<div><i><b>Eulogy for my father, </b><a href="http://www.billbinzen.com"><b>Bill Binzen</b></a><b>, delivered in November, 2010:</b></i></div><div><br /></div><div><div>Yesterday around Dad’s grave I heard many wonderful stories from my cousins of Dad’s indelibly unique way of connecting with them. And you’ll hear many such stories today, I’m sure. I think everyone will remember Dad for that twinkle in his eye, his sense of fun, his love of family and his genuine warmth. </div><div><br /></div><div> </div><div>I shared all those sorts of experiences, of course. But somehow it’s hard for me to talk about them right now in the same way. So I’d just like to say a few things about the trajectory of his life.</div><div><br /></div><div> </div><div>Dad was a person who remembered when the blacksmith shop was a going concern. How could he have imagined ending his days with a certain adeptness at Photoshop and email? </div><div> </div><div><br /></div><div>He saw Babe Ruth hit a home run, and attended the celebrated Joe Louis-Max Schmelling fight. (Well, so did my uncle Peter, who’s here today.) And he also watched a NASCAR race from pit row just two years ago. </div><div><br /></div><div> </div><div>He took in the performances of Benny Goodman and Glen Miller. But he also attended a Guns ‘n Roses /Metallica double bill. I was there with him. He was 4 times the age of the rest of the audience, and we did depart while Axl Rose was still singing, which I somewhat regret, but that <i>was</i> around one in the morning.</div><div><br /></div><div> </div><div>He flew 26 missions in a flying fortress over Europe, heading right into the floating box of flack in the target zone. He repeatedly witnessed planes just off his nose falling from the sky. And, he also stood many times in the anti-nuke, anti-war vigil just down the street from here. </div><div> </div><div><br /></div><div>Dad spent time with Cartier-Bresson, knew Diane Arbus before her photography career had even begun, and worked closely with David Ogilvy in the formative years of Madison Avenue. A part of him embraced these big-time, expansive experiences. But he didn’t dwell on them. </div><div> </div><div><br /></div><div>There were things that mattered far more to him. Family and friendships mattered more. His own creative motivation mattered more. I’d say it was beauty that mattered more to him – beauty in landscapes, in relationships, in images and compositions, and in the details of daily life.</div><div> </div><div><br /></div><div>Long summer afternoons by the lake on Mount Riga; trips up the Housatonic by motorboat; dinners around a big table with extended family; the hand-drawn letters and cards; his joy at being surrounded by his granddaughters; and the many, many phone calls just to talk about what happened today; these are the moments I’ll remember.</div><div> </div><div><br /></div><div>We’ll also remember his unceasing creative drive. He <i>always</i> had a project going. How many stacks of pictures I flipped through with him, learning his vision of composition and juxtoposition and focal interest. He never stopped striving or learning. At about 89 he took up the art of African drumming. What can you say? It’s not a sound I ever expected to hear in church in Salisbury, but he was right there in the vanguard.</div><div> </div><div><br /></div><div>Finally, though Dad was quite reticent about inner thoughts and such, and not given to advising, when the chips were down, he was brilliant at seeing what really mattered to me, and responding to it with the right words. Helping me along in life. One of the readings today is from Shakespeare, and it contains the words which I always felt he treated as his golden rule: “To thine own self be true.” Halleluiah to that, Dad. You lived it, and I’m working on doing the same. </div><div> </div><div><br /></div><div>To close, I think the use Dad made of his memory of his war experience grew more vivid in his later years. It certainly wasn’t about war as something glorious; more about the intensity of concentration and purpose that a mission demanded. If you ask my mother, you can learn how his re-envisioning piloting missions carried him through his recent suffering with great courage. “The wild blue yonder” really was a touchstone for him.</div><div> </div><div><br /></div><div>But when you think of him in the wild blue yonder, know that the memory of flying that he held most dear was the training hours he logged over Texas and Florida in his Stearman biplane, heading up into the crisp banks of sunlit clouds, free of the bonds of this earth. He carried that airy lightness with him always. On his last day with his eyes open to the world, he gazed a long time faraway into those clouds and that light. He seemed very assured; and this was very reassuring.</div><div> </div></div>Natehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07069973024250553513noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1908155039718867810.post-81068596011373712692011-05-14T09:26:00.000-07:002015-09-11T10:35:10.851-07:00<span style="font-weight:bold;">Face: Book: Yell</span><br /><br />About 1998-2000, I webbed pages with Myself.<br />They float out there still. Dormant.<br />Thickly crusted. Embarrassing only insofar as:<br />Who the hell cares? And: I’ve moved on.<br />But… I let them persist.<br /><br />In plain language, my job: manage communications.<br />Encompass web. Once, one could proceed in anonymous glory.<br />Now? Add social media. Next: engage. As yourself.<br />Am so doing. Might start to convince<br />my Friends and associates they made the wrong choice.