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Soaring Harmonies

I just came from watching a friend perform with his choir. I've been to lots of kinds of concerts, but I think this was my first choral concert. It was a good show; some of the pieces were beautiful and sounded quite difficult, and I, along with a decent portion of the audience, joined them onstage for the Hallelujah Chorus. Here are a few observations for the road:

• I've always been intrigued by how sopranos in particular are able to mostly avoid singing perfectly on key by doing more vibrato than note
• You can tell a choir is well trained if nobody is mouthing the words along with the soloist
• It's a good thing there's the word "hallelujah," because "yay," which means basically the same thing, just doesn't sound as grand when you sing it.

Visiting the Old Country

Yesterday, we drove up to New York, Queens actually, to visit my wife's mom and sister. We see them 3 or 4 times a year and I'm quite fond of them. My mother-in-law (this takes too long to type so she will now be known by her initials AJK) is a teacher (of course) who retired from the NYC public schools about 20 years ago and started working part-time at a school for Orthodox Jewish girls. She still teaches there, and her warmth and encyclopedic knowledge of literature make her class exciting for the students, in spite of the strict limits on content (did you know Ethan Frome was too racy?).

AJK lives alone in the house where she's lived for almost 60 years. My father in law, who was not a nice man, died several years ago. It doesn't smell like an old person's house, which is unusual in my experience, and the only thing that's really old about her manner is that she keeps talking abut how old she is. She was telling me a couple of stories, unusual in that I hadn't heard them before, about how when she was a young woman still living with her mother, she was presented with opportunities to advance herself and her mother forbid her to pursue them. She has a practiced wistfulness when she talks about these things, as if she's trying to convince herself that she has no regrets, which is how she always closes these kinds of stories.

And at this point, that's healthy, I guess. A life's path is full of things done that can't be undone and said that can't be unsaid, and you can't worry about what might have happened. In general, I think people are often scared to act because they're afraid of the consequences and they limit themselves in the process. Well I'm here to tell you that not acting is a decision with consequences too. You can trick yourself into thinking you haven't made a decision, but you have made one and all the tricks do is keep you from learning from your mistakes. There were plenty of times in my life when I might have taken decisive action and changed my course but too many (I think?) times I didn't because I was unsure or cautious or scared. My life would have gone some different way- better, worse, or both- and it makes no difference how I came to this path; it was my decisions or lack thereof that led me here.

I'm fortunate in that I'm happy where I've ended up. My life's not perfect but it's pretty darned good. I think for the most part AJK feels the same way too, but I do hope I can avoid that wistfulness when I'm older and focus on my goals of being eccentric and cranky.

My current dilemma

I just got a bag of mushrooms that say they are "pre-cleaned." What does that mean? Are they clean or are they ready to be cleaned?

No Thank You

I am officially not reading anything published today because everything is bound to include the phrase "thankful for." If you need to have a special day designated to be thankful for what you have, you are living an emotionally deprived life. Every day brings things to be thankful for (and irritated by and attracted or offended by and lots of other things) and if you're missing them it's kind of sad. It's like Tom Lehrer's classic line in his song "National Brotherhood Week," which he first rhymes with "National Everyone Smile at One Anotherhood Week" and then concludes, "It's only for a week so have no fear, be grateful that it doesn't last all year."

I guess I'm particularly sensitive to this post-strike, because I missed doing what I do every day, while simultaneously gaining a whole new affection for the people I was striking with. Everybody deserves to have something or someone uplift them every day, but no matter how deserving you are, if you don't recognize or appreciate it, it's as if it's not there.

So instead of meditating on what you're thankful for today, make yourself a promise to be thankful for something every day. This is actually kind of scary, because it requires you to open your heart and open your mind at least a little bit. Maybe it'll be like a New Year's resolution and you'll forget it in a week, but maybe it'll feel good enough that you'll keep at it.

The countdown begins

Here is the 3rd annual survey of Black Friday opening times, based on the newspaper inserts delivered with Thursday's Inquirer.

3AM - 1

4AM - 2

5AM - 9

6AM - 9

7AM - 1

8AM - 1

9AM - 1 (both mattress stores- you'd think people who needed a new mattress would be up extra early)

No hours listed - 8

Bonus survey: Sales described as "Doorbusters" - 8, beating out "Early Bird' which had 4. And "Black Friday" with 3. Black Friday is a term that was originally used to describe a stock market crash in the 19th century, but was first used in this context in the 1960's by the Philadelphia police to describe the heavy traffic in the city that day.

