The Transcendentalists were Flip-Floppers

So, I was flipping through some of Ralph Waldo's Essays the other day, and while perusing "Self-Reliance," I ran across these famous lines:

• A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines. With consistency a great soul has simply nothing to do. He may as well concern himself with his shadow on the wall. Speak what you think now in hard words, and to-morrow speak what to-morrow thinks in hard words again, though it contradict every thing you said to-day. — 'Ah, so you shall be sure to be misunderstood.' — Is it so bad, then, to be misunderstood? Pythagoras was misunderstood, and Socrates, and Jesus, and Luther, and Copernicus, and Galileo, and Newton, and every pure and wise spirit that ever took flesh. To be great is to be misunderstood.

Maybe this is "too liberal," or perhaps "too intellectual," but for my money, Emerson hits it right on the money.

• The voyage of the best ship is a zigzag line of a hundred tacks. See the line from a sufficient distance, and it straightens itself to the average tendency. Your genuine action will explain itself, and will explain your other genuine actions.

It's always better to have sincere taste than good taste; I have the convictions of my own bad taste. I thought "Lancelot Link: Secret Chimp" was a brilliant parody, and I sincerely enjoy watching "Cannonball Run" when the mood strikes. I don't know about you, but if I could never go back and make amends for any possible mistakes I may have made, I don't think I could even act in the first place. That I might be wrong cannot keep me from doing what I believe to be right.

Are you listening, John Kerry? So what if you're called a flip-flopper, as if Bush himself isn't a flip-flopper? How about that "America is not in the business of nation-building" crap that he flung all over Gore? How about that "No Child Left Behind" crap? Seems to me, lowly teacher that I am, that if you truly don't want to leave any kids behind, you might want to continue funding schools.

Jesus H. Monahan, I'd vote for a dung-flinging monkey sooner than I'd vote for W!

• Trust thyself: every heart vibrates to that iron string.

Are you listening, Kerry? Damn it all, is it because Ralph Waldo's a Harvard man? Fuck Yale, fuck Skull and Bones, listen to the wisdom that you know inside to be true! Are you afraid to upset the apple cart? Well how about this little tidbit from another cart tipper:

• ...and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.

Now don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to foment open rebellion like my man Tommy Jeff, but don't let us suffer under this petty tyrant, King George, any longer! ATTACK! ATTACK! Lay on, Macduff, And damn'd be him that first cries, “Hold, enough!”

Of course, that's just my opinion. I could be wrong. Maybe I shouldn't post this....

Newsflash: "Hero" No Speakee Ingrish!

So last night, my dear wife and I decide to spend a childless evening at the movies. When we first saw the promos for "Hero," we both agreed that it was a must-see. My lovely wife is into martial arts, and I'm for good movie making whatever the genre, so we went to the DFW's newest Movie Megalopolis at a mall just the other side of the LBJ freeway. That's where we saw the sign:

"Hero is spoken in Mandarin Chinese with English Subtitles."

And your point is? Hey, Sherlock, it's a Chinese movie. I rank that warning right up there with the warnings on the side of Dr. Pepper bottles that say, "Contents under pressure. Open away from face." So I point out the sign to my wife, and we titter politely and make brief snotty comments about the quality of education in the 972 area code, and that would have been it but for the ticket monger at the window.

"Uh, you know that this movie is in Chinese, right? With English subtitles...?"

"It's okay," I reply. "I can read English."

"Well, I just had to check. Some people have asked for their money back. Enjoy the show."

Now aside from the fact that I wish I had said something wittier, or perhaps even had exploded into some kind of intellectual hissy-fit, I am still at something of a loss for words for what I think has happened to America. We have out-legislated Darwinism. What ever happened to "that which does not kill us makes us stronger?" We actually have a public service announcement campaign here in Dallas (it's probably Texas-wide) that reminds people to CHECK FOR THEIR CHILDREN AS THEY EXIT THEIR VEHICLE. In my perfect world, under my rule, if you can't remember that the fruit of your loins is in the backseat as you pop in to the 7-Eleven for a pack of Parliaments, you not only surrender your right to watch foreign movies, you move to the front of the "take one for the gene pool" line.

Later that evening, our Eastern Entertainment theme took us to Benihanna's where I was again confronted with the lowest common denominator. The birthday party at the hibachi across from us was comprised of overweight ladies who'd been hitting the froo-froo drinks a little too hard. 1) They referred to the Japanese waiter as "the chinaman." 2) The birthday cow referred to the geisha-shaped souvenir mug as her "Buddha glass." And 3) one of them had brought along her pre-teen daughter, thus ensuring that at least one more generation will be brought up with the belief that getting stupid in public is acceptable behavior. Truly, someone needs to drop a chlorine tablet into the gene pool and kick start the filter.

"Hero," by the way, is an outstanding movie, even if the fight scene between the two chicks did remind me of a Bjork video. Think Rashamon meets Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. With an athletic, sword-wielding Bjork.