<br />Hold on tight.<br /><br />Permit that I propel ponderous musings<br />on the significance of the medium.<br />Does anyone keep journals any more?<br />Write longhand? You there – got any attention span left?<br />Is it pompous I should persist in this way?<br />I shan’t apologize.<br />The actual is in the playground, on recess.<br /><br />Reluctant, but now pliant<br />for my station – profession-alley – so demands:<br />that I turn my Face to the Book.<br />One cannot do one’s job without it.<br />Yet I have spent enough day in my Face,<br />would rather turn my Profile to Home,<br />soft sofas, familiars,<br />distant sound of water pouring over rocks.<br /><br />And who has much to say?<br />Oh, my Friends. Our sharings, our likes are a bit mundane.<br />Piqued by snark and spunk.<br />Carried by the frisson of memes.<br />Not bad… not Michelangelo either.<br />Why should I worry? It’s just…<br />Once, the days peeled away without threatening to persist.<br /><br />My parents’ generation had no need for this Book.<br />Nor did they have to Face it.<br />But transplant them to another era, they would be different people.<br />Which would have more merit or valor?<br />The times now tell us the Book is essential.<br />Yes,<br />if we consent to be all Face.<br /><br />To say I’m ambivalent here.<br />I’m like the Grand Canyon.<br />I don’t want to be here at all.<br />I only want to be here if I succeed extravagantly.<br />I don’t want to just be myself.<br />I don’t exactly want to disappear.<br />I want to annoy you so much you come to need it.<br />I don’t want to change, not on these terms.<br />I want to change you.<br /><br />Everybody is so absorbed.<br />I’m completely uninterested.<br />Not in you.<br />Just in you here, in the Book.<br />I’m not striking a pose.<br />It’s totally visceral.<br />This isn’t where I want to be.<br />Just call me: just call me.Natehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07069973024250553513noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1908155039718867810.post-27468800580964675052011-02-20T20:57:00.000-08:002015-09-11T10:35:10.867-07:00<p class="MsoNormal"><b>What are the values that matter?</b></p><p class="MsoNormal">What are the values that matter these days, that you can stake your politics on? Any answer quickly runs up against the terrible slipperiness of our favorite big-idea words – freedom, peace, truth and the like. Everybody defines them as they like. The question is, which bundle of definitions is claiming the most adherents? So as I offer my list, I too am working to claim these grand-narrative terms:</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight:normal">Freedom:</b> democratic values and open possibilities</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight:normal">Peace:</b> nonaggression despite risks</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight:normal">Compassion:</b> active care for those less well-off than you</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight:normal">Innovation and tradition:</b> the evolution of new things, married to the continuing influence of collected wisdom</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight:normal">Common truth:</b> current science, and collected peaceful wisdom, combined as the best guide to reality as we know it</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight:normal">Equality:</b> our rights equal, and our different stations in life earned by merit</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight:normal">Renewability:</b> earth’s dynamic and living systems allowed to sustain us without their permanent degradation</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight:normal">Justice:</b> applying collected wisdom compassionately to guide matters responsibly</p> <p class="MsoNormal">If we want to end by dipping our toe in the waters that, all things considered, I see as in the realm of spiritual belief, we could sum it up with:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight:normal">Love:</b> care for all.</p>Natehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07069973024250553513noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1908155039718867810.post-84989833261527448382011-02-20T20:55:00.000-08:002015-09-11T10:35:10.880-07:00<!--StartFragment--> <p class="MsoNormal"><b>Relative to the Arab freedom movement of 2012 – the Arab 1776:</b></p> <p class="MsoNormal">I’m not sure what the current thinking is in Tel Aviv and Washington, but it occurs to me that if Israel’s foreign policy senses the strangely emerging freedom of Arab peoples primarily as a threat, it’s time for Israel to get a new foreign policy. If Washington is inclined to share that view when thinking on Israel’s behalf, it’s time for Washington to get a new foreign policy.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>After all, nothing matters more than democratic values. Right?</p> <!--EndFragment-->Natehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07069973024250553513noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1908155039718867810.post-5933672972262382632006-11-22T21:42:00.000-08:002015-09-11T10:35:10.894-07:00<strong>"...the specific intent to remove the regime in Baghdad is not even remotely thought-out in terms of consequences..."</strong><br /><br />The latest excuses for Iraq from Charles Krauthamer and others spouting this line is that Iraq was lost in three bungles - not shooting enough looters, not setting up a provisional government of Iraqi exiles, and not squashing Muktada Sadr at the outset. Oh, that it should be so easy to align stars your own way. If Bush had trouble picking Jay Garner for the job of provisionally owning Iraq, consider how his choice of Ahmed Chalabi for president would have gone down, but anyway...