The big change this year is that 5 stores are open on Thanksgiving. I thought that Walmart had announced that they were doing that this year to reduce the Friday morning casualties, but the circular I have says 5AM and says nothing about Thursday. If stores were trying to stop the violence I would think they would stop using terms like "doorbusters."

And finally, in 1939, President Franklin Roosevelt moved Thanksgiving a week earlier to try to give stores more time to sell stuff for Christmas. This disrupted many people's plans and they either ignored the change or celebrated twice, on the original Thanksgiving and the new date, not so affectionately referred to as "Franksgiving."

I just saw on TV that Penelope Cruz can identify pretty much everyone she's ever been in a movie with by seeing pictures of just their lips. I've struggled to put this into some kind of meaningful context but have failed.

Beating the holiday rush

Here are the various stylings of my kitchen counter- the Retro espresso machine, the Vintage coffee machine, and the Classic tomato.

From Stuff

Also, here are the fantastic instructions for the espresso maker:

From Stuff

From Stuff

Here's a conversation that took place about 30 minutes ago, between two people whose identities have been cleverly disguised as person A and person B

A: Will you be able to drive me in a couple of minutes?
B: OK
A: Oh, I thought you could, but if you don't want to I can drive myself.
B: What?
A: I thought you said you were going to drive me but it sounds like you really don't want to.
B: ...
A: I mean, I'd like it if you could drive but if you won't I can drive.
B: Do you want to drive?
A: No, but you don't seem to want to drive me.
B: Well if you want me to, I can drive
A: Well I want you to drive but you don't have to.

I kind of lost track of it at this point. And person B did end up driving.

Is it too late to say I'm thankful for something? I mean I know it's not literally too late, but is it close enough to Thanksgiving day that being thankful for anything becomes mawkish? (and yes, that's the first time I've actually used that word in a sentence).

I don't know about anyone else, but I'm ready for a break.

Goodness knows it's time for a retrospective

Since this is the age of instant analysis, I'm going to indulge myself in a bit of it here.

The big question that remains unanswered is "why?" Why did this happen? How did we end up with a result that nobody claimed to want. Well, people are strange creatures who are forever getting caught up in their own thing and forgetting what's important. Having been both blindsided by my own reactions to this and overly pessimistic about the outcome, I can't really criticize anyone else, but there were clearly miscalculations in the run-up to the strike.

I'd like to examine the larger point of how a bunch of smart people can make dumb choices. There are a number of ways this can happen, but the most common one is often described as an echo chamber. This occurs when there is a lack of dissent. Everybody in a group working together either sees the situation in the same way, or if they don't they are either too timid to bring it up or shouted down when they do. I don't know if that's what happened here, but it's a distinct possibility that everyone on one side thought the strike would play out in a certain way, and never considered any other possibilities. The lesson here is if you are in a group decision-making process and everyone is agreeing, especially about predicted outcomes, alarm bells should be going off in your head.

It took me a long time to learn to listen to those alarm bells, long enough to delay my progress in my business career. I was already in my 5th or 6th job before I realized I was only hurting myself by going along with what everyone else thought. It takes a lot of self-confidence to go against the group, but it can often be the most valuable role that anyone plays.

The other thing that happens is people confusing the three key elements of an action plan, those being objectives, strategies, and tactics. When I was running my little ad agency, I used to describe my job as follows: All day long, I sit in my office and people come in speaking quickly and excitedly and sometimes disagreeing with each other, and then I stop them and say, "Okay, what are we trying to accomplish here?" That's your objective, and you will rarely succeed if you forget that the objective is the most important thing. After that, you get your strategy, which is the planning part of achieving your objective, and then finally your tactics, which are the doing part of it. Do those in the wrong order or forget their relative importance and their interrelatedness and you are in big trouble.

Next comes, how do you react when you realize you were wrong and have gotten yourself into a tough spot? The Chinese are very big on the idea of saving face, where the situation has to be maneuvered so that even the person who screwed up is able to escape shame. This makes the Chinese infuriating to deal with, even for other Chinese, and we're better off accepting the that we've erred. It's almost as important to be able to recognize your errors quickly and correct them as it is to make the right decision in the first place. But you can't get caught up in fearing the consequences of being wrong. I've never had a situation where accepting blame made things any worse for me (because you can't control who other people will blame anyway, so you might as well be honest about it), and it has the effect of shielding the others on your team who might have been blamed, so then they like and respect you more.

I'm not sure how the error recognition and correction got accomplished in this instance, and even if I knew I couldn't share it because it's not mine to share. My hope is that someone or ones accepted the blame for miscalculating, because they surely did. But it may have been nothing more than a common desire to avoid having a couple hundred or more demonstrators showing up at the school on Tuesday. And keeping my own objectives in mind I will leave you with a passage from the great philosopher, Winnie-the-Pooh.