Run Down Violence 5K

I did something positive this evening. I participated in a fun run with my wife and daughter to raise money for good cause.

http://www.barkingdogs.org/html/082004_rundownviolence5k.shtml

Over 1500 people participated, many making significant donations to the Cunniff family. There are a bunch of different stories of what happened; I was told that Mr. Cunniff, while at a bar concert with his daughters, said something to some skinheads when they flicked a cigarette at a black guy, and they turned their tiny-pecker-based rage on him and gave him a stomp down. In front of his daughters. Yeah.

I fuckin' hate skinheads. The dumb fucks should all be trussed up, stuffed in canvas bags, and drowned like kittens.

Anyway, Mr. Cunniff is actually doing better. He was at the event this evening in a wheelchair, and everyone was happy to see him. People turned out from all over for this thing. Local boy Owen Wilson was there. Lots of local restaurants and businesses donated food and prizes. Most importanly, a good deal of money was raised to help the Cunniff family (his medical insurance had been recently cancelled, and he's been staying in the hospital since it happened). I was really happy to have taken a small part in standing up against violence.

If anyone reading this wants to send something, hit the link above, read the story, and the address is there.

Ant Rebellion 8.0

Spent a wonderfully geeky Saturday evening with the pocket-protector set. My friend, Mickey, and his lovely wife Karen were in town for, among other things, an amusing event called Ant Rebellion 8.0. In a nutshell, it was an r/c robot war, and it was pretty freaking cool.

Allow me one digression before I continue: I will not pick up another hobby. I will not pick up another hobby. I will not pick up another hobby. (Repeat as necessary.)

For the record, my friend Mickey won the competition. Or rather, Twitch, his 14 ounce ankle shredding creation, won the competition. Twitch has a spiked roller on its front that spins at a healthy 10,000 rpms. The frame is about 4 inches wide by 5 inches long and 1 inch high, and it was literally throwing the other 'bots around the ring. The body was constructed of Lexan and Titanium, and the roller was part of a dead axle from another r/c car and studded with filed steel screws. There were some other nifty little 'bots like Clampy Thing of Doom. Again at less than a pound, it had a scoop with a lexan pincer that could pick up other 'bots, and in some cases hurl them. Clampy Thing of Doom and Twitch came down to it in the final duel. Both first and second place have an automatic berth in the national championship in San Francisco later this year.

www.swarc.org (the local affiliate)
www.botleague.com (the governing body)

Irony-flavored goodness!

While many of my colleagues fled the state for more temperate climes this summer, I stuck around the Big D (and I do mean Dallas) and taught summer school. You see, I could have spent the entire summer outside, attempting to paint the house (or as I prefer to call it, "tilting at windmills"), or I could earn more than enough to pay a painter and have some left over. Naturally, I seized the opportunity to stay indoors and pay someone else to do it. Someone with painting skills and equipment and an assistant and a special truck with paint running out the tailgate.

I taught US History to English as a Second Language students. I tried telling the project coordinators that I was an American Lit teacher, not an American History teacher, but they insisted that it didn't matter, and that it was all Kosher, and that they would pay me $20/hour to babble at the kids. There was an ESL teacher in the room to remind me to slow down; he was actually the one that was the teacher of record for the class (meaning he had to grade the papers), so my responsibility was simply to show up and put on a 7 hour stand-up routine about history. No problem!

Well, okay, maybe a little problem. Problems. For starters, these ESL kids had been in the country for less than a school year. Most of them were low socio-economic background. Many of them couldn't read and write at grade level in their native tongue, much less English. They thought they were showing up for a conversation skills enrichment class, not a vocabulary-intensive social studies class. But hey, I like a challenge, and they were, by and large, good kids.

Dallas was one of 10 counties that received a grant to pay for this particular project. Part of their funding required participants like me to show up twice a week downtown at HQ to "debrief and reflect" with the other teachers. Silly me, I thought for $20 an hour, they deserved my honest opinion, and I gave it in spades. I think I was one of the more cynical critics at that. I was under the impression that by the end of the summer session, they were really happy to see me go.

And then yesterday I received a phone call from one of the coordinators: "Hello, Mr. Bosch. I bet you didn't think you'd hear from me again, did you?" No, no I didn't. This particular lady reminds me of Miss Eileen, my pre-school teacher, so I have to admit that I have a soft spot for her. Now that I think of it, I don't remember Miss Eileen sporting a rack like this lady's, so that may have contributed to said soft spot. Anyway, Miss Eileen II continued, "We were wondering if you'd like to be a presenter for the project's SIOP class. You wouldn't have to do every session, but we'll pay you $200 for co-presenting the material to other teachers." SIOP is alphabet soup for some inclusion training that everyone in the district has to go through. Me, one of the district's bigger AP elitists, presenting how to include limited English proficient students in your regular class. And the $200 is on top of my regular salary that I'd receive on staff development day anyway.

Man, I love suckling at the county teat; it's irony-flavored!

Not Columbine, but Columbine Lite

So I'm killing time in my Learning Cottage (we're not supposed to call our portable classrooms double-wides, trailers, or anything else that detracts from the school's professional image) during 2nd period today. It's my planning time, and as usual, I was blowing off some steam with a friendly game of Half Life: Opposing Force. Yeah, I know it's like a decade old, but I like it. Anyway, Mr. Jones, one of the security people, sticks his head in my door and says, "Come on. We need you. There's a crisis."