<br /><br />Iraq was lost 101 ways, starting well before the war, and only culminating in a far-worse-than-Katrina handling of everything that came after the splendid bit of shock and awe.<br /><br />All this had to be obvious to every person in Washington in 2003.<br /><br />I wrote to my senator in 2003 prior to the start of the war...<br /><br />"...the specific intent to remove the regime in Baghdad is not even remotely thought-out in terms of consequences such as: costs in cash and blood; destruction and danger for US forces and local civilians; the challenges of governing Iraq and nation-building (that’s a joke); regional instability (can’t wait to have our soldiers stationed along hundreds of miles of Iran’s border); over-reaching; loss of allies; unpredictable consequences; the potential quagmire of war; a no-holds-barred precendent for bellicose and unaccountable “leaders” the world over; danger to the global economy; and, not least, the guarantee that such an action will provoke decades more of unstoppable anti-US terrorism..."<br /><br />It's not that I am so prescient. Any "leader" who could not envision as a realistic scenario losing as many as 2/3 of these propositions is either lying to us, lying to him/herself and us, or so stupid that s/he has forfeited the right to lead and should resign or be fired. Certainly all who voted for the war must fit in one these categories.<br /><br />There is a story which speaks so loudly of crucial errors made long before the fateful, forceful entry of Iraq, but the Mark Foley scandal blew the doors off it, making it the most fascinating pre-election untold story.<br /><br />Curiously, the Mark Foley scandal blew the doors off the most fascinating pre-election untold story, one which speaks so loudly of crucial errors made long before the fateful, forceful entry of Iraq. If you think about it, Foley has been a net blessing to the White House - one of the best diversions ever.<br /><br />About 3 days before Foley's brilliantly-lit stage-entry, it was revealed that Condeleeza Rice had received, in July, 2001, an extraordinary, out-of-schedule briefing by CIA Director George Tenet, who described the strong likelihood of an imminent spectacular attack by al Qaida upon the United States. She actually claims not to remember anything about that briefing, while admitting the meeting happened for that purpose. That is so inconceivable that truly a person would have to be in great dementia or a coma not to remember such a briefing.<br /><br />It was then revealed that both Donald Rumsfeld and John Ashcroft recieved the same extraordinary briefing a few days later. Ashcroft at first denied it, but was soon shown to have stopped taking commercial flights because of the news. Rumsfeld, by the way, I would think, would have to have been shown the door at this point... and then Foley hit. So... what's the latest on this story? Anyone got the stomach for it? If I were in charge in Washington, I'd now say I want Rice's head for this.<br /><br />In full, I wrote this letter to my senator in 2003 prior to the start of the war...<br /><p>Dear Senator Boxer,</p><p>President Bush has made a major mistake in the direction he has taken US foreign policy in recent months. I am speaking, of course, of his policy of “pre-emption”; his surreal message to Iraq, “obey or don’t obey - we are going to crush you no matter what you do”; his thumbing his nose at foreign opinions and partnerships; his offensive taunting of the United Nations; his abandonment of the hard-won framework of international law; his flippant dismissal of containment and deterrence; his blatant manipulative use of fear-mongering; his disregard for our civil liberties; and, frankly, his callow disregard for your own august institution, the U.S. Congress.</p><p>Senator, if you do not act by speaking out forcefully against his errors, you will, with Mr. Bush, lead America to stumble into deep chaos and self-inflicted suffering. If you do not oppose Bush’s Iraq plans, you will have failed us all.</p><p>It is not just that the president’s foreign-policy stance is out of control; the specific intent to remove the regime in Baghdad is not even remotely thought-out in terms of consequences such as: costs in cash and blood; destruction and danger for US forces and local civilians; the challenges of governing Iraq and nation-building (that’s a joke); regional instability (can’t wait to have our soldiers stationed along hundreds of miles of Iran’s border); over-reaching; loss of allies; unpredictable consequences; the potential quagmire of war; a no-holds-barred precendent for bellicose and unaccountable “leaders” the world over; danger to the global economy; and, not least, the guarantee that such an action will provoke decades more of unstoppable anti-US terrorism.</p><p>This administration is dangerous. It is beginning to run completely out of control because a weak-minded leader is being yanked around by an aggressive, willfull, deeply paranoid senior staff. Just listen to him - he is a man who has lost all sense of himself and what he himself believes or stands for. He is being pulled around by his neck. Do not be a party to this madness. The Democratic Party does not need to help this man. Please stake out your position forcefully in opposition to the drive for war in Iraq, and please do so immediately. If you do not, I can assure you you will come to regret your allegiances.