Well," said Owl, "the customary procedure in such cases is as follows."
"What does Crustimoney Proseedcake mean?" said Pooh. "For I am a Bear of Very Little Brain, and long words Bother me."
"It means the Thing to Do."
"As long as it means that, I don't mind," said Pooh humbly.

As long as it means I get to teach tomorrow and the days that follow, I don't mind.

First thoughts

I woke up this morning to find out that the board and union had reached a tentative agreement and that we were going to be voting on it that day. Let me say that I am much quicker to engage intellectually that I am emotionally. But on this occasion, having found the whole strike to be a much more emotional experience than I'd anticipated, I felt a flood of emotions.

I always knew that I loved spending time with my students, but I had no idea how much until they were suddenly taken from me.

I always felt that we had a special bond with our students and their parents, but I didn't really knew what that meant to me until I saw and felt them support us so fervently.

I always had a fondness for the people I work with, but I had no idea what kind of bond I had with them until I walked with them on a picket line for a week.

I was fearful about the fallout from a strike, and though there certainly are some negative feelings remaining, the positives far outweigh them.

So I sit here now, home after our meeting, almost choked up. And I can't wait to get back to work.

I'll write some more later...

Bad night, better morning

I slept as badly as I usually do when I have to go to bed when the outcome of a game I've been watching is still in doubt. But it was nice to wake up and see the good news.

Waiting game

At the moment we're all sitting around waiting for some report from negotiations. It's not the most productive thing to do, since there may be no news for hours and even at the end the only news might be that there's no news. It's a little like the waiting after labor pains begin, when you know it could be anywhere from a few hours to a few days before there's a baby, but this seems easier on my wife and less certain in its conclusion.

For me, aside from anything else, not working has taken the fun out of helping my kids with their math homework. It just doesn't feel right somehow.

A couple of things

A correction to the espresso maker instructions- the warning reads:

• This appliance is designed to "make espresso coffee" and "hot drinks."

BTW, there is a website devoted to such things

This article about tutoring is kind of frightening

I don't have the energy yet to dissect the instructions of the new espresso maker, but I will make a few quick observations.

1. According to the box it has "Retro Styling," which I'm concerned is going to class with the "Vintage Styling" of the new coffee maker.

2. The instructions include a half page on the Short Cord- first explaining their reasoning behind putting a short cord on the thing, then explaining how you can defeat the short cord by using an extension cord.

3. It can apparently be used with ground coffee or something called pods. I saw Invasion of the Body Snatchers and am leery of anything with pods other than peas.

4. I'm encouraged by the liberal use of unnecessary quotation marks just on the first page, as in: This device is intended for making "hot drinks." Not sure why that's in quotes, but it's very promising.

Before I get to what happened today, let me take a minute to review how I got here.

I come from a family of teachers. My parents both taught, my mother's sister and everyone in her family (including grandchildren) are or were teachers, and my mother-in-law is still teaching at 83. Many in my family veered off into business, but when that part of my life ended, the first thing I came up with as something I would like to do was to teach math. I got that idea in part because I almost failed Calculus in college, but that's another story.

I ended up at Akiba by a happy accident. I had decided to get a Masters in education at Penn, and they told me I needed some prerequisites for a math teaching degree, but advised me "don't take those courses here, it's too expensive," so I took I think 7 math classes at Temple while substitute teaching at several area school, including Friends' Central School, where I was under the impression that the head of the math department was a friend.

One day in December 2002 (I think) there was an ad in the paper to teach one class for one semester. I came into Akiba, had an interview and taught a demonstration class, and was offered the job. I had been told I was getting a better offer at FCS, but my supposed friend screwed me, I took the Akiba offer, got a full time job the next fall and that's where I've been ever since. There are actually many more twists and turns to it, but that's the abridged version.

So now after 7 years working here, I found myself part of a group that was backed into a corner and pretty much forced to strike to maintain our pensions and I had no idea what it would be like. It was very lonely on the weekend leading up to first day and I was terribly upset, but now after a week out on the picket line with my colleagues, lonely is the last word I'd use to describe how I feel.

I've been through strikes before on the management side, and the union rep said that's the "nicer place to be" during a strike, and I suppose that's true on a financial basis, you're still getting paid and all, but I found the emotional toll to be very heavy. And I suppose if you're on the union side it depends on the situation. If you're striking coal miners, like in Billy Elliott, or omg Matewan by John Sayles, it's way worse (and again, you have no idea how much worse unless you watch Matewan or something along the same lines) that what we have now.