Crisis? What kind of crisis? He's already out the door, going to the next portable to tell my colleague to batten down the hatches, and not to let anyone in or out of his class room. I catch up with Jones who has just heard something on the walkie-talkie and has taken off at a jog. I jog along behind him, more curious than anything else. He tells me to go to the main office where they'll tell me what's going on, but they don't. They order me to go stand by the middle door by the football field, and to not let anyone in or out of the school.

So I'm a good sport, I do what I'm told, especially after hearing a general announcement on the PA that we're going to hold the 3rd period bell for a while, and to not let anyone in or out of the classrooms. Another teacher joins me at the door, and we stand there wondering what the hell is going on. Armed school district security officers are now roving the halls, and she and I make cracks about rent-a-cops with Glocks and terrorist drills. A little later, I see fully armed Dallas Police officers are making stops room by room to speak with the teachers.

Now we're concerned. This isn't a drill.

I stop the officer from Dallas' Gang Unit to ask what's going on. He looks at us and says, "No one's told you yet, and you're guarding the door?" He hands me a piece of paper that says:

"This is NOT a practice.
STAY CALM.
We Have Lots of Help Here.
DO NOT SHARE INFO WITH STUDENTS.
We Need Staff Help Now.

We are looking for a student who fits this description:
African American Male
6 feet 3 or 4
Black jeans or shorts
White jersey with black or multicolored sleeves
Short afro about 1 inch

IF you have knowledge about this person, contact the front office. Security will be roaming.
Do NOT share this info with students.

Otherwise,
Keep your students in 2nd period.
Do not release until we give instructions.
We are looking for the above student.

Thank you for your patience.
Thank you for keeping things calm.
Keep students working. Keep them on task.
Tell them a drill is taking place--we know they will be suspicious.

DO NOTHING TO CREATE PANIC.
DO NOT ALLOW STUDENTS TO CALL HOME WITH WORRY. JUST A DRILL."

A gun has been brought on campus. Some freshman did the right thing and told his teacher, who told the front office. The police officer then tells us that the suspect has most likely left campus already, but they have to check. Just hold tight. And that's just what the other teacher and I do.

Well, this drill-not-really-a-drill has been going on for more than an hour now. We're out of 3rd period and about to launch into 4th, and that means that lunch is going to be interrupted, man, I really hate having my lunch schedule screwed up like this, hey, what's that noise, some kind of a commotion upstairs.

"Young man, come back here... Young man!... Suspect fleeing, east side stair case by the football field!"

Hey! I'm at the bottom of that staircase!

I glance over at the other teacher, and her eyes are about as wide as mine must have been, and we do what any sensible person would do in a situation like that: we stepped back from the stairs.

It was at that moment that a plan hatched in my head. Hey, here's your chance. Just a quick leg whip as he's coming downstairs, then give him one of these while he's on the ground, and sit on him 'til the cops come. You'll be hero-guy, and everyone will love you. You'll be a bad-assed-mother-fu...

The kid hit the landing above me, charging downstairs at top speed, clutching some kind of large L-shaped object under his sweatshirt. Very large L-shaped object. Like: big mother-fucking high-assed caliber take-your-head-cleeean-off L-shaped object. And I said to myself, Aw, hell naw.

I stepped aside.

The kid ran out the door. The police came tumbling after. They ran him across the football field, past the Learning Cottages, past the batting cage behind my portable, over the back fence, down the block, and finally took him down by the old railroad tracks. Along the way, the kid had chucked the gun on top of the batting cage. Later, as I returned to class, the police were climbing on top of the cage to retrieve it. It was a frickin' huge revolver (I found out at the end of the day that it was a .357 magnum, unloaded), and I gave the police an oversized manilla envelope to to put it in.

I knew the kid. He broke his leg (thigh bone) during the first football game of the year three years ago. It was my first game as an assistant coach, and I rode in the back of the ambulance with him and talked to him while the morphine took effect. I don't coach anymore--not because of the ambulance ride; I simply hated coaching football.

At the end of the day, all of the faculty were assembled, congratulated on their professionalism, reminded not to talk to the media, and told to have a nice, restfull weekend after an otherwise smooth first week of school. Oh yeah, and don't talk to the media.

Dept. of Free Association

Follow me, my little monkeys, because this here's a pretty fair summary of the way my mind works:

While reviewing my class rosters, trying to figure out how to pronounce names, I ran across a kid named Nestor. (It's worth noting that the real reason I go through these is so that I can get any stupid puns I might come up with out of my system.) Naturally (for me), I immediately start thinking up stupid puns when I get to his name, obscure references to the Trojan War and Telemachus, "So, do you know where I can find Ulysses," etc.

Well, not even five names later, I have another kid named Ulises! O frabjous joy! Calloo callay! My geeky little English major heart is about to explode with delight. Could it get any better? Is there an Agammemnon Jablonkawicz later on in the roster? An Aeneas Romano?

It got better: the last girl on the list is named Molly. yes I said yes I will Yes.