</p><p>Yours, Nate Binzen Oakland, CA</p>Natehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07069973024250553513noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1908155039718867810.post-8566805842350201022006-09-11T19:43:00.000-07:002015-09-11T10:35:10.913-07:00<strong>Untruth and Consequences</strong><br /><br />I have heard a lot of insightful examination and truth-telling by our TV news pundits, in the past couple weeks, concerning our present challenges in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the “war on terror.” I hear intelligent, realistic recognition of the complex mix of motives behind the terror, the diversity of Muslim opinion, the tangled histories that make for unruly allegiances and animosities in the Middle East, the limitations of military power to affect these forces, the need for deep analysis before action, the pursuit of hearts and minds, the suspicion of cheap rhetoric, the toxic effects of our oil addiction, the need, in a time of war, for sacrifice and genuine involvement, and the thousand shades of gray that our foreign policy demands.<br /><br />It’s infuriating. The TV heavyweights are now, for the first time, saying on the air things that I and many others privately discussed ad nauseum, three, four, five years ago.<br /><br />I welcome their newfound honesty. The window has been opened, the fresh air is in the room now. But what bothers me is that these media bobbleheads are intelligent people, they had back then the same facts before them that I did, and more. They also must have had, in private during the past five years, some conversations at the level of reality. But only now, after a year of opinion polls have given them the buoyancy they feel they need, are they willing to go on the air with it.<br /><br />What a disservice they have rendered us. All that precious time lost making us swallow you’re-with-us-or-you’re-with-the-terrorists, they-hate-our-freedoms, dead-or-alive, there-is-no-doubt, mushroom-cloud, shock-and-awe, welcome-us-with-flowers, mission-accomplished, “reconstruction,” bring-it-on, Geneva-Conventions-are-quaint, dead-enders, final-throes, turning-a-corner…<br /><br />It’s not that the truth didn’t squeak out here and there over the airwaves (and all over the blogosphere). It’s that the hierarchy of media orthodoxy always privileged the notion that reality-based thinking was naïve, dangerous, and, ultimately, not sufficiently robustly patriotic.<br /><br />Now, all that the belated media truth-telling is good for is to help us start to think about digging ourselves out of a deep, deep hole. To see the same guys who took their paychecks spouting the party line now displaying their authentic intelligence, how can you respect that? It only goes to show how, when the nation really needed them to make good use of their perches, they sent their integrity to the back of the bus.Natehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07069973024250553513noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1908155039718867810.post-49851209812945904562006-07-05T22:17:00.000-07:002015-09-11T10:35:10.927-07:00<div align="left"><strong>Put the River in Reverse</strong><br /><br />Listening to the radio today, I heard Elvis Costello’s new song, “The River in Reverse,” produced by New Orleans’s own Alan Toussaint, with its refrain “Wake me up, with a slap or a kiss.” A melodic and sinuous tune, it seemed to me to obliquely convey harsh, heavy, of-the-moment echoes of Hurricane Katrina, and of our present hell of idiotic terrorists and their perfect counterpart, the overbearing weight of our own freedom-compressing, reactionary overlords. The song is very present-tense.<br /><br />Next up was Van Morrison’s “Tupelo Honey.” This song evoked for me both the early 1980s when I first discovered Van Morrison, and the early 1970s when he recorded it and I was a young child. Coming as it did after Costello’s quick musical soaking in our present moment, the disjunction I felt was striking.<br /><br />Of course, Tupelo Honey is a finely crafted piece of sweet love emotion, a feel-good thing any time. Like any good song you love, it opens up a personal matrix of feeling-memory-evocation. But the juxtaposition with The River in Reverse brought, for me, something more. Immediately I felt the frame of history rising around this song, Tupelo Honey, this artifact. I felt the memory of a time when a rockin’ pop song could still rise above our background cynicism and dread, and just feel good.<br /><br />Okay… that’s still possible. But not, for me, in this instance. This song, which I have cherished, now seemed to me like a piece in a museum of modern art.<br /><br />(And I suppose I suddenly seem old enough to have been contemporaneous with the art of the generation now passed, recently acquired into the permanent collection.)<br /><br />Tupelo Honey is simply a love song, but it reminds me of a time when, yes, there was war, and mistakes, and bad judgments, and poverty and pollution and all the rest. And it reminds me of a time when there was a terrible enemy, and uncertainty about whether our world would survive intact. But above all, what I heard today was the echo of the many years now past when we could hear Van sing his song, and feel that love-vibe in his craft, the art of our time, a pleasure we could all share, somehow unknowingly reassured that our nation is sometimes right, sometimes wrong, sometimes sublime, sometimes despicable… but on balance, healthy.