There are always people caught in the middle of strikes, and their reaction is key, because they are what we business types like to call stakeholders, as in they hold a stake in whatever sort of thing the striking workers do. In many cases, like coal miners and transit and even public school teachers, normally the inconvenience that the stakeholders suffer overwhelms their sympathy for the strikers. That's because there's not any kind of connection between the workers and the inconvenienced (sorry, I'd have to shoot myself if I had to use the word 'stakeholders' again in that paragraph- Augh!). I can say with reasonable confidence that that's not the case here. As much as people who run the school like to trumpet the close bond between the students and their parents and their teachers, I'm not sure they really understand it. It's not necessarily a criticism; how could they, really?

The rest of the day was a Shabbat celebration, with food and blessings and singing and togetherness.
Nope, not feeling lonely at the moment.

Except these people really are great

To quote Fred Willard from the movie Roxanne, I'd rather be with the people in this room than with the finest people in the world!

New Stuff!

Our old coffee maker is starting to not work so well. It's a combination regular coffee maker and espresso machine and first the drip coffee part started sending the hot water out in a thin stream so it was pretty much going right through the filter without touching the coffee. Yum! Now the espresso side is starting to leak, and I can tell you, there are few things as exciting as an appliance that might shoot boiling hot water or steam into your face at any moment.

So even though this was a wedding present (over 23 years ago!), we have decided to part company with it. The first step in the break-up arrived today, a new drip coffeemaker. I haven't even opened the box yet, but it promises to be very exciting. Why? Well let me tell you. Here are all the great things about this coffeemaker, based on the outside of the box.

1. It's part of the Premier Coffee Series
2. It offers The Ultimate Coffee Experience (to 'satisfy the most demanding coffee lover,' which is a reasonable description of me)
3. It is the Next Generation of Coffeemakers, yet has Vintage Styling, I guess like the electric coffee makers of yore, taking us all the way back to their introduction in 1972.
4. It has Easy Operation, though from the picture on the box it has 7 knobs and buttons and a clock. Our current coffee maker has one button, so color me skeptical.
5. It's Fully Programmable, Easy To Clean, makes the Hottest Coffee (is that coffee I smell, or a lawsuit brewing?) with Pure Flavor, an Easy-To-Fill Reservoir (I know for a fact that that's a lie) and a Spill-Free Carafe (Ha! They clearly have not been in this house), a Comfort Grip Handle and a Brushed Steel Band, the purpose of which I am anxious to learn.
6. It has a Lift Up Reservoir Lid and I can't think of a single thing to say about that.
7. It says you can Sneak a Cup, but now they've blown that by putting it on the box.
8. It has an Easy to Read LCD clock, which is nearly Impossible to Read even on the box and Industrial Switches, the purpose of which will hopefully be explained along with the Brushed Steel Band, though I'm guessing neither will be mentioned in the instructions.
9. It has All the Best Features, including Simple On/Off button operation.

My one concern is that the box also says it will 'become the centerpiece of your kitchen,' while I wanted to put it on the counter next to the toaster oven. I hope it still will work over there.

More to come after I open the box.

Day Four

My kids don't go to the school where I teach (not for any particular reason- they were settled before I started teaching), but getting back to the social networking aspect of it that I mentioned yesterday, they are aware of what's going on because, well, as my daughter said, "I saw your picture on Facebook."

I love having the students come to visit and stand with us. The kids and parents are the ones caught in the middle here- they're being seriously inconvenienced or worse, so it's especially gratifying in that nobody asked them to get involved. In fact, we were all told explicitly not to involve the students, but this is a motivated, curious, action-oriented group and they don't want to be just sitting at home pretending it's a snow day. It would be inconsistent with what we see from them every day.

Aside from moral support, the kids bring a break from the tedium. I'm not big on jumping up and down holding signs urging cars to honk their horns, but it's probably the most stimulating of the activities available to us. Plus, and this is the same reason I like teaching in the first place, kids have a whole different perspective that adults do and they ask challenging questions.

Unexpected Consequences

Before I forget, check out this important update.

As some of you may have noticed, I've laid off commenting much on what's been happening at school. I've posted pictures and made some general observations, but otherwise have kept my head down. At some point, though, I realized that pretty much all of the rules that we thought we were playing by, at least in regard to dealing with the rest of the community, have gone out the window.

As much as the initial direction was to avoid mentioning the strike on social networking sites, talking to students and parents, etc., I think the people who gave that direction were unaware of how inexorable the flow of information can be if you have a motivated group of seekers and disseminators.