<br /><br />Nowadays that simple reassurance is gone for me. We hate to look around us. We inextricably plunged ourselves into an international catastrophe, the complete rupture of a poor but proud country into a pit of violence with no escape, initiated by our relentless, senseless, unnecessary bombing of a capital city millennia older than our own. We blithely started a high-stakes game, the outcome of which was fore-ordained as, at best, barely tolerable, and, at worst, a total loss.<br /><br />At home, the powerful use fear as a tool to beat us down has won, and we, once proud Americans, are now just bobble-headed, overworked, blinkered, compliant debtor-consumers. We are lied to, and we expect it – some of us even think it’s good for us. Neither media nor government cares to discuss or investigate serious charges that our electoral system is being rigged. We are saddled by a national debt so enormous that it will hang around our necks until I am beyond retirement and heading for the grave. The era of rising wages and expectations, a signal chord of the time of Tupelo Honey, is gone: only a difficult struggle against a global race to the bottom lies ahead. Recently I saw the global warming movie, An Inconvenient Truth. No one can leave the theater without knowing we are responsible for what is coming, the end of nature’s magnificent equilibrium, and still we are doing nothing. I fear, heartsick, that the city of New Orleans, home of my alma mater, is starting to fade into the history. In the long term, the Crescent City doesn’t have the future that Baghdad has.<br /><br />Sure, there are villains abroad. But they don’t matter so much to me as the question, what about us? What is our deal? Because now, as not back then, in the 20th century, we are unavoidably implicated in things that are terribly, irretrievably wrong. And I look around me at the good, intelligent people I know, and what I see is that it seems we are impotent to act to make right. I am an optimistic person. But it’s hard, any more, for a simple good love song to feel so good.</div>Natehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07069973024250553513noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1908155039718867810.post-8326518648530750532006-07-05T22:06:00.000-07:002015-09-11T10:35:10.943-07:00<div align="left"><strong>"Bush has borrowed more money from foreigners than all prior presidents COMBINED"</strong><br /><br /><em>Ordinarily I do not do this, but the facts are as stark as any voter could possibly imagine, so I am quoting verbatim,</em> <a href="http://www.commondreams.org/views06/0705-30.htm">Robert Freeman, July 5, 2006 on CommonDreams.org</a><br /><br />"Bush has borrowed more money from foreigners than all prior presidents COMBINED. To fund his own record debts, Bush goes, hat in hand, to borrow more than $2 billion a day from the rest of the world… The national debt—the cumulation of all deficits since the founding of the republic—was $5.6 trillion when Bush took office but now approaches $9 trillion, up a breathtaking 50% in only five years…<br /><br />"More than 100% of the growth in Gross Domestic Product over the past five years is attributable to the expansion of debt. GDP is up $2.8 trillion since 2001. But government debt alone is up over $3 trillion for the same period. Add in the explosion of home mortgage debt at over $5 trillion, and a cumulative $3.5 trillion in trade deficit, and you get a Real Economy that is literally going backwards. The illusion of affluence is only sustained by selling off the family china. Working Americans know this all too well…<br /><br />"Real average hourly earnings are 14% below their 1973 post-War high. Real median household incomes are still 4% below where they were in 1999. Employment in the communications equipment industry is down 43% since 2000. Semiconductor employment is off 30%. Electrical equipment has shed one quarter of its industry’s jobs. Textiles, off 40%. These are the high-wage jobs on which the American middle class—the American standard of living—once rested…<br /><br />"This evisceration of labor and labor-based income comes at a time when corporate profits are at their highest level as a percent of national income since 1947 while labor’s share is at its lowest level since 1946. The rich are getting richer and everyone else is getting dramatically poorer…<br /><br />"As onerous as they are, the deficits… constitute only a small fraction of the total indebtedness of the U.S. economy. The official “national debt” is approaching $9 trillion, as noted, a substantial figure, to be sure. But the government’s “unfunded liabilities”—obligations it has committed to pay but for which there is no known source—are estimated at an incomprehensible $58 trillion. Add in revolving consumer debt, mortgage debt, and corporate debt, and the nation’s total obligations exceed $90 trillion, more than seven times GDP. At the time of the 1929 stock market crash, total debt stood at two times GDP. These obligations will never be paid.<br /><br />"The reason is that the job drain from the U.S., while it looks like a torrent now, is still only a trickle. Though the U.S. won the Cold War, it is rapidly losing the Cold Peace, which began when China ended its communist isolation and joined the world market. The average wage in China is $.57 per hour. China has more than half a billion workers meaning the drain of good jobs from the U.S. to China can go on indefinitely—and will. …As many as 56 million U.S. jobs are susceptible to outsourcing...<br /><br />"But this is exactly what Bush and… fellow “conservatives” intend… Globalization means liberating capital from all obligations to national well being, freeing it to pursue only the highest returns it can find, no matter where they may lie. That means seeking out the lowest paid labor and shifting all possible jobs there. That is China. Or India…<br /><br />"[The new Treasury Secretary’s] job, then, is to arrange the write down of debt that must accompany the effective bankruptcy of the U.S. He will have to promise an IMF-like fiscal austerity to foreign lenders to keep the funding flowing until there is nothing left to take. This will mean draconian cuts in social spending, no tariffs, and the removal of all remaining controls on the mobility of, and returns to, capital. The dollar will be precipitously devalued with the consequence of massive inflation and stratospheric interest rates. These will only accelerate the decline. A new international reserve currency, based on a basket of currencies including the Euro, the Yen, the Chinese Yuan, and the dollar, will be devised…<br /><br />"The U.S. worker and the U.S. economy will be left to their own devices. All social safety net systems must be dismantled for, given the colossal debt, they can no longer be afforded… The only government programs of substance that will be maintained will be police and military systems…"<br /><br />- Robert Freeman, July 5, 2006 by CommonDreams.org</div>Natehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07069973024250553513noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1908155039718867810.post-11619389385837322812006-05-15T19:32:00.000-07:002015-09-11T10:35:10.957-07:00<div align="left"><strong>Leaks 101</strong><br /><br />To dispose of all the hot air lately about leaks – partisans on both sides declaring treason by leakers they don’t like, while giving a pass to leakers on their own teams – I will now help you understand whether a leak is good, bad, or just normal. </div><div align="left"><br />There are 3 kinds of leaks: whistleblower leaks (good), partisan leaks (business as usual), and abusive leaks (extraordinary and bad).<br /><br /><em>Whistleblower leaks</em> are leaks of any government information, classified or not, that reveals improper or illegal conduct by the government that is being hidden from the public. The leaker may have to break a law in revealing their evidence of lawbreaking activity by others. Such whistleblower activity is fully justified and proportionate, and should be celebrated as a patriotic effort to defend the integrity of our government. It serves to enhance government transparency and accountability, two key requirements of good governance in the 21st century that we should absolutely demand of our government.<br /><br /><em>Partisan leaks</em> are disclosures of unclassified government information for the purpose of tactical political advantage. While such leaks may not be admirable, they are utterly routine under any administration, and those who expend their breath deploring them are wasting their time and are most likely hypocrites who look the other way when their own guys do it. Everybody’s always done it, and everybody will continue to do it. It’s human nature, and it’s part of the mechanics of power. It’s just the way the game is played.<br /><br /><em>Abusive leaks</em> are leaks intended to cover up or protect questionable or illegal activities by inflicting damage on political opponents. The key example is the attempt to damage the reputation of a whistleblower. Such leaks show a wretched disregard for both the law and the responsible limits of the political game. Worst of all are (highly unusual) leaks of classified government information for such purposes. This is the very definition of the abuse of power. If someone in your local government, or your workplace, or your posse, is exposed acting in like manner, you’ll say that person is a scumbag. Those who undertake such leaks have no place in the national leadership. They hurt our nation’s reputation and they damage the trust between the governed and their government.<br /><br />Whistleblower leak: Joseph Wilson exposing Niger yellowcake uranium lies told by President Bush while he made the case for making war upon Iraq.<br /><br />Partisan leak: too numerous to count. The cost of doing government business.<br /><br />Abusive leak: Cheney, Rove, Libby, et al illegally exposing the classified identity of Joseph Wilson’s CIA operative wife in an effort at payback, undermining his story, and silencing similar voices.<br /><br />So just remember: when you hear somebody spouting about a leak, refer to this handy guide and decide for yourself whether the speaker is correct, or just a windbag, or defending the indefensible.</div>Natehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07069973024250553513noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1908155039718867810.post-7729474341180179812006-05-08T20:04:00.000-07:002015-09-11T10:35:10.972-07:00<p><strong>This government is an abomination.</strong></p><p><em>I woke up on fire and started writing. Looking at my words again, I still haven't thought better of them. So here is my letter to the editor, of what publication I know not.</em> </p><p>I think you would be surprised at how many millions of Americans share the perspective I would like to share with you now.</p><p>I love my country and our constitution passionately. But...</p><p>I would not be going far enough in describing our present evolution if I were merely to say that the present administration is a nasty blot on our history.</p><p>This government is an abomination.</p><p>Both parties are parasites.