I think unions and management types should consider that this will probably become the norm in future labor relations. In our particular case, it seems to have been favorable to the union, and I tend to think that will usually be the case. In past labor battles, management has had a huge advantage in its ability to communicate to the interested public, because they had the big money and the communications departments. I can't help think that this has helped create the anti-union sentiment that has been prevalent in recent years. Now, however, a few individuals on the union side can take advantage of a wide variety of tools to get their side of the story out to the people who most care about it. It's similar to the trend toward citizen journalism.

Nonplussed

That's always been one of my favorite words. It means to be at a loss or bewildered. I can't really think of a better word to describe how I'm feeling at the moment. I've had some strange jobs in some strange places, but I've never found myself in a position like this before.

It was interesting having students around today. They had a lightheartedness about them that I think lifted everyone's spirits, but at least for me it also highlights how solemn adults allow themselves to become. I try as hard as I can to avoid it, but being an adult, or grown-up if you must, can be a real pain in the butt. I got out of the house late this morning because I got a dent in my (parked) car. This is not a fun way to start the day. On the bright side, my car is approaching being an ellipse, as 3 or its 4 corners have now been bent in a bit. I think an elliptical car would feel cool and futuristic, but this seems a very slow and unpleasant way of going about it.

It has been especially cool to hear from students in Israel.

The most oddball character in the whole drama playing out at the school is the "watcher." I don't know what is name is, but he's from the Federation (like those Star Trek guys) and his job seems to be to sit in his car and watch us. The only things I've seen him do are honk when someone is trying to come in the driveway, usually after we've already gotten out of their way, and he gets out of the car once or twice a day to come and tell us to move something (for example, some chairs) off the pavement. He sits there all day doing this and I think he must have done something terribly wrong to be given this job. He's very vigilant about the horn honking though, so he must be trying to impress someone.

We're back at it again tomorrow. We enjoy company and snacks and if you don't want to bring snacks you can have some of ours. And I've noticed that my pictures are all starting to look the same so tomorrow I'm bringing a real camera and I'll try to be more creative.

My Future

I always tell my kids that God doesn't drive parked cars, so we'll talk about getting on the next road and gearing up for the hard work down to travel down it to reach new goals.

Actually, that's a quote from Sarah Palin's book, but I sure wish I'd said it, whatever it means.

Done for the day

The whole scene today was really heartwarming. When you're in a difficult situation it's always gratifying to feel like you're part of a supportive community. I decided a while ago that it's more important to be a good person than to try to make people like you. And if you approach things that way you can't really count on anything in return, so it makes it all the more satisfying when you get support, because you know it's genuine.

Monday 11/16

Updates (or at least pictures) today on Twitter@justfrankt

I don't get Shakespeare stuck in my head often, but he's there now.

I have of late, but wherefore I know not, lost all my mirth, forgone all custom of exercises: and indeed it goes so heavily with my disposition, that this goodly frame the earth, seems to me a sterile promontory, this most excellent canopy the air, look you, this brave o’erhanging firmament, this majestical roof fretted with golden fire, why, it appeareth nothing to me but a foul and pestilent congregation of vapours…

What a piece of work is a man, how noble in reason, how infinite in faculties, in form and moving how express and admirable, in action how like an angel, in apprehension how like a god: the beauty of the world, the paragon of animals; and yet to me, what is this quintessence of dust?

HAMLET, II,ii

The musical version in Hair is good too. And no, I'm not that bummed out (though some Shakespeare scholars believe those lines to be optimistic in nature- I tend to think that someone who has lost all their mirth is not feeling optimistic, at least at that moment).

Serious Business

Two Woody Allen bits are in my head this morning. The first, which relates to nothing is:

The people appeared to be divided into good and bad. The good slept better, while the bad seemed to enjoy the waking hours more.

And more to the point, he had a bit in his standup routine about how he used to work in his father's store and that he unionized the stock boys and they struck and drove him out of business.

Anybody involved in a labor dispute thinking they're going to "win" has to go in understanding that the ultimate extension of their actions is disastrous. The extremes are 100% job loss and the end of the enterprise as a going concern. Not that that usually happens, but you have to keep that potential in mind if you want to be smart about what's going on.

Updating update.

Over the course of the week or more I will be doing most of my moment-to-moment updating via Twitter. My address is @justfrankt. At the moment I have to approve followers, but I will probably relax that for the moment. I will blog when I have the time and when I have something to say that requires more than 140 characters and a picture.

Strike One

I was looking through some boxes in my attic and found some old letters that I'd sent to a friend many years ago. My friend died about 10 years ago and his family returned the letters I'd written to him to me. The letter had been written when I returned to New York after a trip, and the city was evidently in the midst of a sanitation workers' strike. It was not hard to tell that this was going on because there were 6-10 foot-tall piles of garbage bags in front of every building. The smell was pretty hard to miss too.

I only bring this up because it's important to understand that strikes are inherently messy things. One of the problems with the way people perceive strikes is that because they are 'us versus them' kinds of things, and because people are necessarily inconvenienced by strikes, their reactions tend to be emotional and black/white/right/wrong in nature. This is unfortunate, because the reality is far more nuanced.

I've been in and around a number of strikes, as management, labor and innocent bystander. My main observation is that there are never any winners in strikes, only survivors and victims. Everyone suffers. Management can lose revenue, customers, and reputation. Labor can lose reputation, money, and jobs. Bystanders lose anything from a convenience to a necessity.

On the management side, the concerns vary. If the customers have alternative providers of the product or service they provide, they have incentive to at the very least try out the competition. This is not at all what any business wants. In the case of a transit strike, the fallout is usually a drop in ridership, as people find other ways to get where they need to go. For labor, paychecks are the first thing to go, but clearly there's potential for more serious downside. For the bystanders, again, it depends on whether they have alternatives and whether or not the product is a necessity.

Above and beyond that, the organization as a whole invariably loses big time. Whatever the nuance in the situation, for those within the organization, strikes are a black and white choice. You work or you don't work, there is no in between. You have to choose sides. There is always a loss of collegiality; supervisors and workers never look at each other the same way again. Every worker has their own issues that often don't fit into stark choices. Often coworkers never have the same feeling of teamwork and shared purpose. Organizations and organisms sound alike for a reason- they both depend on a variety of processes working together smoothly, and this becomes far more difficult after a polarizing event like a strike. There is simply no knowing in advance how serious the damage is and whether or not it can be repaired.

Another victim in a strike is the truth. Both sides have no choice but to spin the truth, because strikes are often resolved as much based on public opinion as anything. There are always people caught in the middle and where they place the blame is of critical importance. So appearances are just as important as reality.

Whether you view management as penny-pinchers or unions as a bunch of thugs, it's important to not get caught up in the stereotypes. The union movement grew up to protect the weak from the powerful. Labor disputes are always one-sided battles. Management has almost every advantage. They have more resources at their disposal, and as much as their side in the dispute insists that there's only a finite piece of the pie available for labor costs, the pie's recipe is completely under control of management. Labor has one resource- its people, and it's a blunt instrument. Because they have fewer options, labor almost always has to take the more drastic approach. Lockouts, the management equivalent of strikes, are relatively rare. This is consistent with any kind of dispute resolution when the balance of power is one-sided. The more powerful side has the greater ability to generate a long, varied and sustained attack. The weaker side necessarily has to take the more extreme action.

I, like everyone, have to be on one side or the other in the dispute. I will report in as factual a manner as possible on what's going on, but will not venture into the specifics of the dispute and the relative rightness or wrongness of anyone's position. This is nasty business from whatever perspective you view it and I will simply attempt to present it as it appears to me.

New York Trip

I know there are other things that I should be commenting on, but I need to mention my experience last night. My mom has ALS and has been completely paralyzed for the past 5 years. Last night was the New York ALS Association sports dinner and I always try to go and this year I brough one of my kids. The dinner was fun, but we had to catch a 10:00 train, so we left a bit after 9:30. It was in a big hotel and by the time we got our coats and to the lobby, time was already tight and then there were no cabs, so just on the spur of the moment we hopped in one of those pedicabs- like a bicycle rickshaw. It was great. This Turkish guy (he said he'd been in the US for 4 months) was weaving in and out of traffic through TImes Square and all the way down to Penn Station. My daughter and I were laughing the whole way, and we even made ouy train.

Say what you really mean

I left school the other because I was nauseated. I was not nauseous, which means that I would be making other people sick to their stomachs.

Reminds me of the famous (and almost certainly fictional) story of Noah Webster, the dictionary guy. When he was caught by his wife doing some hanky-panky with the maid, she exclaimed, "Mr Webster, I'm surprised!" To which he replied, "No, my dear, I am surprised, you are astonished."

Sunday Randoms

As usual, nothing random about the so-called random thoughts...

I watch Project Runway occasionally and I'm not afraid to admit that my favorite part is hearing Heidi Klum pronounce the word 'out.'