</p><p>The greed and corruption of the people who hold the large measure of wealth and the political keys in our country are a disgrace upon their heads.</p><p>The military-industrial-"intelligence" complex has grown into the ruin of us all.</p><p>Washington DC is a howling vortex of bad karma. Responsibility has vacated.</p><p>With every passing day, we look more like a resurrected Babylon, or the declining Roman Empire.</p><p>For expedience, I am willing for a while longer to throw my support to the hollowed-out husk of the Democratic Party. But...</p><p>Before our national treasure, our climate, our hydrocarbons, our middle class, our civility, the last ounce of our prestige, and our ability to dream and deliver are gone...</p><p>We need to drop our illusions and distractions, and we need to start imagining, together. Then we need to act.</p><p>We need a vision of a nation 300 million strong that Thomas Jefferson, Chief Joseph, Walt Whitman, and Rosa Parks would anoint with their blessings.</p><p>We must melt the structures of power that are hardened and strangling us, and we must replace them. Renewing ourselves, it comes down to this:</p><p>Collectively, we must ensure that all are given the capability to flourish, and then left to their freedom. We must now dream, then build, a new United States government that helps us do that, and does nothing more. That is all.</p><p></p>Natehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07069973024250553513noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1908155039718867810.post-13830448727089328682006-04-09T22:20:00.000-07:002015-09-11T10:35:10.986-07:00<div align="left"><strong>We rise from and return to the dust</strong><br /><br />See the origin of plants in the dust<br />The ground was fertile, fecund, ample<br />bearing within it many potentials,<br />readinesses waiting,<br />tools-which-now-that-you-have-<br />you-can-no-longer-do-without,<br />gift opportunities,<br />receptors waiting for your arrival,<br />welcoming you in.<br />Our protein-molecule hormone receptors<br />evolved as the fertile ground,<br />the gardens upon gardens within<br />over time that welcomed in<br />the wandering hormones that fit them,<br />keys for locks, and<br />have been the dust, fecund,<br />in which the plants of our nature have grown,<br />embedding the forest of a cell,<br />an evolving practice,<br />and the bed of higher things.</div>Natehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07069973024250553513noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1908155039718867810.post-34462352315323989662005-09-30T17:13:00.000-07:002015-09-11T10:35:10.998-07:00<div align="left"><em>The following was written in celebration of my father's 87th birthday, by his brother Peter.</em><br /><br />9/21/05<br /><br />FOR ENGLISH MOROCCO<br />AKA BILL, BILLY, WILLY<br />AT FOUR SCORE AND SEVEN YEARS<br /><br />I’ll not waste time, I’ll be quite quick<br />Explaining what makes Billy tick<br /><br />Our nation’s reeling, it’s heading for a fall<br />Yet my bro’s focus is on major-league ball<br /><br />Critics suspect the President’s in a coma<br />But Bill stays glued on Terry Francona<br /><br />Although Bush hunts vainly for baddies under rocks<br />Bill’s obsession is them Boston Sox<br /><br />Bush says no to partial birth abortions<br />And Bill says yes to Fenway’s fortunes<br /><br />He knows our homeland is going to pot<br />But his own greatest fear is that Jeter may get hot<br /><br />But now’s the time for laughter and mirth<br />Marking the day of Big Brother’s birth<br /><br />Let good times roll, I wish you well<br />And may those Yankees go to hell</div>Natehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07069973024250553513noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1908155039718867810.post-52244332981913811602005-09-30T16:56:00.000-07:002015-09-11T10:35:11.012-07:00<div align="left"><em>Day long. I do agree the open event. You that you that all of these of my e-mail me in the ad into war but I am to you. Are we, the U.N.. “you can set the tone for one. We need to get you in the wrong one. One day one and of these ago that has all the information on the day. You only have the right to you on that one: said: that the pick of the eye for a lot of the one the new details you really want to talk to my folder won the one shown us a while yet. They’re no longer we can piano copper bowl PP & loan by Michael spearman the one on the ground. you only the use of the right now you write in and there are some others that have been one school year more of what you are in the windows billion 8 million deal. The Mike Michael Michael. The RSA, the news, call one or number one well, the UK’s cell sellers that I don’t mind on the phone 80 PCOM. Don Knapp. Ill will and yeah. Oh really the answer to a while but saying the bill, and now it’s been yeah. Go to get the United States I am a young, all of your operation in a minute song as far as always alongside works though some sentiment in the long run, while the yen and the. Of the will of the time. making it the old and in the one and one and one not have 111 11</em></div><div align="left"><em></em></div><div align="left"><em></em></div><div align="left"></div><div align="left"></div><div align="left"><br />What the hell is this babble? I had voice recognition running while I was on a business phone call, and this is what came out. No idea what I was really talking about, but it was none of this!