We've been discussing music around here a lot, and when I was listening to some older songs in the car I was reminded of sitting in our dorm room, putting on an one side of a vinyl album which we had chosen after a thorough discussion, and just sitting and listening. Do people still do that? Hard for me to imagine that they do.

On a related (and therefore non-random) note, whenever I talk about music with students they often ask me who I like, so here's a few that maybe give some ideas about the dozens of bands that I like. Current bands include Rilo Kiley, New Pornographers (A.C. Newman's band that also includes Niko Case), Fountains of Wayne, Death Cab for Cutie and others that I hear on the radio and don't always catch the name. I think one of them is called Cake but I'm not sure. I was very into the New Wave thing back in the late 70's with my favorites being Talking Heads and Elvis Costello. Other bands like Steely Dan and artists like Paul Simon, Tom Waits, Randy Newman and Springsteen weave their way in and out as well and there are many, many others.

In the aftermath of something that I will only describe as involving challah french toast, I just vacuumed my toaster oven.

Not meaning to offend anyone, but

I know some people who consider themselves to be thoughtful, intelligent Republicans. All I have to say to them is that you can't have it both ways anymore. You are either a rude, ignorant, intolerant, truth-challenged far-right winger or you are not truly a Republican, (though you might be what they now call a RINO, 'in name only'). Might be a nice time for a 3rd party to arise.

A request

Should any of you hear me utter the words "I'm going to Suburban Square" on a Saturday between now and Christmas you officially have permission to slap me silly and/or physically restrain me from going.

I was there for about 45 minutes, visited 4 stores, was almost hit 3 times at four-way stops, twice in the car and once on foot.

My My, Hey Hey

My 81 year-old father went to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Concert at Madison Square Garden this week. I called him on the phone and he told me all about it. All the amazing people, like Stevie Wonder, Billy Joel, Sting (his comment on Sting- "I saw Sting. I don't know his last name. I guess I don't know his first name either."), and his favorite of the bunch, Bruce Springsteen. He went on and on about all of them, kind of summing up by saying, "You know, I hate all the music these days, but that older stuff is pretty good." To which I replied, "Uh, perhaps this isn't the moment to remind of what you used to say about all of these people back in the day."

So there's something good you can say about pop music today. It makes older rock music sound good even to my dad.

One more thing

Only 110 days until pitchers and catchers report.

Quick post-mortem

The Yankees won fair and square. They deserved it. Most World Series have some blowout games and some games that are up for grabs. You have to win the winable games, and games 3 and 4 in Philly were up for grabs and the Yankees won both of them. Are they a better team? Yeah, maybe a tiny bit, but not much. I'm kind of bummed out now, but the Phils gave us lots of great moments this year and made it a very successful, memorable season. No parade, but no tears.

A couple of notes

1. In the previous entry I talk about knowing what your principles are, but it occurred to me that newer readers haven't seen what I mean by that for myself. Here's a short statement of my principles:

I will treat other people the way I would want to be treated.

I will strive to leave every situation I encounter better than I found it.

That's it, really. Clearly, both of those things can be expanded greatly, but that would require a multitude of platitudes, which is not nearly as much fun as it sounds (think endless paragraphs explaining things like what I mean by "say what you mean and mean what you say."), and way too much detail to be appropriate for this space. And you really don't know the detail to apply it. They work just fine as they are.

2. I am actually working on part 2 of my post about having too much to do, but it's not done yet.
No jokes about not having time for it, though.

More Awesome Teaching Techniques

Because a number of people are working with ATT program and consider it valuable, I'm usually not going to use real names for the people and stuff that make up the program. However, one of the things I'm supposed to be doing is, and I quote, "Establish a presence on the Ning," which clearly needs no further explanation.

What follows is an excerpt from my Ning presencing, talking about whether people really use all the social networking stuff that's out there. I had made the point that, unlike people in my generation, it never occurs to kids that they will ever lost contact with anyone they want to stay in touch with.

It's also a matter of what technologies you have and what you prefer to use. My kids and their friends all use Facebook, but most of their real communication is by texting and IM. My older daughter does a lot of collaborative schoolwork using IM, which is a relatively old technology but one that does what it does very easily and very well. I've been blogging and reading blogs for several years now, and the only reason I don't use Twitter much is that I have an old cell phone, so I can't really take full advantage of it. That'll probably change when I get an iPhone or a Droid or some such thing. I'm not sure if Twitter is the pulse of the Internet (someone else with Ning presence had made that statement) or the flavor of the month. It's way too early to know.