</div>Natehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07069973024250553513noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1908155039718867810.post-1682360663672040922004-11-04T13:11:00.000-08:002015-09-11T10:35:11.026-07:00<div align="left"><b>Kerry Teaches a Lesson</b><br /><br />Bush’s election victory came as a bit of a surprise to me; I had expected him to tank with the American public by now, brought down by his accumulated falsehoods, failures, felonies, and fakery. That reckoning will come.<br /><br />But for those of us who are not enthusiastic about Bush, equanimity is in order: some things are beyond one’s control, and now is a time to prayerfully build inner strength, to connect with the light in others, to live artfully, and to be grateful for the good things we have. Even if Kerry had squeaked out a win, given all the Americans out there who identify so strongly with Action-Man Bush’s “toughness” and “moral values,” it is clear that there are historical processes that our nation needs to work through. We are now on one particular path through those changes. Frankly, I think that, one way or another, the adherents of Bush’s brand of “conservatism” will need to wise up to a clearer realization of humanity’s inexorable interdependencies (some of which are beneficial to us, others hard to accept). I think that that growth process is going to be painful for both of the two Americas, red and blue. And I do not think that a Kerry victory would have done much to assuage those challenging, inevitable dynamics.<br /><br />I hope the reader will remember my call for equanimity now while I indulge in recounting my thoughts as I crawled into bed late last night. The tone was anger, and it will not help if we only hold onto that anger; we must draw its lessons, and move on.<br /><br />Anger at Kerry. Anger that he failed to understand his enemy. If I could have advised him, I would have told him to take every page out of Karl Rove’s playbook, and attack Bush relentlessly, viciously, dirtily, below the belt (pick your flavor of the week: dynastic heir masquerading as good old boy, daddy’s silver-spoon-protected draft dodger, moron student, brain-compromised booze-soaked cokehead, AWOL guardsman, bin Laden family business beneficiary, selected not elected, asleep at the switch on 9/11, master of justice-department-buried Administration felonies, war-manipulating demagogue, unfeeling death-dealing coward, etc, etc, etc).<br /><br />Why this unseemly strategy? Because, when historians look back on this campaign, they’ll see that there was only one chess move that mattered: the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth ads, brought to you, with the slightest veneer of deniability, by Karl Rove. Bearing his mark of Zorro: attack the opponent at his point of greatest strength. Kerry the war hero became Kerry the unpatriotic wimp, and there, debates be damned, he remained in the minds of enough voters to bear him off into the land of pathetic political footnotes.<br /><br />Kerry’s Swift Boat Waterloo reminds us of the way he set up his own ambush. He invited the attack by ducking at the Democratic convention, portraying himself simply as the gung-ho war hero, dreaming that he could somehow avoid any presentation of his subsequent anti-war protest activities. Please. He brought the fatal blow upon himself. Mr. Electability should have known before the convention that his best strategy was to take – gasp – a risk. He should have come clean and succinctly told America that in his youth The Hero saw both sides of war: the duty to serve and the duty to speak your conscience. In that way, Kerry would not only have staked out a position of real, defensible moral courage, he – and he alone, and this too is his historic failure – could have gone a long way to healing the wounds of the Vietnam era. At the same time, he could have set up a mature national discussion about what our present open-ended war commitment really means. And initiated an effective critique of Bush’s war leadership.<br /><br />Oh well, missed a chance.<br /><br />I hate to say I told you so, but this Deaniac saw the flaws long ago. My convictions on the manner of winning a campaign haven’t changed since well before the Gore debacle. The risk-averse Democratic strategy of the polite cave-in, of acting Bush-lite, has always been and will remain a loser until the last miserable fool of the likes of McAuliffe, Lieberman, Daschle, Gephart, Gore, and Kerry – is out of politics. How many pathetic losses will it take before the Democrats just try showing the courage of their convictions, taking some risks, differentiating themselves from their conservative opponents, giving some genuine inspiration, and, at the same time, for pity’s sake, playing dirty?<br /><br />Look, Kerry defined himself for all time when he voted for the war in Iraq. If you thought that was a good idea at the time, don’t tell me now that the only problem is Bush’s incompetent handling of the occupation. You broke it, you own it.<br /><br />If you thought that was a bad vote, you should have known a long time ago that you were buying a lemon in John Kerry.<br /><br />But what’s done is done. My bedtime blaming session is limited to those sorry souls inside the Washington vortex who should know better. For the rest of us, I hope that anger and disappointment will be replaced by a simple, clear sense of what our strategy needs to be next time around. Spell out your compelling, inspiring progressive American values like caring, protecting, cooperating and lifting up; and attack your adversary with great cunning and equal or greater force than he, inevitably, will heap upon you.</div>Natehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07069973024250553513noreply@blogger.com0