Going back to my original point about not being concerned about the ability to stay connected to people, as you can see, I have a bird, Eric the bird for you Monty Python fans. (Non-Ningers will need to look at my Facebook page to see what I'm talking about) Eric can be frightened by many things, blue file folders inexplicably being among them, but the one thing he is definitely not afraid of is falling. He's a bird and he can fly. It just doesn't occur to him that he could fall.

Finally, on another point, anyone who feels inclined to jump headlong into the pool of information would be well advised to read Amusing Ourselves to Death, by the late Neil Postman. I think I might re-read it myself.

The Postman book is terrific but not easy reading. One of the points he makes is that most of the information we get now is devoid of context and unconnected to anything else (for example, news about some kidnapping in California or political events and speeches done to look good on TV rather than to contain anything useful).

I'm kind of rambling all over the place here, but overall my point is that, given the risks and rewards inherent in the medium, the principles with which you guide your use of the Internet should be consistent with your principles as a human being. Note, this means actually knowing what your principles are, a piece of self-knowledge well worth seeking. For me, that means knowing what's private and what's public (easy to do because I do it in the classroom every day), and being able to discern the difference between the things that are important to me and those that are not, and to dismiss the latter as meaningless noise.

Only a little bit about baseball

I have to wonder what I'm going to write about after the World Series. I'm not sure if I'll have the time and energy to think of new and interesting things, or if escaping after weeks of sleep deprivation will make things seem less funny than do now.

Yesterday I had extra tickets to the game and did my usual bit to sell them- StubHub plus temple listserv. They sold on StubHub, but the first responses to the listserv weren't about buying the tickets, they were asking if I could drive their kids to the game. I was caught off-guard by that, but I actually did drive a couple of kids that I know slightly whose parents couldn't go (one's sick and one's running for office and just a tad busy the night before Election Day) and couldn't drive. It was very helpful to them and they were excellent company, as it turned out.

Going into the Series I was looking for drama, and the last 2 games certainly delivered. Two teams that never give up and always assume they can overcome whatever deficit they face.

I now have 7 little white towels.

There's a guy with no shirt on with his body painted red and a rainbow wig a few seats away from me.

I like how pitchers wear jackets when they're on base. It's very dapper.

Now that was a baseball game

Sure, I'm disappointed that the Phillies lost, but (1) the Series isn't over yet and (2) that game exemplified why I love baseball so much.

The Yankees scored 4 runs off Joe Blanton despite not hitting the ball hard more than once. The Phillies made much better contact against Sabathia- the two batters up before Utley in the 7th hit the ball just as hard a he did, just not as high and right at someone.

Leading 4-3, Joba Chamberlain comes in throwing 97 mph, strikes out Werth and Ibanez, gets 2 strikes and then makes a mistake to Feliz and wham, the game is tied. Then in the very next inning, Lidge burns through the first two batters, gets what looks like strike 3 on Damon to most of us in the park, then Damon fouls off a few more and then gets a hit and all hell breaks loose. Amazing stuff.

I really like the Phillies, probably more than any team I've ever followed. They're a terrific team, but this is the 9th World Series I've attended and the truth of the matter is that you lose some of them. Who knows which team is better? They're both excellent, but only one of them can win. That's just the way it is. I'll be back there tomorrow rooting for the Phils, but don't expect to see me crying if they lose then or any other night. They did us proud and gave me a lot of joy and excitement and sometimes that's gotta be good enough.

A few notes from a late night before the next late night

I'm sure Major League Baseball is patting themselves on the back for how smoothly and efficiently they handled the rain delay last night. I should just mention that, while they clearly have more important things on their minds than the people who are actually attending the game (we're not watching TV so we don't help ratings), it would have been nice to have a bit of information for the first hour of the delay. Especially when it didn't rain for 20 minutes and they didn't unroll the tarp. Finally after an hour they announced a start time. They pulled the same crap last year during the last game of the Series. Never said a darned thing to us.

If I don't get "swined," as the kids say, from the subway ride I don't know when it'll happen.

As hard a some people tried, there just isn't the same level of hatred for A-Rod as there was for Manny.

They quietly raised the price of a beer by a buck between the LCS and series. And do people really like Campo's cheesesteaks? Ugh. Back to the grilled cheese stand for me tonight.

I have a 95 year-old uncle in California who's been a Yankee fan since Babe Ruth. I'm collecting stuff to send him. Wish he could be here.

I just found a program for the 1980 LCS and a ticket stub from the 1993 Series. I don't want to lose sight of how amazing it is to be going to the World Series here 2 years in a row. The Yankees are a great team and there's no shame in losing to them. If the Phillies are going to lose I'd almost prefer it be here so I can give them a standing ovation for their season.